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Open Secrets
In these eight tales, Munro evokes the devastating power of old love suddenly recollected. She tells of vanished schoolgirls and indentured frontier brides and an eccentric recluse who, in the course of one surpassingly odd dinner party, inadvertently lands herself a wealthy suitor from exotic Australia. And Munro shows us how one woman's romantic tale of capture and escape in the high Balkans may end up inspiring another woman who is fleeing a husband and lover in present-day Canada.
Carried away --
A real life --
The Albanian virgin --
Open secrets --
The Jack Randa hotel --
A wilderness station --
Spaceships have landed --
Vandals
Carried away --
A real life --
The Albanian virgin --
Open secrets --
The Jack Randa hotel --
A wilderness station --
Spaceships have landed --
Vandals
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
486 people are currently reading
8,892 people want to read
About the author
Alice Munro
217books6,488followersCollections of short stories of noted Canadian writer Alice Munro of life in rural Ontario include
Dance of the Happy Shades
(1968) and
Moons of Jupiter
(1982); for these and vivid novels, she won the Nobel Prize of 2013 for literature.
People widely consider her premier fiction of the world. Munro thrice received governor general's award. She focuses on human relationships through the lens of daily life. People thus refer to this "the Canadian Chekhov."
(Arabic: أليس مونرو)
(Persian: آلیس مانرو)
(Russian Cyrillic: Элис Манро)
(Ukrainian Cyrillic: Еліс Манро)
(Bulgarian Cyrillic: Алис Мънро)
(Slovak: Alice Munroová)
(Serbian: Alis Manro)
People widely consider her premier fiction of the world. Munro thrice received governor general's award. She focuses on human relationships through the lens of daily life. People thus refer to this "the Canadian Chekhov."
(Arabic: أليس مونرو)
(Persian: آلیس مانرو)
(Russian Cyrillic: Элис Манро)
(Ukrainian Cyrillic: Еліс Манро)
(Bulgarian Cyrillic: Алис Мънро)
(Slovak: Alice Munroová)
(Serbian: Alis Manro)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 598 reviews
December 9, 2019
Please, do not cross your arms over your chest, stubbornly protesting that you can't read short stories because you aren't given enough time to know the characters.
That you're not going to invest in 50 pages of something only to have a new story suddenly taken away from you.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Get over yourselves, people.
When a character is written well, you can NEVER get enough of them. After 945 pages of Lonesome Dove, readers wanted more, more, and more of Gus McCrae. Larry McMurtry broke all of his damn pens writing prequels so fans would stop cherry-bombing his windows.
Almost as soon as Elizabeth Strout presented fans with more Olive in the sequel Olive, Again, ungrateful fans like me could only stamp their angry feet and demand WHERE'S THE PREQUEL?
None of this passion has to do with the length of a story, it has to do with the writing and the storytelling.
And the sublime writing and storytelling here go together like peanut butter and jelly. . . or more like mutton and potatoes, given the sparse locale.
And you won't have enough. You won't ever be able to get enough.
So, get over it, and read this anyway.
Damn it, Ms. Munro! Am I to read everything that you've written now?
I'm not immortal, lady.
That you're not going to invest in 50 pages of something only to have a new story suddenly taken away from you.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Get over yourselves, people.
When a character is written well, you can NEVER get enough of them. After 945 pages of Lonesome Dove, readers wanted more, more, and more of Gus McCrae. Larry McMurtry broke all of his damn pens writing prequels so fans would stop cherry-bombing his windows.
Almost as soon as Elizabeth Strout presented fans with more Olive in the sequel Olive, Again, ungrateful fans like me could only stamp their angry feet and demand WHERE'S THE PREQUEL?
None of this passion has to do with the length of a story, it has to do with the writing and the storytelling.
And the sublime writing and storytelling here go together like peanut butter and jelly. . . or more like mutton and potatoes, given the sparse locale.
And you won't have enough. You won't ever be able to get enough.
So, get over it, and read this anyway.
Damn it, Ms. Munro! Am I to read everything that you've written now?
I'm not immortal, lady.
November 28, 2019
Collections of short stories often follow a similar qualitative pattern. The best ones are positioned early on and then towards the end there's a couple of rather uninspired fillers. Not the case here at all. All eight stories are equally inspired and compelling. In fact, the last story is particularly haunting. It's called Vandals and epitomises Munro's method and genius. First of all, her stories always contain more than one story. It's like she lets us see her characters from one perspective and then suddenly brings in a new perspective to turn everything on its head. In Vandals we are introduced to Bea, a rather vain woman who prides herself on her ability to catch the eye of men. Bea provides some brilliant insights into sexual relationships, especially when she meets a rugged loner of a man and falls for him. "She would hate to think that she had gone after Ladner because he was rude and testy and slightly savage, with the splotch on the side of his face that shone like metal in the sunlight coming through the trees. She would hate to think so, because wasn't that the way in all the dreary romances - some brute gets the woman tingling and then it's goodbye to Mr.Fine-and-Decent?
No, she wrote, but what she did think - and she knew that this was very regressive and bad form - what she did think was that some women, women like herself, might always be on the lookout for an insanity that would contain them. For what was living with a man if it wasn't living inside his insanity?"
But this story turns out not to be about Bea and Ladner but about a young girl Alex Ladner befriended when she was a child. And when Alex goes to Ladner's home after his death to turn off the water her behaviour is mad until we learn about a side of Ladner Bea has either missed or chosen to overlook.
.
Munro is brilliant at unravelling the complex psychology of young women on the verge of decisive decisions. In another story Rhea is told by a thoroughly unattractive young man that she is ugly, an idea that has never occurred to her before and which magnetises her to this man. How else can she contradict this subversive idea?
Basically every story in this collection contains brilliant writing, fabulous insights, fully formed worlds and fantastic female characters.
October 9, 2019
Comenté en el libro de Richard Russo, La hija de la puta, que sus relatos eran como trocitos de vida, narraciones que se centraban en algún momento concreto en el que un personaje descubría algo importante de su existencia. Los cuentos de Munro son de un tipo muy distinto, en ellos nos narra vidas enteras. Pero al igual que en aquel, también aquí los protagonistas, las protagonistas, son gente sencilla, mujeres sin historias apasionantes, vidas que son abarcables en 30 o 40 páginas y en las que de pronto una lupa se acerca para mostrarnos con más detalle -gran cazadora de detalles esta Munro-, algunos momentos críticos de esa vida, siempre pocos.
Varias son las razones de mi entusiasmo y de las ganas de recomendársela a todo el mundo: la sencillez con la que describe la complejidad de relaciones, de esos mundos interiores de sus protagonistas, casi siempre mucho menos inocentes de lo que aparentan (el relato que da título al libro es un claro ejemplo); la brillantez de los personajes secundarios que enmarcan y resaltan la historia principal; los caminos que se abren en cada relato y que te convierten en interesado y, en ocasiones, turbado copartícipe del relato; las brillantes y sugerentes imágenes que nos presenta (me viene ahora a la mente la imagen de esa mujer caminando sola hacia su boda y esas amigas que la esperan y que lo primero que observan es su mano desnuda sosteniendo el ramo); ese giro en las historias en el último o penúltimo momento; y, finalmente, esa sensación de verdad que consigue transmitir en todas ellas.
Por último, solo un comentario acerca de eso que para nosotros es un viejísimo secreto a voces y que a algunas, muchas, de vosotras os cuesta reconocer: "el bruto le hace tilín a la mujer y adiós muy buenas al chico educado y maravilloso".
Varias son las razones de mi entusiasmo y de las ganas de recomendársela a todo el mundo: la sencillez con la que describe la complejidad de relaciones, de esos mundos interiores de sus protagonistas, casi siempre mucho menos inocentes de lo que aparentan (el relato que da título al libro es un claro ejemplo); la brillantez de los personajes secundarios que enmarcan y resaltan la historia principal; los caminos que se abren en cada relato y que te convierten en interesado y, en ocasiones, turbado copartícipe del relato; las brillantes y sugerentes imágenes que nos presenta (me viene ahora a la mente la imagen de esa mujer caminando sola hacia su boda y esas amigas que la esperan y que lo primero que observan es su mano desnuda sosteniendo el ramo); ese giro en las historias en el último o penúltimo momento; y, finalmente, esa sensación de verdad que consigue transmitir en todas ellas.
