Bob's Write from the Start: Alice Munro and Not Likely for the Last Time Either

Bob's Write from the Start

Bob’s Write from the Start, a blog sharing the roller coaster ride of this renewing writer’s feelings and actual experiences, began March 2017. That January, I began with a two-sentence contribution to a local Writing Group. I am now a Guest Columnist for a local paper and have contributed to small and online magazines. My comments for new and renewing writers? Start by starting. Join a writing group. You are unique but not alone. Once you start work, you will not be in Kansas anymore.

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Alice Munro and Not Likely for the Last Time Either

"I read him the sports news and the municipal news and the world news and all about murders and robberies and bad weather." -- from Cortese Island a short story in The Love of a Good Woman.

Cortese Island, like many of the other stories in this book by Alice Munro, takes my breath away. Leaves me stunned by the quality and humanity of it. Compels me to rest a day or two, or more before I can bring myself to read another one.

Often I encounter a sentence in this and in other stories here that I say, now that I have laboured awhile myself to write my own version of the truth in an entertaining way, "Oh, look how she did that." And she has done it in a way that is not overly clever or "writerly", without flags and whistles. Take the sentence above for instance. It doesn't seem like much, perhaps, isolated here on this page. Yes, 'murders and robberies and bad weather' has a structure of three which we learn soon enough is likely to be the most impactful. And the little kicker of 'bad weather' at the end is, even here, mildly funny and surprising. In the story itself, though, it is a wonderful moment and reflects the humour and pathos of the story itself.

So, this blog is an account of my own experience, which may not be yours. But I do think it profits us all to read, or re-read, stories whose brilliance, before we tried it all ourselves, may have escaped us.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home

About Me

Name: Bob's Write From The Start

Location: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

Born, raised and living in Sarnia, Ontario, Bob Boulton began writing poetry, short stories and humorous articles for his high school newspaper in the period just after dinosaurs roamed the earth. His article on the mysteries of the Chess Club was particularly well-received. Bob’s excruciatingly naive teenage sonnet was published with positive mention in the high school yearbook. In University he wrote pretty much indecipherable essays on Existentialism and Phenomenology. Then, early in his working career, Bob also wrote short feature articles in the now-defunct (not his fault) Weston York Times. For this, he was paid $5.00 per article, which didn’t quite cover his transportation and parking costs. Then after a short break of thirty-five or forty years as an executive and leadership coach, Bob reactivated his passion for writing. The alternatives he considered were learning to yodel or trying to play the bagpipes. Bob’s loving and supportive family voted enthusiastically, and quickly, for writing.