Day 61.1: Reading Alice Munro Again
Jul. 15th, 2024 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionI'm still very much shaken by Alice Munro's complicity, and I woke up very anxious today, searching for articles about her. Her monstrosity in this case is undeniable - I don't mean that she's a monster, but in this sequence of acts she did something monstrous. It does give a different tinge on all her short stories, especially Vandals, especially Runaway, especially Open Secrets (which Alice helpfully clarified was about the sexual assault of children). I think I have to read the short story collection Open Secrets with a lot more care, since this was her book after she rejected her daughter's testimony about her husband.
I think I'll read Alice from the top. I'll shortly complete my (physical) Alice Munro collection, but since I don't have Dance of the Happy Shades at the moment, I think I'll start with The Moons of Jupiter.
I was very much... comforted? I don't think that's the right word; maybe assured is better? By Michelle Dean's Alice Munro was hiding in plain sight where she asserts that people are like 'children' when it comes to their favorite authors, and I'm very much like that. I think, rather than casting Alice away, I'll read her books with even more care, knowing that she was very much living like all of us, in the same mire. I think I was very much casting around for a saint and now two out of three of my literary saints have been profaned, and I wonder if Ursula K. Le Guin isn't next. But it does feel different to know that Alice was in the muck, with all of us, and that she was no saint merely because none of us are, and some of us (including myself) do monstrous things sometimes.
Also I'm not sure why but if I squint Alice looks a little like Emmylou Harris. It's probably the hair. So I've been listening to Emmylou again.
Of course I won't stop reading other books. I think I'll try Flannery O'Connor along with Alice.
I think I'll read Alice from the top. I'll shortly complete my (physical) Alice Munro collection, but since I don't have Dance of the Happy Shades at the moment, I think I'll start with The Moons of Jupiter.
I was very much... comforted? I don't think that's the right word; maybe assured is better? By Michelle Dean's Alice Munro was hiding in plain sight where she asserts that people are like 'children' when it comes to their favorite authors, and I'm very much like that. I think, rather than casting Alice away, I'll read her books with even more care, knowing that she was very much living like all of us, in the same mire. I think I was very much casting around for a saint and now two out of three of my literary saints have been profaned, and I wonder if Ursula K. Le Guin isn't next. But it does feel different to know that Alice was in the muck, with all of us, and that she was no saint merely because none of us are, and some of us (including myself) do monstrous things sometimes.
Also I'm not sure why but if I squint Alice looks a little like Emmylou Harris. It's probably the hair. So I've been listening to Emmylou again.
Of course I won't stop reading other books. I think I'll try Flannery O'Connor along with Alice.