Por último, solo un comentario acerca de eso que para nosotros es un viejísimo secreto a voces y que a algunas, muchas, de vosotras os cuesta reconocer: "el bruto le hace tilín a la mujer y adiós muy buenas al chico educado y maravilloso".
June 29, 2020
I finished this about a month ago and, to be honest, don't now remember much about it. It struck me as competent and interesting rather than exciting and brilliant. I don't know much about Alice Munro and for all I know she might have written much better books and I chose a dud. So, I'll probably give her another chance further down the line. Her central characters in this collection, predominantly female, all seemed to occupy that hinterland between urban and rural, not quite feeling at home in either world. It's a bit of an old fashioned perspective and Alice Munro did strike me as a rather old fashioned writer at times. Muriel Spark, for example, seems much more contemporary despite being two generations older. She uses a Russian doll technique of layering in stories within the stories which was interesting as an idea but often lacked something in the execution. An interesting story sometimes led into something less compelling like the electrifying appearance of an exotic couple in a mundane backwater which gives way to a narrative about an English woman who gets lost in Albania and ends up joining a primitive tribe there which I found rather absurd from start to finish.
May 14, 2024
Rest in Peace, Alice.
A book of ambiguities. Of questions rather than answers. Of wayward girls and women. What happened to Heather Bell? And to Eunie Morgan? But the solution the mysteries, of which this collection contains plenty, is never really the point. Choose Your Own Resolution anyone? There is a lovely unity of setting and characters in many of the stories—Carstairs, Walley, the Douds and the Doud factory—and it is almost a short story cycle, but not quite. Magnificent.
Carried Away - 4
A Real Life - 5
The Albanian Virgin - 5
Open Secrets - 5
The Jack Randa Hotel - 3
A Wilderness Station - 5
Spaceships Have Landed - 5
Vandals - 4
A book of ambiguities. Of questions rather than answers. Of wayward girls and women. What happened to Heather Bell? And to Eunie Morgan? But the solution the mysteries, of which this collection contains plenty, is never really the point. Choose Your Own Resolution anyone? There is a lovely unity of setting and characters in many of the stories—Carstairs, Walley, the Douds and the Doud factory—and it is almost a short story cycle, but not quite. Magnificent.
Carried Away - 4
A Real Life - 5
The Albanian Virgin - 5
Open Secrets - 5
The Jack Randa Hotel - 3
A Wilderness Station - 5
Spaceships Have Landed - 5
Vandals - 4
July 4, 2024
I’m not generally a fan of short stories but I am quite astonished at how much Munro can pack into these eight tales. Overall, they present small-town Canadian life across the last century and a half and even share something of L. M. Montgomery’s world of Green Gables and Avonlea, reimagined and updated.
There’s an underlying sadness to them also, and a boldness in the portrayal of these interconnected lives. This forms a larger whole than volumes of short fragmented pieces often manage.
An intriguing collection to meditate upon and savour.
There’s an underlying sadness to them also, and a boldness in the portrayal of these interconnected lives. This forms a larger whole than volumes of short fragmented pieces often manage.
An intriguing collection to meditate upon and savour.
March 27, 2018
4.5 stars
This is my sixth volume of Munro stories and she has yet to disappoint me. Her stories are as dense and deep as the best of novels. In it was the themes I fell for; here, though the characters and plots are very strong, it's the sense of place. Munro found her own little postage stamp of native soil (thank you, Mr. Faulkner) in Carstairs, Ontario, though not all the stories are restricted to that one place.
I was left breathless by the first story, "Carried Away", (probably my favorite) and devastated by the final one, "Vandals", which could've turned maudlin but most definitely did not. In between, we are treated (and I do mean treated) to the stories of six more women: many left motherless at a young age; some ahead of their time; and most of their place in that time. The one story I was disconcerted by ("The Jack Randa Hotel") felt out of place to me, but I now realize that was probably intentional, as Gail is an outsider by deed and by nature. Ms. Munro, you are a genius.
This is my sixth volume of Munro stories and she has yet to disappoint me. Her stories are as dense and deep as the best of novels. In it was the themes I fell for; here, though the characters and plots are very strong, it's the sense of place. Munro found her own little postage stamp of native soil (thank you, Mr. Faulkner) in Carstairs, Ontario, though not all the stories are restricted to that one place.
I was left breathless by the first story, "Carried Away", (probably my favorite) and devastated by the final one, "Vandals", which could've turned maudlin but most definitely did not. In between, we are treated (and I do mean treated) to the stories of six more women: many left motherless at a young age; some ahead of their time; and most of their place in that time. The one story I was disconcerted by ("The Jack Randa Hotel") felt out of place to me, but I now realize that was probably intentional, as Gail is an outsider by deed and by nature. Ms. Munro, you are a genius.
November 21, 2018
She's the very devil, is Ms Munro.
Wicked.
Those words.
Words that lodge in a girl's mind and clear a precarious space there with a light buzz around it.
Rhea finds a way to be sure.
She marries the man.
(Spaceships have Landed)
Or there's Liza.
Such a wicked girl, Liza.
Oh, she may have turned Christian, but she's a wild one. When Bea phones from Toronto where Ladner (Bea's man) is waiting for a heart bypass to ask Liza to check the pipes (it's February), Liza goes to their house, yes. With devilish purpose in her wild heart.
Bea and Ladner and Liza. A triangle, it seems. A classic triangle.
But Ms Munro wreaks havoc with the classic.
Bea has decided on Ladner because he displays that raw wildness, you know, the animal sensuality that speaks to a woman's image of herself. (But beware, Bea! The animals are all stuffed, dead and stuffed and mounted.)
And Liza? As a girl Liza lived opposite Ladner. She and her brother would visit, and watch, and help, and learn. Liza knew about birds, trees, mushrooms, fossils, the solar system.
It's so quietly done. Liza knows too much. She has experienced a little tingling of her own. There are places where Liza thinks there is a bruise on the ground, a tickling and shame in the grass Where there has been a bit of rub-a-dub-dub. Liza sees Ladner making fun of Bea behind her back, imitating her:
So Liza needs Bea to keep her safe: safe from Ladner, safe from herself.
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
(Vandals)
One of the most delightful things about Munro's writing is how economically she can build a character. The first line of A Real Life:
Already there's a sense of her: a good solid name like Dorrie Beck. The astonishment that any man would consider her. And then over the page:
That just makes me roar inside.
Alice Munro makes me roar inside.
Wicked.
Those words.
Words that lodge in a girl's mind and clear a precarious space there with a light buzz around it.
I'd like to fuck you if you weren't so ugly
She was not ugly. She knew she was not ugly. How can you ever be sure that you are not ugly?
Rhea finds a way to be sure.
She marries the man.
(Spaceships have Landed)
Or there's Liza.
Such a wicked girl, Liza.
Oh, she may have turned Christian, but she's a wild one. When Bea phones from Toronto where Ladner (Bea's man) is waiting for a heart bypass to ask Liza to check the pipes (it's February), Liza goes to their house, yes. With devilish purpose in her wild heart.
Bea and Ladner and Liza. A triangle, it seems. A classic triangle.
But Ms Munro wreaks havoc with the classic.
Bea has decided on Ladner because he displays that raw wildness, you know, the animal sensuality that speaks to a woman's image of herself. (But beware, Bea! The animals are all stuffed, dead and stuffed and mounted.)
She would hate to think that she had gone after Ladner because he was rude and testy and slightly savage, with the splotch on the side of his face that shone like metal in the sunlight coming through the trees. She would hate to think so, because wasn't that the way in all the dreary romances - some brute gets the woman tingling and then it's goodbye to Mr.Fine-and-Decent?
No, she wrote, but what she did think - and she knew that this was very regressive and bad form - what she did think was that some women, women like herself, might always be on the lookout for an insanity that would contain them. For what was living with a man if it wasn't living inside his insanity?
