Reflections on some Alice Munro paradigms

Alice has said “I'm very interested in the present, in the culture as it is right now, but I always want to tie it in to what I remember. Anyone my age has seen a lot of change in social attitudes, in the fabric of the culture that surrounds people's lives. I'm interested in how that affects people”

This resonates with me like the Hidden Hills History Animation project in LaPêche Québec – how has the cultural fabric evolved and what has that implied for individuals and communities. I find it powerful that communities such as Low are working hard to breath new life into themselves through a diverse strategy that includes history celebration and technology mastery.

Alice has also said “In about three quarters of what I write I reach a point fairly early on when I think I’m going to abandon the story. I get myself through a day or two of bad depression, grouching around. And I think of something else I can write. It’s sort of like a love affair: you’re getting out of all the disappointment and misery by going out with some new man you don’t really like at all, but you haven’t noticed that yet. Then, I will suddenly come up with something about the story that I abandoned; I will see how to do it. But that only seems to happen after I’ve said, No, this isn’t going to work, forget it. This whole process might take up to a week, the time of trying to think it through, trying to retrieve it, then giving it up and thinking about something else, and then getting it back, usually quite unexpectedly, when I’m in the grocery store or out for a drive. I’ll think, Oh well, I have to do it from the point of view of so-and-so, and I have to cut this character out, and of course these people are not married, or whatever. The big change, which is usually the radical change.”

I find this a very interesting metaphor for life – particularly how to deal with those frequent encounters with the point where something we are working on might fail, or not be worthwhile. There is a process of engagement that is important – a Buddhist like openness to the feelings. And an expectation that while in the grocery store – we do need to go shopping regularly – we may stumble upon that radical change that can make it work.