Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

The Short Stories of Alice Munro (Bookish Discussion) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-31 20:07:54
Imported:
2026-06
haven't archived this post yet. have a subscription? use the importer!

Downloads

  • how to read carried away .mp3

Missing 1 full-res photo, 1 file, as this post has not yet been imported.

Content

Today we are discussing the short stories of Alice Munro and the effect of reading through her volume of personally selected works Carried Away.

We're discussing short stories as poetic expression, the novelistic effect, memoir, unique voice, artistic vision, identity, estrangement, traumatic memories, unreliable narrators, how narrative unfolds, different interpretations, how we all get carried away, and much more.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 what is the effect of reading Alice Munro?
  • 3:00 story arrangement & aesthetic development
  • 5:00 the gift of widening consciousness
  • 8:00 short story form as poetic expression
  • 10:00 Munro’s novelistic & memoir qualities
  • 12:00 how do you create a heterocosm?
  • 14:00 the power of recurring characters
  • 16:00 why great artists need to have a vision
  • 21:00 corpus of stories as memoir of her life
  • 25:00 short story as intimate expression
  • 28:00 how to find the author in the work
  • 30:00 the unique voice in Munro’s work
  • 35:00 violent contradictions & identity splits
  • 41:00 on the stories that could have been
  • 43:00 Alice Munro teaches us how to see
  • 45:00 estrangement & mixed points of view
  • 49:00 diverging memories of the same event
  • 54:00 can we believe what we’re being told?
  • 57:00 stories about women’s experiences
  • 59:00 our lives frame these short stories
  • 1:01:00 the former, present & real self
  • 1:04:00 great stories are supposed to unfold
  • 1:06:00 proliferation of possible interpretations
  • 1:08:00 getting carried away as human condition
  • 1:13:00 we are the ones who complete the stories
  • 1:15:00 what do you make of Munro’s stories?

Questions to Consider:

1) What is the effect of reading Alice Munro for you?

2) Do you have any personal favourite short stories?

3) What does Munro teach us about reading and life?

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

Comments

Jenny

Like Leah, I hadn’t heard of Alice Munro until I joined this book club but the 3 stories we read as a group have got me hooked. I didn’t get Carried Away but found the stories in other volumes or online. I now have 5 “albums” to read but want to reread Hateship, Friendship, Courtship… as there’s so much I feel I missed first time round.

Martin

While rereading The Turn of The Screw this morning, in the first chapter, I came upon this saying from mouth of the new governess: "Well, that, I think, is what I came for - to be carried away. I'm afraid, however," I remember feeling the impulse to add, "I'm rather easily carried away. I was carried away in London." Perhaps this is the source for Munro's title?

Jonathon Glover

I am on a bit of short story kick at the moment and have been reading my way through Carried Away. Munro is difficult in that her stories are often a little too long to read in a single sitting before bed (when I am sleepy), so I often finding myself spending up to a week on a single story. Last night I sat down and began Miles City Montana and after a nights sleep, and a whole morning, the story still sits heavily on me - right in the put of my stomach. Much of it has to do with the content, the idea of children dying is my worst fear, particularly with two girls aged 3 and 5. There was a moment of genuine fear, where I didn’t want to continue reading, as the youngest daughter was missing. And it would’ve been easy for Munro to go the route, after she had set it in the stories opening. But she does something much more interesting, and profound, with it. The idea that the story is about an “ordinary tragedy” that didn’t occur, is haunting me today. And the realisation of the narrator about our own limitations as parents/guardians will stick with me for a long time!!

Jonathon Glover

I really enjoyed these stories when we read them last year. I was able to print the stories off the internet, as the Carried Away collection wasn’t available in Australia. After about 6 months I decided to order it in through a local bookshop, and have been dipping into it over that time. I am now almost at the end of the collection, just Hateship Courtship… left. I have found that her stories take me a long time to get through, and it may take me a week to complete a single story. I have found that the stories build rather slowly, but by the end there is often really strong emotions, that are complex, and difficult to unpack. I found that the Miles City Montana, Carried Away and Wilderness Station are the ones that have stuck with me the most, but going through this podcast reminded me that all the stories touched me in their own way. And may I say Ben, that this series clearly isn’t one of your most popular, but it is one that I cherish the most. We mainly deal with classic literature, and when we go closer to noir own context, it is often African American, or post modern, and your series there are also fantastic. But this feels like a series that takes what we learn from the past, and apply it directly to contemporary literature that feels like an evolution of the past, rather than a subversion. These lectures are wonderful tools for exploring contemporary literature, that I am very thankful for.

Halcyon Distilled
>>170117958

Her stories do take a long time and call for a re-read. One short sentence can be loaded with meaning. I am currently re-reading "Chance" from her Runaway collection. Munro doesn’t write for the one-sitting reader. Her stories stretch into your days, sneak into unrelated thoughts, and suddenly you realize you’ve been thinking about a single line for hours, or it hits you differently because of something in your own life.