And Liza? As a girl Liza lived opposite Ladner. She and her brother would visit, and watch, and help, and learn. Liza knew about birds, trees, mushrooms, fossils, the solar system.
She knew where certain rocks came from and that the swelling on a goldenrod stem contains a little white worm that can live nowhere else in the world.
She knew not to talk so much about all she knew.
It's so quietly done. Liza knows too much. She has experienced a little tingling of her own. There are places where Liza thinks there is a bruise on the ground, a tickling and shame in the grass Where there has been a bit of rub-a-dub-dub. Liza sees Ladner making fun of Bea behind her back, imitating her:
He was doing what she was doing but in a sillier, ugly way. He was most intentionally and insistently making a fool of her. See how vain she is, said Ladner's angular prancing. See what a fake. Pretending not to be afraid of the deep water, pretending to be happy, pretending not to know how we despise her.
This was thrilling and shocking. Liza's face was trembling with her need to laugh. Part of her wanted to make Ladner stop, stop at once, before the damage was done, and part of her longed for that very damage, the damage Ladner could do, the ripping open, the final delight of it.
So Liza needs Bea to keep her safe: safe from Ladner, safe from herself.
Bea could spread safety, if she wanted to. Surely she could. All that is needed is for her to turn herself into a different sort of woman, a hard-and-fast, draw-the-line sort, clean-sweeping, energetic, and intolerant. None of that. Not allowed. Be good. The woman who could rescue them- who could make them all, keep them all, good. What Bea has been sent to do, she doesn't see.
Only Liza sees.
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
(Vandals)
One of the most delightful things about Munro's writing is how economically she can build a character. The first line of A Real Life:
A man came along and fell in love with Dorrie Beck. At least, he wanted to marry her. It was true.
Already there's a sense of her: a good solid name like Dorrie Beck. The astonishment that any man would consider her. And then over the page:
She was a big, firm woman with heavy legs, chestnut-brown hair, a broad bashful face, and dark freckles like dots of velvet. A man in the area had named a horse after her.
That just makes me roar inside.
Alice Munro makes me roar inside.
April 29, 2013
On Tuesday morning, while Frances was getting breakfast and Maureen was helping her husband to finish dressing, there was a knock at the front door, by someone who did not notice or trust the bell.
I love sentences like that, ones that stop me, draw me in; ones that introduce, define, portend. Alice Munro can not help herself from writing sentences like that, inventing such people.
Like this:
When Bea spoke of having had a checkered career, she was taking a sarcastic or disparaging tone that did not reflect what she really felt about her life of love affairs....love affairs were the main content of her life, and she knew that she was not being honest when she belittled them. They were sweet, they were sour; she was happy in them, she was miserable. She knew what it was to wait in a bar for a man who never showed up. To wait for letters, to cry in public, and on the other hand to be pestered by a man she no longer wanted. (She had been obliged to resign from the Light Opera Society because of a fool who directed baritone solos at her). But still she felt the first signal of a love affair like the warmth of the sun on her skin, like music through a doorway, or the moment, as she had often said, when the black-and-white television commercial bursts into color. She did not think that her time had been wasted. She did not think it had been wasted.
____________
(Written earlier):
I'm not done and this is not a review. Pay no attention to the page counter because I go back and forth in short-story collections and almost never read in order.
Just pausing to report that one story in particular, The Wilderness Station, is so good everyone should stop whatever you are doing and read this.
This is brilliantly epistolary, about an older time and place (but maybe not so much) and about a mid-19th century woman named Annie McKillop. She is delightfully unreliable.
Somewhere, Munro is still smiling at the memory of this creation.
I love sentences like that, ones that stop me, draw me in; ones that introduce, define, portend. Alice Munro can not help herself from writing sentences like that, inventing such people.
Like this:
When Bea spoke of having had a checkered career, she was taking a sarcastic or disparaging tone that did not reflect what she really felt about her life of love affairs....love affairs were the main content of her life, and she knew that she was not being honest when she belittled them. They were sweet, they were sour; she was happy in them, she was miserable. She knew what it was to wait in a bar for a man who never showed up. To wait for letters, to cry in public, and on the other hand to be pestered by a man she no longer wanted. (She had been obliged to resign from the Light Opera Society because of a fool who directed baritone solos at her). But still she felt the first signal of a love affair like the warmth of the sun on her skin, like music through a doorway, or the moment, as she had often said, when the black-and-white television commercial bursts into color. She did not think that her time had been wasted. She did not think it had been wasted.
____________
(Written earlier):
I'm not done and this is not a review. Pay no attention to the page counter because I go back and forth in short-story collections and almost never read in order.
Just pausing to report that one story in particular, The Wilderness Station, is so good everyone should stop whatever you are doing and read this.
This is brilliantly epistolary, about an older time and place (but maybe not so much) and about a mid-19th century woman named Annie McKillop. She is delightfully unreliable.
Somewhere, Munro is still smiling at the memory of this creation.
October 23, 2016
Escribir relatos no es fácil. En pocas páginas han de caber el planteamiento, el nudo y el desenlace (aunque esta norma no se aplica necesariamente a según qué cuentos y qué escritores). El germen de una historia ha de estar presente. Ésto es algo, quizás al no ser escritor, que me resulta difícil de entender, el que tenga (el escritor) una idea que podría desarrollar y convertirla en novela, pero que al final decida cortar por lo sano y darle un fin en pocas páginas. Está claro que muchos cuentos son como pequeñas postales, perfectos en su longitud, y es mejor que se hayan quedado así; pero también es verdad que existen casos en los que un cuento podría haber dado para mucho más, o menos, que nunca se sabe. Y no es que esté minusvalorando el género del relato corto en favor de las tramas de larga distancia, únicamente es que me da pena que una gran historia y unos buenos personajes no sean más aprovechados.
Y es en este género tan complicado donde destaca con nombre propio la canadiense Alice Munro, adorada por la gran mayoría de sus compañeros escritores. Si bien es verdad que la mayoría de escritores de cuentos buscan un final potente, lo más importante en los relatos de Alice Munro es el desarrollo. Su capacidad para ir hilvanando la trama es sencillamente prodigiosa. No sabría explicarlo, pero en pocas páginas es capaz de meterte en una gran historia, con vida propia. Te está contando un hecho o presentándote a un personaje, para pasar a continuación a explicarte otro hecho relacionado con el hecho o el personaje anterior. O también hace un inciso para seguir parte de la historia de un personaje que ha influido o influirá posteriormente en la vida del personaje protagonista. Casi es como si se tratasen de cuentos corales, si ésto puede ser. Hay que leer a Alice Munro para entenderlo.
Los cuentos que se incluyen en 'Secretos a voces' son independientes, pero aun así hay nombres que se repiten, como el de Carstairs, Ontario, ciudad donde van a parar en un momento u otro algunos de los personajes, o los Doud, los potentados durante décadas en Carstairs. De esta manera, al final del libro da la impresión de que los relatos forman como un caleidoscopio.
Estos son los ocho cuentos contenidos en 'Secretos a voces', aunque las sinopsis no les hacen justicia:
- ENTUSIAMO (). La nueva bibliotecaria de Carstairs ha recibido una carta de un soldado que lucha en la gran guerra, vecino del pueblo, que quedó hechizado por ella, y a la que pedirá poder seguir manteniendo esta relación epistolar. Puede ser el mejor cuento que he leído en años, de verdad. Uno no puede sino quitarse el sombrero ante la inteligencia de Munro al plantear esta historia, que tras su lectura parece perseguirte durante días.
- UNA VIDA DE VERDAD (). "Apareció un hombre que se enamoró de Dorrie Beck. Al menos, quería casarse con ella. Era verdad." Historia contada con cierto sentido del humor, narrada por Millicent, vecina de Dorrie, aunque deja un cierto regusto amargo.
- LA VIRGEN ALBANESA (****). Por una parte tenemos a una turista que ha sido secuestrada en albania, donde tendrá que integrarse a la fuerza al pueblo campesino al que es llevada. Y por otra parte tenemos una librera que está escuchando una interesante historia ocurrida en Albania... Me gustó más esta parte.
