THE PROGRESS OF LOVE
by Steve Rogers
29th October 2012
The "New Yorker" has an excellent monthly short fiction podcast in which an author reads a short story published by another author in the New Yorker and discusses why he admires it with the magazines fiction editor. Inspired by a reading of "Axis" a fine short story by Alice Munro I took the plunge and read this collection of short stories by Alice Munro published in 1985. To put some perspective on this - she was born 1931 and started publishing stories in the 60s. Axis was published in 2011.
The stories in "Progress of Love" are quite long - about 30 pages each and demand time and attention by the reader. They often open in a tangential fashion and it is not until you are some way in the story you realize what or who the main subject is. She is interested in relationships, especially couples and children and in a few sentences of observation or dialog can convey much meaning.
Take for example the first story which gives the collection it's title - "The progress of Love" This starts with a Father phoning his daughter to tell that her Mother died. We then get some details of the Mother, how religious she was and of her Fathers life now in a care home. After this we go back to the narrator being twelve years old and helping her Mother to prepare for a rare visit by her Aunt. The Aunt, a career woman who arrives with her boy friend is very different from her Mother and Father who are farmer types and quite poor. The central and shocking event in the story is how the narrators Mother is witness to her Mothers (the narrators Grandmothers) attempted suicide. This is by no means the end of the story. The aunts visit revisits this subject and presents a new perspective on the story and the characters.
Having read this story it seemed kind of familiar to me. I read one or two more stories and gradually remembered I have read this book in the past (maybe not all the stories). This was probably about 20 years ago and I doubt the stories would have appealed to me then - I probably read one or two and went on to something else. The stories worked better for me this time but they were still a bit to "clever" for me and there is a certain coldness and distance about them that keeps you from getting too close to the characters. So whilst admiring these stories I don't think I will be reading any more Munro - maybe I will try again 20 years on.....
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