APAVAC Reading Club (Part 2)

By Michelle Ann Prabhu

Hiya!
> While looking up last year’s Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, I came across an article that mentioned that two of her “short” stories  had been made into “full length” films.   That really aroused my curiosity….and the collection of short stories under the name Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage…was what I chose to read.

>
> Unlike most impact-causing books set in high-flying locations that shock us to the core, this book has its stories set in small town Canada.  The characters are, without exception, ordinary people doing stock, mundane, run-of-the-mill stuff.  Yet, you find yourself spellbound, watching Ms Munro unmasking the personae in each story. The irony here being how the ordinary could possibly grip one so!
>
> Her unblinking observations catalogue details with an unbiased precision that seems to border on the cold.  These penetrating descriptions find parallels in what could so easily be our own lives.  The myriad of thoughts and feelings coursing through us while we hold an urn of a loved one’s ashes, an unexpected happy ending to a seemingly far fetched relationship, a relative with an air of superiority paying a condescending visit to the family, catching up with an old friend and wishing circumstances were different.  We use relationships as stepping stones in pretty much the same way as Queenie does, we’ve lost friends our age unexpectedly and we’d dread having to look after a partner whose mind is drifting further and further away from reality.
>
> We too, often relate our everyday stories but tend to let our bias guide our listener, Alice Munro doesn’t.  This master storyteller, simply….tells the story!!!
>
> With our next book, Love in a Headscarf, a chick lit novel, we accompany the author Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, in her quest for a husband.
>