- SECRETOS A VOCES (). En este caso también tenemos trama y subtrama. La subtrama trata sobre la reciente desaparición de una chica cuando iba con sus compañeras y la señorita Johnstone de excursión. La trama nos habla de Maureen, antigua alumna y que también recuerda a la Johnstone, y de su marido, gran abogado, que vive retirado a medias debido a una parálisis. Imprescindible.
- EL JACK RANDA HOTEL (). Gail está en un avión cuyo destino conoceremos más tarde. Will, su pareja, la ha dejado. Se trata de un gran relato donde prima la ambición de Gail por conseguir lo que desea, a toda costa.
- ESTACIÓN DEL VÍA CRUCIS (). En 1852, dos hermanos de Hurón del Norte piden, con la ayuda de la recomendación de un sacerdote, les envíen dos muchachas casaderas. De nuevo la maestría de Munro brilla en este cuento a la hora de ir monstrándonos los acontecimientos.
- HAN LLEGADO NAVES ESPACIALES (***). La historia cuenta cómo Rhea conoció a Eunie y se hieceron amigas. Ahora, con más edad, Rhea está con su novio Billy Doud y su amigo Wayne, novio de Lucille, en casa del contrabandista Monk, bebiendo y pasando el rato, justo la noche de la desaparición de Eunie.
- VÁNDALOS (****). Bea y Ladner, Liza y Warren, son personajes que ocultan más de lo que se pueda apreciar en un primer momento. Todo empezó cuando Bea le pidió un pequeño favor a Liza...
Este libro de Alice Munro me ha gustado mucho, y no cabe duda de que volveré a leer más cuentos suyos.
Y es en este género tan complicado donde destaca con nombre propio la canadiense Alice Munro, adorada por la gran mayoría de sus compañeros escritores. Si bien es verdad que la mayoría de escritores de cuentos buscan un final potente, lo más importante en los relatos de Alice Munro es el desarrollo. Su capacidad para ir hilvanando la trama es sencillamente prodigiosa. No sabría explicarlo, pero en pocas páginas es capaz de meterte en una gran historia, con vida propia. Te está contando un hecho o presentándote a un personaje, para pasar a continuación a explicarte otro hecho relacionado con el hecho o el personaje anterior. O también hace un inciso para seguir parte de la historia de un personaje que ha influido o influirá posteriormente en la vida del personaje protagonista. Casi es como si se tratasen de cuentos corales, si ésto puede ser. Hay que leer a Alice Munro para entenderlo.
Los cuentos que se incluyen en 'Secretos a voces' son independientes, pero aun así hay nombres que se repiten, como el de Carstairs, Ontario, ciudad donde van a parar en un momento u otro algunos de los personajes, o los Doud, los potentados durante décadas en Carstairs. De esta manera, al final del libro da la impresión de que los relatos forman como un caleidoscopio.
Estos son los ocho cuentos contenidos en 'Secretos a voces', aunque las sinopsis no les hacen justicia:
- ENTUSIAMO (). La nueva bibliotecaria de Carstairs ha recibido una carta de un soldado que lucha en la gran guerra, vecino del pueblo, que quedó hechizado por ella, y a la que pedirá poder seguir manteniendo esta relación epistolar. Puede ser el mejor cuento que he leído en años, de verdad. Uno no puede sino quitarse el sombrero ante la inteligencia de Munro al plantear esta historia, que tras su lectura parece perseguirte durante días.
- UNA VIDA DE VERDAD (). "Apareció un hombre que se enamoró de Dorrie Beck. Al menos, quería casarse con ella. Era verdad." Historia contada con cierto sentido del humor, narrada por Millicent, vecina de Dorrie, aunque deja un cierto regusto amargo.
- LA VIRGEN ALBANESA (****). Por una parte tenemos a una turista que ha sido secuestrada en albania, donde tendrá que integrarse a la fuerza al pueblo campesino al que es llevada. Y por otra parte tenemos una librera que está escuchando una interesante historia ocurrida en Albania... Me gustó más esta parte.
- SECRETOS A VOCES (). En este caso también tenemos trama y subtrama. La subtrama trata sobre la reciente desaparición de una chica cuando iba con sus compañeras y la señorita Johnstone de excursión. La trama nos habla de Maureen, antigua alumna y que también recuerda a la Johnstone, y de su marido, gran abogado, que vive retirado a medias debido a una parálisis. Imprescindible.
- EL JACK RANDA HOTEL (). Gail está en un avión cuyo destino conoceremos más tarde. Will, su pareja, la ha dejado. Se trata de un gran relato donde prima la ambición de Gail por conseguir lo que desea, a toda costa.
- ESTACIÓN DEL VÍA CRUCIS (). En 1852, dos hermanos de Hurón del Norte piden, con la ayuda de la recomendación de un sacerdote, les envíen dos muchachas casaderas. De nuevo la maestría de Munro brilla en este cuento a la hora de ir monstrándonos los acontecimientos.
- HAN LLEGADO NAVES ESPACIALES (***). La historia cuenta cómo Rhea conoció a Eunie y se hieceron amigas. Ahora, con más edad, Rhea está con su novio Billy Doud y su amigo Wayne, novio de Lucille, en casa del contrabandista Monk, bebiendo y pasando el rato, justo la noche de la desaparición de Eunie.
- VÁNDALOS (****). Bea y Ladner, Liza y Warren, son personajes que ocultan más de lo que se pueda apreciar en un primer momento. Todo empezó cuando Bea le pidió un pequeño favor a Liza...
Este libro de Alice Munro me ha gustado mucho, y no cabe duda de que volveré a leer más cuentos suyos.
January 2, 2023
Her zaman severek okuduğum yazarın eserlerinden bunda aynı zevki alamadım.Hikayelerin çoğu birbirine bağlanmış bir şekilde ama yine de bir yarım kalmışlık var . Yazarın diğer eserlerini okuyanlar bilirler nasıl bir öykü ustasıdır Munro. Diğer eserlerinde ki o kuvvetli anlatım burada daha az. Çeviriden kaynaklanmış da olabilir bilemeyeceğim . Yinede her zaman ki gibi favori yazarım. Yeni bir eseri çıktığında mutlaka alabileceğim (çevrildiğinde diyeceğim)yazarlardan. Her öyküsünün kendine has bir güzelliği var herşeye rağmen şu hikaye daha iyiydi diyeceğim bir durum yok kesinlikle.Umarım iyi bir yayın evi iyi bir çeviri olur gelecekteki eserleri. Herkesin seveceği bir tarz değil mutlaka. genele değil belli bir azınlığa göre eserleri. Bu da onu benim açımdan tek kılıyor.
May 15, 2024
RIP Alice Munro.
Alice Munro is one of my favorite writers. She easily is at my top ten, and could even possibly be on my top five. I first read about “Open Secrets� from “Entertainment Weekly”’s top 100 lists of all time- and the magazine ranked this collection as the second greatest short-story collection of all time.
Of course, being that Ms. Munro had been ranked and listed, I immediately sought out and dropped everything else I was reading to pore over her 1994 collection.
I have read her later collections: “The Love of a Good Woman�, “A View from Castle Rock� and the latest two solid masterpieces of sordidness, sorrow and exquisite pain: “Two Much Happiness� and “Dear Life�- I thought Ms. Munro had topped herself. After all, she has more than a dozen collections going back to the late 1960s in which I haven’t even gotten to yet.
Open Secrets to date, from what I’ve read, is Ms. Munro’s masterpiece.
Yes, her collections are all masterpieces. But if I had to introduce the novice reader to her work, this one would be it.
“Carried Away� is such a devastating story of brutal passion and unrequited love and pain that it can almost be seen as masochistic. Who ever allows themselves to be seduced twice by cads?
“The Albanian Virgin� is a surprising and twisty story, paralleling a parable set in Eastern Europe and the young woman contemplating leaving both her husband and lover in present day Canada; intertwined with confusion and a sense of a clarity at its conclusion. It is feminist at its core as Lottie agrees to make the decision to live life as a man and unmarried rather than marry a Muslim man she knows is not good for her.
