Readers know what they are going to get when they pick up an unfamiliar Alice Munro collection, and yet almost every page carries a bounty of unexpected action, feeling, language, and detail. Her stories are always unique, blazing an invigorating originality out of her seemingly commonplace subjects. Each collection develops her oeuvre in increments, subtly expanding her range. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is, of course, no exception. It is a fairly conservative collection of nine stories, none of which move far beyond Munro's favored the tiny towns and burgeoning cities of southern Ontario and British Columbia. There are glimpses of youth here--in the title story, an epistolary prank by two teenage girls leads to a one-sided cross country elopement and, seemingly, a happy marriage, and in "Nettles," disrupted childhood affection fleetingly returns through a chance meeting--but most of these pieces are stories of aging women and men, confronting the twin travails of death and late love. As is always the case with Munro, their plots are too elegantly elaborate to summarize, and their unsentimental power is a given; baroque praise would be futile. Read these stories--it is the only way to really understand the miracles that Munro so regularly performs. --Jack Illingworth
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Himmel und Hölle
Readers know what they are going to get when they pick up an unfamiliar Alice Munro collection, and yet almost every page carries a bounty of unexpected action, feeling, language, and detail. Her stories are always unique, blazing an invigorating originality out of her seemingly commonplace subjects. Each collection develops her oeuvre in increments, subtly expanding her range. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is, of course, no exception. It is a fairly conservative collection of nine stories, none of which move far beyond Munro's favored the tiny towns and burgeoning cities of southern Ontario and British Columbia. There are glimpses of youth here--in the title story, an epistolary prank by two teenage girls leads to a one-sided cross country elopement and, seemingly, a happy marriage, and in "Nettles," disrupted childhood affection fleetingly returns through a chance meeting--but most of these pieces are stories of aging women and men, confronting the twin travails of death and late love. As is always the case with Munro, their plots are too elegantly elaborate to summarize, and their unsentimental power is a given; baroque praise would be futile. Read these stories--it is the only way to really understand the miracles that Munro so regularly performs. --Jack Illingworth
Popular Reviews(2)
Reviewed by ManuSchwere Kost in kleinen Portionen Klappentext : "In neun Geschichten, die vordergründig alltäglich-harmlos wirken wie ein Kinderspiel, lässt Alice Munro rätselvolle Beziehungen und verdrängte Schuld aufblitzen. Sie erzählt von bestürzend kühnen Momenten des Ausbrechens aus dem eigenen Leben: das ist der Stoff, aus dem ihre Erzählungen sind. Die Geschichten entführen den Leser an jenen einzigartigen Ort, an dem eine unerwartete Wendung den Bogen eines ganzen Lebens zum Aufleuchten bringen kann." Ich habe mich schon mehrfach an den Büchern von Literaturnobelpreisträgern versucht und bin jedes Mal kläglich gescheitert. Die Kurzgeschichten von Alice Munro machen da eine schöne Ausnahme. Die Geschichten, die zwischen knapp 30 und 70 Seiten lang sind, sind voll von scharf gezeichneten Charakteren. Die Handlung ist größtenteils eher überschaubar, was jedoch trotzdem zu einem guten Maß an Spannung führt. Alles in allem bin ich jetzt kein Riesenfan von Alice Munro, werde aber weitere Bücher von ihr gerne lesen.
Reviewed by MagdaLeider überhaupt nicht mein Geschmack. Ich dachte, dass der Schreibstil mir nicht gefällt, weil die Übersetzung vielleicht nicht alles gut rüberbringt, aber dann meinte eine Bekannte, dass ihr es auch im Englischen nicht gefallen hat. Falls ihr zwischen diesem und einem anderen Buch wählen könnt, nehmt das andere. Falls nicht, kann man es Mal machen...