The View from Castle Rock: Stories | Alice Munro | Independent Stories that Fit Together

The View from Castle Rock: Stories | Alice Munro | More attention to the truth of life

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The View from Cast...

	The View from Castle Rock: Stories Alice Munro Knopf, 2006 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A powerful new collection from one of our most beloved, admired, and honored writers.

In stories that are more personal than any that she?s written before, Alice Munro pieces her family?s history into gloriously imagined fiction. A young boy is taken to Edinburgh?s Castle Rock, where his father assures him that on a clear day he can see America, and he catches a glimpse of his father?s dream. In stories that follow, as the dream becomes a reality, two sisters-in-law experience very different kinds of passion on the long voyage to the New World; a baby is lost and magically reappears on a journey from an Illinois homestead to the Canadian border.

Other stories take place in more familiar Munro territory, the towns and countryside around Lake Huron, where the past shows through the present like the traces of a glacier on the landscape and strong emotions stir just beneath the surface of ordinary comings and goings. First love flowers under the apple tree, while a stronger emotion presents itself in the barn. A girl hired as summer help, and uneasy about her ?place? in the fancy resort world she?s come to, is transformed by her employer?s perceptive parting gift. A father whose early expectations of success at fox farming have been dashed finds strange comfort in a routine night job at an iron foundry. A clever girl escapes to college and marriage.

Evocative, gripping, sexy, unexpected?these stories reflect a depth and richness of experience. The View from Castle Rock is a brilliant achievement from one of the finest writers of our time.

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Independent Stories that Fit Together

The art of short story writing is by no means dead. Looking at the stacks of new books and best sellers in a book store today would give you the impression that everything belongs to the full length novel. Alice Munro has created almost a new form of writing. She specializes in short stories that kind of fit together to tell a more complete story of her life.

The stories in this book definitely fall into that category. They are individual stories, complete and independent, but taken together seem to represent what has happened to a person going through life and growing up.

In the second part of this book, called 'Home' Ms. Munro has said that they had not been published before because they were too personal. This book, along with her other ten collections of short stories and one novel represent a body of work that isn't exactly autobiographical but which seem to represent her life.

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More attention to the truth of life

In her latest collection of short stories, "The View From Castle Rock", Canadian writer Alice Munro says in the introduction that these `pay more attention to the truth of life than fiction usually does' - but she also adds that `not enough to swear on'. That is how her writing is in "The View From Castle Rock" - part fiction, part family history investigation.

Family and personal history have always been chief themes in her dozen collection of stories - but here these themes are more important since she is investigating her own family. As she points out, she has written in first person previously - but not like in these stories, in which she is closer to the subject than ever.

But above all, she defends that these `are stories' - in opposition of a non-fiction book. In this sense, fiction is the vehicle for something bigger that even truth couldn't reach. The first part of the book is called No Advantages and investigates the early history of her family beginning in Scotland in a place called Ettrick Valley. Her people - a part of her family called Laidlaw - move to America in hope of finding a better life.

In the stories of this section we come across characters such as Will O'Phaup, James Laidlaw and some unforgettable others. In this part we can also find one of the best stores of the collection - the one that gives the title to the book.

The second part, Home, we move closer to the present and the writer herself is a character in all of them. As she says also in the foreword, she put herself in the center and wrote about that self, as searchingly as she could. But since these are stories, one is never sure of what is true and what is fiction. But since Munro writer with such assurance, this the point - who cares? - what is important here is how she is able to bring life out of these stories.

Alice Munro is certainly one of the best short stories writers of our time. Her Chekhovian realism is a pleasure as is her storytelling ability. When one finishes this book, or any other of hers, the reader has the feeling of knowing a little more about human beings and life.

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Overall very nice for a first-time Munro reader

I cannot compare "The View from Castle Rock" to other works by Alice Munro. This is my first. The quality is excellent. There is not a weak entry among the stories. However, one must assume that this is not one of her elite collections, as the stories don't leap out as something that would qualify her as one of the very best writers. Perhaps it is the family history and autobiographical nature of the collection, as they don't provide an opportunity for fresh, creative ideas or inventive characterizations. With the background a relative given, Ms. Munro still writes beautifully and the stories flow so easily, much as if she were telling you them personally.

"Working for a Living" is exceptional, with its insight into her parents and a look at the spartan existence and struggle to get by that dominated the lives of her family and the rural poor and near-poor. Once the stories moved to Canada and more recent generations, the window into the daily grind and the ambition to rise above it may actually be considered the main theme. The window was both direct, as in her parents' jobs, or indirect, as in the fine segment where teenaged Alice worked for the summer as a maid for a wealthy family. The author moves easily between detached observation of the world around her and deep emotional attachment to the very same people and society.

Even though to a wealthy family or one more middle class, the characters in the second section may appear relatively homogeneous, one can see the class distinctions, at least as envisioned by the Laidlaws. Some people seemed content with their "place", whereas others, such as her family, wanted more, tried for more, and showed intellectual spark. Alice's summer as a maid naturally showed that the distinctions at home were relatively modest, when compared to the wealthy. Even so, it's not surprising that young Alice rose to a higher level as an adult, beyond just the much-risen tide of post-war Canadian life.

This collection is probably not the best primer for Alice Munro. The second part of the book reads more like excerpts from a memoir than her traditional "short stories". My interest has been piqued by these fine stories, and I will seek out another of her works.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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