“Open Secrets�, the title story has to be the darkest territory in which Ms. Munro has ventured into. Paralleling the disappearance of a schoolgirl and her possibly macabre end with that of a woman trapped into a brutally and sexually cruel relationship with her husband will stay with you. Underneath the veneer of layered language is the exposure of how brutal truth rises between the lines.
I have mentioned before that I compare Ms. Munro to Edith Wharton at her darkest, and at her most humane- this story is one of the most profound, most disturbing. I was chilled to the bone and had to read it twice more to “truly get it�. I don’t know if it’s meant to be truly understood.
Alice Munro is one of my favorite writers. She easily is at my top ten, and could even possibly be on my top five. I first read about “Open Secrets� from “Entertainment Weekly”’s top 100 lists of all time- and the magazine ranked this collection as the second greatest short-story collection of all time.
Of course, being that Ms. Munro had been ranked and listed, I immediately sought out and dropped everything else I was reading to pore over her 1994 collection.
I have read her later collections: “The Love of a Good Woman�, “A View from Castle Rock� and the latest two solid masterpieces of sordidness, sorrow and exquisite pain: “Two Much Happiness� and “Dear Life�- I thought Ms. Munro had topped herself. After all, she has more than a dozen collections going back to the late 1960s in which I haven’t even gotten to yet.
Open Secrets to date, from what I’ve read, is Ms. Munro’s masterpiece.
Yes, her collections are all masterpieces. But if I had to introduce the novice reader to her work, this one would be it.
“Carried Away� is such a devastating story of brutal passion and unrequited love and pain that it can almost be seen as masochistic. Who ever allows themselves to be seduced twice by cads?
“The Albanian Virgin� is a surprising and twisty story, paralleling a parable set in Eastern Europe and the young woman contemplating leaving both her husband and lover in present day Canada; intertwined with confusion and a sense of a clarity at its conclusion. It is feminist at its core as Lottie agrees to make the decision to live life as a man and unmarried rather than marry a Muslim man she knows is not good for her.
“Open Secrets�, the title story has to be the darkest territory in which Ms. Munro has ventured into. Paralleling the disappearance of a schoolgirl and her possibly macabre end with that of a woman trapped into a brutally and sexually cruel relationship with her husband will stay with you. Underneath the veneer of layered language is the exposure of how brutal truth rises between the lines.
I have mentioned before that I compare Ms. Munro to Edith Wharton at her darkest, and at her most humane- this story is one of the most profound, most disturbing. I was chilled to the bone and had to read it twice more to “truly get it�. I don’t know if it’s meant to be truly understood.
July 12, 2020
geçen sene tam da bu zamanlar, can yayınları'nın 7 lira kampanyasında denk gelip "aaa, nobel ödüllü bir kadın yazar ve hiç okumadım" utanmasıyla almıştım alice munro'nun açık sırlar'ını. başka kitabı olsa onu da alacaktım ama sadece bu kalmıştı. ben romanları hala öykülere tercih ederim ama daha önce okuduğum hiçbir şeye benzemeyen öyküleri okumanın yarattığı hafif sersemliği de hiçbir şeye değişmem. bu kitapta da öyle öyküler vardı. "arnavut bakire" tek başına bir novella olarak bile basılabilir, üstüne bir süre diğer öykülere devam etmek istemedim, öyle güzeldi. "kapılıp gitti" de gayet iyiydi. alice munro'yu tanıdığıma hayli memnunum özetle.
July 2, 2020
وأخيراً .. انتهت
ثاني أسوأ كتاب في هذا العالم
لم أعرف أين تكمن الأسرار و لماذا اختارت الكاتبة اسما كهذا لكتاب لا يتعدى الثرثرة في مجمله
عباره عن جلسات يسرد فيها البطل ( الذي لطالما اضعته ، أو أخطأت التكهن فكنت انتقل من شخصية لأخرى بحثاً عنه ) تفاصيل للأحداث سابقة مرت في حياته
قصص في مجملها ركيكة و مملة مكتظة بالشخصيات التي تظهر فجأة وتختفي فجأة بدون مناسبة وأحياناً من غير اسماء او هوية محددة منا افقدها برأي عنصر التوازن والجذب في الكثير من مواضع
شذرات من حياة أشخاص فشلت الكاتبة في إظهار مدى إختلافهم عن بعض واختلاف الحياة التي عاشوها والاماكن التي زاروها والتي لم أجد فيها ما يرضى فضولي أو يجذب انتباهي
ثاني أسوأ كتاب في هذا العالم
لم أعرف أين تكمن الأسرار و لماذا اختارت الكاتبة اسما كهذا لكتاب لا يتعدى الثرثرة في مجمله
عباره عن جلسات يسرد فيها البطل ( الذي لطالما اضعته ، أو أخطأت التكهن فكنت انتقل من شخصية لأخرى بحثاً عنه ) تفاصيل للأحداث سابقة مرت في حياته
قصص في مجملها ركيكة و مملة مكتظة بالشخصيات التي تظهر فجأة وتختفي فجأة بدون مناسبة وأحياناً من غير اسماء او هوية محددة منا افقدها برأي عنصر التوازن والجذب في الكثير من مواضع
شذرات من حياة أشخاص فشلت الكاتبة في إظهار مدى إختلافهم عن بعض واختلاف الحياة التي عاشوها والاماكن التي زاروها والتي لم أجد فيها ما يرضى فضولي أو يجذب انتباهي
May 26, 2018
2.5 stars I read a couple years back and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I'd been meaning to read more of Munro's work since. I picked up a copy of this one in Canada (seems fitting) when I was there earlier this month. And sadly it was pretty disappointing. None of the stories were flat-out bad, but they weren't very memorable. Even now having just finished the collection after reading it for the last week or so, nothing stands out to me. I don't expect to love every story in a collection, but I usually have a couple that stick with me and are worth recommending. Not so in this case. I will still try more Munro in the future, but I'm not rushing to get to them.
April 27, 2023
Every few years, I re-read Munro's writing, and every single time I do so I am not surprised she won so many awards for her craft during her lifetime. If you haven't read anything by this Nobel Prize winner, this collection is a wonderful place to begin. Love, love, love her beautiful work. ~
December 17, 2015
My first Munro. A good thing? A bad thing? I acquired her books before the Nobel Prize pronouncement, but only got around to reading them after. I'm the sort that often needs to be led by the nose like that.
I'm reiterating a common complaint when I say that reviewing short story collections is difficult, but still. I thought my luck with finding my way through O'Connor's heralded a new found ability to transition between varying lengths, but whereas O'Connor drives you into a corner again and again until you either get out or go insane, Munro floats.
Or slides. I found myself looking thorough beginnings and middles and ends, trying to orient around what exactly I thought of each, wondering if my speed of reading had impacted my understanding more than I thought. But no, it's all there, especially here, in a story titled The Albanian Virgin:
I'm reiterating a common complaint when I say that reviewing short story collections is difficult, but still. I thought my luck with finding my way through O'Connor's heralded a new found ability to transition between varying lengths, but whereas O'Connor drives you into a corner again and again until you either get out or go insane, Munro floats.
Or slides. I found myself looking thorough beginnings and middles and ends, trying to orient around what exactly I thought of each, wondering if my speed of reading had impacted my understanding more than I thought. But no, it's all there, especially here, in a story titled The Albanian Virgin:
We have been very happy.Most of the people in Munro's world don't know what they want. They'll write letters and marry others that they'll most certainly cheat on and live on in a summary after the facts of the matter are through. It's not so simple as all that, though, as here it is my "show, not tell" spiel come back to bite me as Munro leads me through each and every story without ever really giving up the ghost. Several oddities of event and character that both entertained and sent my thinking into a frenzy, a few literature references that I latched onto like a lighthouse, but otherwise I left off each ending with a "Well."
I have often felt completely alone.
There is always in this life something to discover.
The days and the years have gone by in some sort of blur.
