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Tuesday 17 January 2012

Great Read - Alice Munro


I'm in love again.
I've been reading an astoundingly beautiful book of short stories by Alice Munro, The Moons of Jupiter. It's not new, it's 30 years old now, but those stories will stay fresh as long as people keep on falling in and out of love.
"To celebrate the essential mystery", in her words, is what her writing is about. Not about solving the mysteries of life but experiencing them. And she does it with such finesse, delicacy and love that no matter who she writes about, you can't help but get drawn into her stories.
I love that she doesn't tie up loose ends at the completion of the stories, because life is all frayed at the edges, and the stories are just cut at some point, although you know that those lives, probably a mix of fictional and real characters, do go on.
And more than anything I love her language: natural, graceful, with the power to penetrate into the heart of things, and yours.

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