Book review: Alice Munro's "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage"

In 2013, a friend with whom I corresponded on various topics, mentioned a book by Alice Munro, which a friend of her recommended strongly. But when she read it she was very disappointed and she told me that Munro's story 'Events' did not have events! ;-)) I laughed a lot about that and then I thought: "I have to read that book I found". So I started reading it, which is the book "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" which has several separate stories.

- Story 1: A few things seemed odd to me, such as a letter written by the girls, impersonating someone older, which is in a style which couldn't have been written by schoolgirls. It would need more feelings, or more life experience (to write such a letter).

Then I got annoyed with what the 2 girls were talking about, namely sexual feelings etc. I don't care whether girls at school do those things or talk about such things, I'm just not interested to read about it, just like I don't want to read sexual phantasies and in films I do not want to see 'lovemaking' scenes. In films lovemaking scenes are usually used in poor, low budget films to give the film some appeal. A good film doesn't need it and in books it's also not needed.

After having read this story I felt that the story was an observational one, filled in with Munro's own feelings and thoughts which are not nice (not friendly), not interesting, and I felt especially: There are no emotions.

I then searched a bit on the internet and found:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alice-munro-5-interesting-facts-1.1958781

which says that Munro wrote stories about what she observed where she lived, and "Some Huron County residents complained that her stories were too closely based on locals' experiences."

I can imagine this entirely... I presume, from her writing style, that Munro hasn't got enough ideas to write stories that are not based on observations, which is why the story I read feels empty, it has no meaning.

- Story 2 "Floating bridge":
One of the characters tells a joke about the number of people in a cemetery, but this joke doesn't make sense...

She tells about a woman sitting in a bus waiting booth, who saw comments written on the walls, which included sexual comments. That happens in waiting booths in NL too, but why mention it? A bit later a guy tells a story/joke, and (of course!!) the end of it is related to sex. At this point, after about 70 pages, I gave up on this book. It all indicates that Munro is very much interested in sex... Even though she was 70 years old when that book was published!

I then read back my friend's email and I read which I overlooked earlier in her email, namely I realised that she wrote exactly the same thing about the story 'Events' that she read, that I had noticed in this other book: There are no emotions! (it feels cold, as a description from a disinterested viewer of the situation, which makes me think she could be e.g. autistic)

I then wrote to my friend: I will not give Alice Munro another chance, what I saw is something in her (her essence), and that will not change quickly. She was 70 when she wrote those 2 stories that I read, that is fairly old, she has been writing for many, many years, which means she should have lots of experience in life and by then she should have got a view from above, I mean a view with wisdom and insight. But I don't see that. So how much older does she need to be before her stories become good? I think 500 years or more older :) I don't know why she got a Nobel prize, I think those things (all prizes, just like the Oscars in Hollywood for films) are bunk anyway.

Last modified: 2017-5-29