On the whole, I am satisfied.
You could look up from your life of the moment and feel the world crackling beyond the walls.I'd say that they're peaceful, but they're not. I'd say that they're the small town honings as Munro is so often characterized by, but it's not, or at least is far more sedate and uncanny and lush. It's that crackle that I'm trying to find the words for, but have the feeling that it'll take me a few more collections to pin it down to the count. In the meantime, I'll leave behind the idea that the music of Ludovico Einaudi goes a fair way in evoking the same theme of emotion, and send you on your way.
Often these sentences seemed so satisfying to me, or so elusive and lovely, that I could not help abandoning all the surrounding words and giving myself up to a peculiar state.
October 18, 2011
These stories are kind of peculiar. Very subdued, and on the surface often uneventful, they're also filled with little details that give a sense of magnitude and richness to their world. If you imagine narrative as a path, these details are like things clustered closely to the path's sides, even spilling over into it, giving you a sense of the wider and ultimately interconnected reality which enmeshes any sequence of events in the life of an individual, fictional or otherwise. Several of the stories are set, at least in part, in Carstairs, Alberta, and there are other connections between them. Descendants or other relatives of a character in one story will appear in others, for instance. These links seem less important, though, than the analogies Munro draws between various events within a story. Some of these are very easy to miss. Others are, I guess, red herrings of a sort. Sometimes the twist that brings a story to its climax is barely hinted at and far from certain. A couple of times I found myself wondering if what I thought had happened really had. I imagine some people might find that kind of ambiguity frustrating, but I like the way it gives these stories a somewhat dreamlike quality that's even a little creepy at times. But where Munro really shines in the way she creates characters that behave like real people, with all their flaws: the frantic imperiousness of one young child tattling on another, a superficially pious but dimwitted and destructive young couple, the impulsive, useless stupidity of drunken insults, people who lie to others, people who lie to themselves. Munro's characters live and breathe.
October 18, 2014
The thing about Alice Munro is that she makes it look so easy. But what she does is simply (complexly) genius-slash-magic.
July 30, 2017
Alice Munro (n. 1931)
Adoro contos...
”Falsos Segredos� (1994) é um livro com oito contos escritos pela canadiana Alice Munro (n. 1931), a quem foi atribuído o Prémio Nobel da Literatura em 2013, que nela reconheceu um “mestre do conto contemporâneo�, apenas com um único romance publicado em 1971, ”Vidas de Raparigas e Mulheres�.
Alice Munro escreve oito contos em que as mulheres “dominam�, revisitando as paisagens físicas e emocionais de personagens femininas, que revelam o seu amor e a sua paixão, evidenciando a natureza subjectiva do comportamento humano, a sua especificidade e os seus estratagemas, para lutarem contra o “destino�, procurando muitas vezes a “sua� liberdade emocional, numa vida feita de mal-entendidos e decepções, de rejeições e abusos.
Alice Munro - faz uma admirável descrição física e emocional das personagens - deixa-nos na incerteza e na dúvida, desenvolvendo sentimentos de dor e perda, que por vezes se acentuam, explorando a confusão e a perplexidade dos seus comportamentos, revelando a paixão, a alegria, o desespero, a aventura de mulheres com vidas comuns.
”Falsos Segredos� é um excelente livro de contos, com “histórias� dentro das “histórias�, sobre mulheres de várias idades e de diferentes extractos sociais, onde a narrativa tem mudanças temporais abruptas, com desenvolvimentos e reviravoltas completamente imprevisíveis, revelando uma imaginação verdadeiramente prodigiosa.
Destaco os três melhores contos: ”EձѰ�, ”UMA VIDA REAL� e "FALSOS SEGREDOS"
”EձѰ� (6*) é provavelmente um dos melhores contos que li nos últimos anos�
”EձѰ� percorre um tempo feito de cartas e lembranças que se sobrepõem ao amor e às decepções da perda e da tragédia, da fuga à realidade e da inevitabilidade do destino, numa linha temporal indefinida, onde se podem estabelecer inúmeras leituras, entre o passado e o presente, de uma forma que desliza entre o amor e o não-amor.
Alice Munro explora admiravelmente os sonhos e as expectativas das relações humanas, muitas vezes assentes em pressupostos fantasiosos, que se sucedem de uma forma inesperada nas vivências diárias de personagens intimamente românticas e apaixonadas. As histórias são um pouco como as folhas das árvores�
No final de ”EձѰ�, Alice Munro leva-nos de volta ao dia em que Louisa chega pela primeira vez a Carstairs, “Estava satisfeita com este recomeço, sentia-se calma e grata. Já tivera outros recomeços e as coisas não tinham corrido como esperava, mas acreditava na decisão rápida, na intervenção imprevista, na singularidade do seu destino.� (Pág. 53)
”UMA VIDA REAL� (5*) Dorrie Beck vive sozinha � depois da morte repentina do seu irmão Albert � ”O coração de Albert falhara� Morreu num sítio belíssimo junto à estrada, uma planície onde cresciam carvalhos negros e corria um riacho de águas límpidas.� (Pág. 58)
Dorrie que teve uma educação esmerada, acaba por depender da ajuda da sua amiga Millicent e do seu marido Porter, um agricultor com três quintas (incluindo a que fora da família Beck) e dezanove anos mais velho, que lhe faz muitas promessas, mas que ”Na sua noite de núpcias, ele dissera: “Agora tens de aguentar o que te vai cair em cima�, mas ela sabia que não fora com má intenção.� (Pág. 56); sobrevivendo com a venda das peles de coelho e de rato-almiscarado que caça, numa vivência rotineira e frugal.
Num jantar organizado por Millicent, é convidado o pastor anglicano e um seu amigo Mr. Wilkinson Speirs, hóspede temporário, um australiano rico, juntamente com Muriel Snow, a professora de música, uma mulher independente, bonita, solteira e Dorrie Beck.
E o inesperado acontece� ”� tanta sorte inesperada podiam fazer uma pessoa acreditar também em desgraças.�(Pág. 73)
Dúvidas e incertezas em relação ao futuro�
“FALSOS SEGREDOS� (5*)
Uma rapariga desaparecida.
Um final em “aberto� em que Maureen ”� parece estar a observar um falso segredo, algo que não é surpreendente até pensarmos em contá-lo.� (Pág. 150)
Um verdadeiro puzzle literário�
Um convite à releitura�
April 27, 2023
if you like this review, i now have website:
030119: incorporates old review. i think i have read everything published by alice munro (i think i will just call her aunt a by now). i have just finished her collection , and decided to try a review of one or two of her stories i have not read in years (decades...). the first collection i had read was as a curious child, a paperback of , then found an old copy of . i read these easily, swiftly, and this was the first time i wanted a story to be longer. i was curious about lives of girls if not yet women for i had no sisters and only an elder brother... but i guess my serious interest as a youth was spurred when i took my girlfriend to hear aunt a read from at a new library...
i have read her collections every few years, liking most stories, confused by some, loving others. for a long time my favourite is possibly the first of hers i read and the first in 'dance...': . for me it is a loving depiction of the mysteries of adult love as seen by a child, and plot, character, theme inseparable from the way it is told and by whom. i am not from her part of the world though of course my father is (she is his elder sister) and in some ways she has told me more of it than he ever has...
skipping far ahead (as her stories increasingly do...), i come to : i have heard her explain (surely not just to me) that writing a story is for her like wandering through a house, judging its solidity, going from room to unknown room, maybe going upstairs, maybe going down, looking out the windows, checking the quality of the kitchen... and it is in this collection i see this best, rather more how i am reading it like wandering through a house, than how she wrote it. i 'got' it. actually i got stories that for example my father used to claim distorted memories, stories my mother never has much understood, stories always too literary for any girlfriends, any friends, but no less wonderful for me...
