Over Pesach, I picked up Open Secrets, a collection of short stories by Nobel Prize winning author, and Canadian, Alica Munro (note: Munro, to my knowledge, only writes short stories). Ever since I started reading her a few years ago, I’ve been amazed by how much she is able to pack into such a relatively small amount of writing space. Unlike most novels, I find myself having to read her slowly, and go back over paragraphs to figure out what I’ve missed in my hurry to see where the narrative is going. Many times during and after the stories I’ve gone back to put the pieces together, not just to figure out the message, but make sure I’d understood the parts correctly in relation to one another, and the subtle implications of her writing. There’s a quiet depth in her writing (which also happens to be beautiful), and an expectation that the reader is going to do their part as well. Open Secrets was no exception.
Like much of her writing, most of the stories in Open Secrets take place in small-town Carstairs, Ontario, and often, though not always, they are situated in the past. This constraint forces a focus onto the characters themselves – their humanity, their drama – even as I always enjoy the period pieces, and the mores of days past.
But do not mistake the stories taking place in a small town as implying the characters have boring lives. Though they are not exciting in a ‘New York’ way, I think what always arrests me in Munro stories is the way her characters surprise me. They reflect all the diversity, and often depravity of human nature – our jealousies, inability to communicate, judgements, and foibles.
Munro is a Nobel Prize winner for good reason, and absolutely worth reading.
Just Because I Liked It:
- Giannis Antetokounmpo is well known as one of the best players in the NBA. But as you’ll see in this clip, he’s also incredibly wise, self-reflective, and modest.
- My wife and I recently went to the McMichael Art Gallery, which I enjoyed more than I expected. In particular I wanted to see an exhibit of William Kurelek’s series titled Jewish Life in Canada. Kurelek was a non-Jewish Ukrainian who began as a picture framer in the shop of a Jewish owner. The owner discovered Kurelek’s talent, and encouraged his painting. In 1975 Kurelek painted a series of beautiful and loving scenes of Jewish life, from a moment in shul on Yom Kippur, to a Jewish farm from the turn of the century. The paintings feel alive and nostalgic at the same time, leaving the viewer with a warm sense of Jewish Canadian life. The two other standing exhibits, one by a Native Canadian, and the second a Sri Lankan Canadian, were also interesting and enjoyable, and very different from one another. If you do go (and the whole gallery doesn’t take more than an hour or so to walk through, at least with my amateur eye), make sure to, one, see Lawren Harris’ painting in the standing gallery (they are magical, truly), and take a walk around one of the trails, especially as spring arrives (hopefully more quickly than it is now!).