Today’s woke Canada couldn’t produce another Alice Munro

[Along Came Jones]

Yes. The thread's title, lifted from The Telegraph, is bait. A recent New York Times obituary for Alice Munro grabbed my attention. Mostly because the name was distantly familiar and yet I could not remember reading anything she wrote.

Ms. Munro was a member of the rare breed of writer, like Katherine Anne Porter and Raymond Carver, who made their reputations in the notoriously difficult literary arena of the short story, and did so with great success. Her tales — many of them focused on women at different stages of their lives coping with complex desires — were so eagerly received and gratefully read that she attracted a whole new generation of readers.

Ms. Munro’s stories were widely considered to be without equal, a mixture of ordinary people and extraordinary themes. She portrayed small-town folks, often in rural southwestern Ontario, facing situations that made the fantastic seem an everyday occurrence. Some of her characters were fleshed out so completely through generations and across continents that readers reached a level of intimacy with them that usually comes only with a full-length novel. NYT (paywalled)

So, I ordered a yet to arrive volume of her short stories. Vintage Munro: Nobel Prize Edition -- The stories in this volume span Munro's career: The title stories from her collections The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; and Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; “Differently,” from Friend of My Youth; “Carried Away,” from Open Secrets; and (new to this edition) "In Sight of the Lake," from Dear Life. Vintage Munro also includes the text of the Nobel Prize Presentation Speech, given by Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

As prominent as Canadians are in American entertainment (from Shania Twain to Rush and from Donald Sutherland to Ryan Gosling) how could an Alice Munro apparently be memorialized by a set of literary insiders and not widely known by ordinary readers like me? Maybe I'm just not as literate as I think I am.

So, Canadians, which writers do you suggest as "must read" Canadian fiction?

 

[Loulit01]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale and many others. You need to be a little selective, she can go completely off the wall at times. But most of her stuff is great.

For youngsters, L.M. Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables. And there's Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Avon Lea.

Also Michelle Good and Lawrence Hill you might like.

 

[Grand Mal]

Yes. The thread's title, lifted from The Telegraph, is bait. A recent New York Times obituary for Alice Munro grabbed my attention. Mostly because the name was distantly familiar and yet I could not remember reading anything she wrote.

Ms. Munro was a member of the rare breed of writer, like Katherine Anne Porter and Raymond Carver, who made their reputations in the notoriously difficult literary arena of the short story, and did so with great success. Her tales — many of them focused on women at different stages of their lives coping with complex desires — were so eagerly received and gratefully read that she attracted a whole new generation of readers.

Ms. Munro’s stories were widely considered to be without equal, a mixture of ordinary people and extraordinary themes. She portrayed small-town folks, often in rural southwestern Ontario, facing situations that made the fantastic seem an everyday occurrence. Some of her characters were fleshed out so completely through generations and across continents that readers reached a level of intimacy with them that usually comes only with a full-length novel. NYT (paywalled)

So, I ordered a yet to arrive volume of her short stories. Vintage Munro: Nobel Prize Edition -- The stories in this volume span Munro's career: The title stories from her collections The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; and Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; “Differently,” from Friend of My Youth; “Carried Away,” from Open Secrets; and (new to this edition) "In Sight of the Lake," from Dear Life. Vintage Munro also includes the text of the Nobel Prize Presentation Speech, given by Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

As prominent as Canadians are in American entertainment (from Shania Twain to Rush and from Donald Sutherland to Ryan Gosling) how could an Alice Munro apparently be memorialized by a set of literary insiders and not widely known by ordinary readers like me? Maybe I'm just not as literate as I think I am.

So, Canadians, which writers do you suggest as "must read" Canadian fiction?

Yann Martel,- The Life of Pi.

 

[LostInSeattle]

Farley Mowat

 

[nota bene]

Yes. The thread's title, lifted from The Telegraph, is bait. A recent New York Times obituary for Alice Munro grabbed my attention. Mostly because the name was distantly familiar and yet I could not remember reading anything she wrote.

Ms. Munro was a member of the rare breed of writer, like Katherine Anne Porter and Raymond Carver, who made their reputations in the notoriously difficult literary arena of the short story, and did so with great success. Her tales — many of them focused on women at different stages of their lives coping with complex desires — were so eagerly received and gratefully read that she attracted a whole new generation of readers.

Ms. Munro’s stories were widely considered to be without equal, a mixture of ordinary people and extraordinary themes. She portrayed small-town folks, often in rural southwestern Ontario, facing situations that made the fantastic seem an everyday occurrence. Some of her characters were fleshed out so completely through generations and across continents that readers reached a level of intimacy with them that usually comes only with a full-length novel. NYT (paywalled)

So, I ordered a yet to arrive volume of her short stories. Vintage Munro: Nobel Prize Edition -- The stories in this volume span Munro's career: The title stories from her collections The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; and Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; “Differently,” from Friend of My Youth; “Carried Away,” from Open Secrets; and (new to this edition) "In Sight of the Lake," from Dear Life. Vintage Munro also includes the text of the Nobel Prize Presentation Speech, given by Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

As prominent as Canadians are in American entertainment (from Shania Twain to Rush and from Donald Sutherland to Ryan Gosling) how could an Alice Munro apparently be memorialized by a set of literary insiders and not widely known by ordinary readers like me? Maybe I'm just not as literate as I think I am.

So, Canadians, which writers do you suggest as "must read" Canadian fiction?

Full disclosure: I know who Munro and Atwood are but have never read their works and have no interest in doing so because I don't pay much attention to contemporary lit. But this morning I read an article at the Daily Mail that shocked me because I've been so ignorant of Munro's private life. I'm appalled and now can't read any of her stuff. May God have mercy on her. I mean that.

From the article:

As the literary world rushes to ‘re-evaluate’ a revered writer, a Canadian university and her home town are reconsidering their memorials to Alice Munro. Many fans are simply mulling over whether they can read her again.

And so another name has been added to a long list in the endless debate over whether it really is acceptable to appreciate great art while condemning its flawed creator. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...m-horrifying-conspiracy-silence-unmasked.html