'spaceships have landed' has a long section of disassociated wandering interpreted as alien abduction- she has either read such testimony or such walking has history, familiarity, before her times in witches and magic, in their time aliens, in our time interstellar aliens... or mistaken medication. ' is almost a novella and an exacting portrayal of settlers and justified murder and guilt and escape, all wrapped up as very old characters riding an old (steam!) automobile... this is how history tells itself and why there is always more to a story than we might get in first reading... i have tried to not mention on gr my relationship to aunt a because people might then ask too many questions, presume i really know her, when mostly i know her through her work, her visits, her encouraging advice, and through my father and mother and aunt s, and this is not always a useful view...
030119: incorporates old review. i think i have read everything published by alice munro (i think i will just call her aunt a by now). i have just finished her collection , and decided to try a review of one or two of her stories i have not read in years (decades...). the first collection i had read was as a curious child, a paperback of , then found an old copy of . i read these easily, swiftly, and this was the first time i wanted a story to be longer. i was curious about lives of girls if not yet women for i had no sisters and only an elder brother... but i guess my serious interest as a youth was spurred when i took my girlfriend to hear aunt a read from at a new library...
i have read her collections every few years, liking most stories, confused by some, loving others. for a long time my favourite is possibly the first of hers i read and the first in 'dance...': . for me it is a loving depiction of the mysteries of adult love as seen by a child, and plot, character, theme inseparable from the way it is told and by whom. i am not from her part of the world though of course my father is (she is his elder sister) and in some ways she has told me more of it than he ever has...
skipping far ahead (as her stories increasingly do...), i come to : i have heard her explain (surely not just to me) that writing a story is for her like wandering through a house, judging its solidity, going from room to unknown room, maybe going upstairs, maybe going down, looking out the windows, checking the quality of the kitchen... and it is in this collection i see this best, rather more how i am reading it like wandering through a house, than how she wrote it. i 'got' it. actually i got stories that for example my father used to claim distorted memories, stories my mother never has much understood, stories always too literary for any girlfriends, any friends, but no less wonderful for me...
'spaceships have landed' has a long section of disassociated wandering interpreted as alien abduction- she has either read such testimony or such walking has history, familiarity, before her times in witches and magic, in their time aliens, in our time interstellar aliens... or mistaken medication. ' is almost a novella and an exacting portrayal of settlers and justified murder and guilt and escape, all wrapped up as very old characters riding an old (steam!) automobile... this is how history tells itself and why there is always more to a story than we might get in first reading... i have tried to not mention on gr my relationship to aunt a because people might then ask too many questions, presume i really know her, when mostly i know her through her work, her visits, her encouraging advice, and through my father and mother and aunt s, and this is not always a useful view...
Currently reading
January 10, 2013I've been meaning to read Alice Munro for a while. karen put Canadian authors on my radar as a group with George Elliot Clarke, and brian's reviews of her books have been tantalizing. Then the gauntlet was thrown down by that sleazy architect-loving Blake. Well, not really, but I perceived a gauntlet. Architects suck!
With the first story, I'm hooked. Amazing. I'm not even done with it yet, the very first story, but...so good. A simple tale that touches down on a solitary librarian's life like a skipping stone, glimpses of her interactions, all shown and not told. But what I get out of it is this deeply loving embrace of the written word. In each episode of her life, there is something combed into it about words - epistles that form a bond, stolen library books, a typewriter salesman, a wealthy man who forsakes his living room for the library armchairs, and I'm sure there will be more as I read on. I love this. I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this author.
With the first story, I'm hooked. Amazing. I'm not even done with it yet, the very first story, but...so good. A simple tale that touches down on a solitary librarian's life like a skipping stone, glimpses of her interactions, all shown and not told. But what I get out of it is this deeply loving embrace of the written word. In each episode of her life, there is something combed into it about words - epistles that form a bond, stolen library books, a typewriter salesman, a wealthy man who forsakes his living room for the library armchairs, and I'm sure there will be more as I read on. I love this. I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this author.
March 17, 2014
Damn you Alice Munro. Your stories are the work of a misery guts. And I stick to my feeling that these are not short stories. They are shrivelled up novels, like you can’t be bothered with filling in the details. An impressionistic dab here, a by-your-leave reference there and chunks of life are presumed to have substance. Not enough words for how much are in them. Never mind the movie, most of these stories could fill a mini-series or a BBC serial, the ones they used to do that never seemed to end.
Continued....
Continued....
July 4, 2021
Muhteşem! Nobel ödüllü bir kadın yazarı bu kadar geç okumaktan hicap duydum. Benzer duyguyu can yayınları'nın da yaşamasını dilerim böyle bir yazara ay yapım kapaklarını uygun gördükleri için.
December 30, 2021
Una de las autoras que me propuse descubrir en este casi terminado 2021 fue, sin duda, Alice Munro. Prácticamente todas las cosas que me llegaban de la autora, de su forma de narrar y de cómo se centraba en hablar de la mujer en todas sus posibles realidades, era algo que me llamaba muchísimo y casi que la ponía en ese lugar de expectación al que no deberíamos de llevar a ninguna autora o autor, sin haber tenido antes una toma de contacto. He tardado mucho tiempo en animarme con Munro, y por poco acaba diciembre antes de que lo hiciera. Lo que me echaba a atrás fue descubrir que la mayoría de su obra está formada por colecciones de relatos. Finalmente me decidí por este “Secreto a voces�, que no me ha terminado de engatusar, y que para mí ha sido a causa, precisamente, de que esté compuesto por relatos y no por una historia completa y larga.
“Secreto a voces� está formado por ocho relatos, todos ambientados en Carstairs, que abarcan la vida de diferentes personas desde 1850 hasta, aproximadamente, la actualidad. Pese a que todos los relatos comparten esa ambientación o unión en origen o ascendentes de Carstairs, no solo nos situaremos en Reino Unido, sino que también pasaremos por Australia, Canadá o Francia. Siento que los relatos, pese a ser independientes, tratan de tener una unión en cuanto a descendientes de unos y de otros, que no termina de sentirse del todo real, ni de cuajar.
Dos cosas me han gustado de la novela: la narración de la autora, que me ha parecido hipnótica, y ha conseguido que, pese a no estar interesado al cien por cien en la historia, no se me hiciera pesada la lectura, y la otra cosa es la capacidad de Alice Munro para crear diferentes tipos de personajes femeninos. Aparecen muchas, muchísimas mujeres en estos ocho relatos, y todas son diferentes. Se distinguen muy bien las unas de las otras, cosa a la que no estoy muy acostumbrado dentro de la literatura, y Munro consigue desplegar un abanico muy amplio de personalidades.
El principal problema ha sido, que pese a estas dos cosas tan buenas que he encontrado, ni uno solo de los ocho relatos me ha terminado de tocar, ninguno me cautivado. Y eso que hay un par de ellos bastante interesantes que tienen incluso un toque macabro, pero ni aún así. Y el problema creo que ha sido que, para mí, el relato funciona infinitamente mejor en otro tipo de género donde el contenido importe más que los propios personajes. La duración de cada historia hacía que al acabarlo me dejara con esa sensación de algo a medias. Si cualquiera de las ocho historias hubiera sido una novela y no un relato de 30-40 páginas, los personajes hubieran sumado alma a esa habilidad de la autora de crear mujeres potentes y características.
A penas empezaba a ubicarme en una historia y con unos personajes, y vuelta a empezar, nuevo relato, nuevos personajes. Y es algo, repito, que creo que funciona bien con géneros donde lo que cuenta, tiene más importancia que los propios personajes. No es el caso de este tipo de historias, donde entender y creerte a los personajes es lo esencial. En fin, no sé si repetiré con la autora, porque pese a que le veo lo positivo, el hecho de que la gran parte de su obra tenga el mismo formato me quita las ganas. No puedo ponerle mala nota, porque sería injusto con lo positivo que he encontrado, pero quizás no sea una autora para mí.
“Secreto a voces� está formado por ocho relatos, todos ambientados en Carstairs, que abarcan la vida de diferentes personas desde 1850 hasta, aproximadamente, la actualidad. Pese a que todos los relatos comparten esa ambientación o unión en origen o ascendentes de Carstairs, no solo nos situaremos en Reino Unido, sino que también pasaremos por Australia, Canadá o Francia. Siento que los relatos, pese a ser independientes, tratan de tener una unión en cuanto a descendientes de unos y de otros, que no termina de sentirse del todo real, ni de cuajar.
