The Love of a Good Woman
Review of the story collection by Alice Munro
Compassion is contagious. Alice Munro cares about the people she has created, even those who at first seem despicable, and after a few pages I care about them as well.
These stories have the depth and texture of novels. And I’ve now caught the rhythm of her prose so it reads more quickly, with greater clarity. I enjoy reading several books by the same author one after the other, like binge-watching a TV series.
SPOILER ALERT — The first story in this collection, with the same title as the book, is extraordinary in its depth of character and the range of narrative possibilities suggested. I flipped this way and that in my speculations about the death of the doctor. Then seemingly unrelated details from the opening pages came echoing back, making it probable that the dying lady was delusional and the narrator was right to trust and perhaps love the man who might have been a murderer. It all hinged on the case with the doctor’s tools. If it was in the car when he drowned, what the woman said couldn’t be true. But up until the last page I expected the narrator to find it in the house.
Memorable passages:
“What does it mean?”
Enid said, “What does what mean?”
“What does it mean ‘God bless’?” p. 53
“Lies of that nature could be waiting around int he corners of a person’s mind, hanging like bats in the corners, waiting to take advantage of any kind of darkness. You can never say, Nobody could make that up. Look how elaborate dreams are, layer over layer in them, so that the part you can remember and put into words is just the bit you can scratch off the top.” p. 74
“But once in a while came a moment when everything seemed to have something to say to you. The rocking bushes, the bleaching light. All in a flash, in a rush, when you couldn’t concentrate.” p. 115