Dos cosas me han gustado de la novela: la narración de la autora, que me ha parecido hipnótica, y ha conseguido que, pese a no estar interesado al cien por cien en la historia, no se me hiciera pesada la lectura, y la otra cosa es la capacidad de Alice Munro para crear diferentes tipos de personajes femeninos. Aparecen muchas, muchísimas mujeres en estos ocho relatos, y todas son diferentes. Se distinguen muy bien las unas de las otras, cosa a la que no estoy muy acostumbrado dentro de la literatura, y Munro consigue desplegar un abanico muy amplio de personalidades.
El principal problema ha sido, que pese a estas dos cosas tan buenas que he encontrado, ni uno solo de los ocho relatos me ha terminado de tocar, ninguno me cautivado. Y eso que hay un par de ellos bastante interesantes que tienen incluso un toque macabro, pero ni aún así. Y el problema creo que ha sido que, para mí, el relato funciona infinitamente mejor en otro tipo de género donde el contenido importe más que los propios personajes. La duración de cada historia hacía que al acabarlo me dejara con esa sensación de algo a medias. Si cualquiera de las ocho historias hubiera sido una novela y no un relato de 30-40 páginas, los personajes hubieran sumado alma a esa habilidad de la autora de crear mujeres potentes y características.
A penas empezaba a ubicarme en una historia y con unos personajes, y vuelta a empezar, nuevo relato, nuevos personajes. Y es algo, repito, que creo que funciona bien con géneros donde lo que cuenta, tiene más importancia que los propios personajes. No es el caso de este tipo de historias, donde entender y creerte a los personajes es lo esencial. En fin, no sé si repetiré con la autora, porque pese a que le veo lo positivo, el hecho de que la gran parte de su obra tenga el mismo formato me quita las ganas. No puedo ponerle mala nota, porque sería injusto con lo positivo que he encontrado, pero quizás no sea una autora para mí.
March 15, 2016
Jack Delano, "Reitz farm near Falls Creek, Pennsylvania, Agosto 1940" *
Otto racconti, otto donne, otto vite. Storie che oscillano tra l'ordinarietà e l'imprevisto, tra problemi quotidiani e avvenimenti inusuali; ritmi pacati e semplici che vengono sconvolti da fatti drammatici, tetri, perfino sanguinosi. Un mondo femminile presentato con lucidità e senza ostentazione. Protagoniste di tempi passati, ma con personalità moderne; donne sole e forti. Con un protagonista comune: un paesino del Canada sudoccidentale (Carstairs era appena agli inizi, c'era una costruzione rudimentale che fungeva da spaccio e da locanda, e un tedesco di nome Roem che stava costruendo una segheria...), con le sue immagini di vita dura e di sopravvivenza, eppure con risvolti colti e coscienti (Leggevano entrambi molti libri che prendevano in biblioteca...).
Ogni volta la Munro, dopo essere entrata con impeto nella nostra stanza, "balla" tra le vicende con armonia ed equilibrio; domina le situazioni con essenzialità; legge e trasmette i pensieri più intimi; gioca tra ricordi e realtà con piglio asciutto, disinvolto ed efficace; e riesce sempre a coinvolgere e a stupire.
* Il padre di Rhea si alzò presto per raccogliere le uova e prepararsi ad andare a Hamilton, come faceva una domenica sì e una no. I ragazzi sarebbero andati con lui, viaggiando nel retro del camion. Rhea sarebbe rimasta a casa perché davanti non c'era posto. [...]
- Se non sai cosa fare, puoi pulire le uova sul tavolo, - disse.
Rhea voleva gridare a tutti di andarsene. Doveva pensare, c'erano delle cose nella sua testa che non riuscivano a uscire per via della pressione della gente in casa. [...]
Le uova stavano sul tavolo, in ceste da due dozzine. Erano sporche di sterco di gallina e di pezzetti di paglia che aspettavano di essere rimossi con la lana d'acciaio. [...]
Non voleva rientrare in casa, non voleva guardare le ceste di uova sporche.
"Sono atterrate le navi spaziali"
January 22, 2016
I think this collection was the first Alice Munro I ever read, many many MANY years ago. I always have this rosy memory of it as the best of the Alice Munro stories, though it's been so long that I could no longer say why, or even be sure that my memory is not wrong.
So now I'm re-reading the collection again, and it's all coming back to me, and yes, this is Alice Munro at her best (which is pretty damn good). I'm about halfway through, and a couple of the stories I remember as I read them, while others I had completely forgotten, and they were like new.
I think the thing I like best about her writing is the way the style and the content mix. There is deep sorrow, tragedy, loneliness, violence, loss, and "drama" and yet everything is simply described as it is, as it happens, and especially as it is experienced by the people concerned. The writing is the least "dramatic" writing I can imagine, and somehow its accuracy and faithfulness to the experiences and events described seems much more ... honorable, maybe? ... than a more overwrought prose style would be. It's as if these things are part of our collective experience as human beings, and are therefore to be treated with respect and a prose that values them as they are, that presents, in all its detail, what is. Even though it's fiction.
I think the title is not open secrets like the closet -- where everyone knows and nobody says. I think, rather, that there are secrets in these stories that are open like an open wound.
So now I'm re-reading the collection again, and it's all coming back to me, and yes, this is Alice Munro at her best (which is pretty damn good). I'm about halfway through, and a couple of the stories I remember as I read them, while others I had completely forgotten, and they were like new.
I think the thing I like best about her writing is the way the style and the content mix. There is deep sorrow, tragedy, loneliness, violence, loss, and "drama" and yet everything is simply described as it is, as it happens, and especially as it is experienced by the people concerned. The writing is the least "dramatic" writing I can imagine, and somehow its accuracy and faithfulness to the experiences and events described seems much more ... honorable, maybe? ... than a more overwrought prose style would be. It's as if these things are part of our collective experience as human beings, and are therefore to be treated with respect and a prose that values them as they are, that presents, in all its detail, what is. Even though it's fiction.
I think the title is not open secrets like the closet -- where everyone knows and nobody says. I think, rather, that there are secrets in these stories that are open like an open wound.
February 18, 2016
Este livro foi a minha estreia com Alice Munro e fiquei cliente. Apesar de, geralmente, preferir ler romances do que contos, acho que depois deste livro, fiquei mais próxima de me tornar adepta deste género, uma tendência que comecei a notar o Verão passado, com um livro de contos da Flannery O'Connor. E relação ao Falsos Segredos, gostei de praticamente todos os contos, o único que achei demasiado estranho e inconsequente foi o Hotel Jack Randa, mas mesmo sem ter gostado do final, achei todo o desenvolvimento da história bastante interessante. Todos eles são pequenas histórias que, sem terem aparentemente nada de especial, me prenderam bastante e me fizeram sentir como se estivesse a espreitar por uma fresta de uma janela a vida daquelas pessoas, com um certo sentimento de não dever estar ali, mas sem poder desviar o olhar... Um pouco estranho, mas é mais ou menos isso.
May 16, 2019
ho comprato questo libro giovedì e venerdì l'ho perduto(ma sospetto mi sia stato rubato). Ho potuto leggere solo metà del primo racconto. Le quattro stelle le aggiudico allo smarrimento(al furto), episodio in fondo molto alla Munro che, magari, potrebbe avere ricadute sul mio fututo destino, o meglio ancora sul destino di terzi, e le cui conseguenze, sempre magari, saranno note solo tra molti anni.
July 27, 2019
Esta es una de las colecciones de relatos que más he disfrutado. Te engancha desde la primera línea y ya solo quieres que la voz narrativa de Alice Munro te lleve a sus inhóspitos paisajes acompañada por sus complejos personajes y lo que se ocultan. Cada relato se mueve a través de diferentes épocas encadenando historias familiares como si se tratara de un árbol genealógico desordenado. Nadie describe como Alice Munro, y eso, en un cuento, es una parte fundamental para hundirnos de lleno en la historia. ¡Brillante!
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