Runaway

I had always ignored Munro until the moment she won the Nobel Prize. I mean, how could a woman who wrote about such mundane things ever interest me. How wrong I was. Her writing soars, no gimmicks, just clear, deceptively simple prose with startling insight. These stories are devastatingly beautiful, especially Silence, which i devoured only to realize after that nothing really happened in the story. As much as I love great writing, I also love plot and crave action, I need the story to move. And Munro did move me, though not in the way I'd expected, in a way I almost disliked but still couldn't help being moved. Her characters are unpredictable and seem not to know what they're going to do until they actually do them, and though this might at times make them seem unbelievable, since they're far from what we've come to expect in modern fiction, these women are superbly crafted, not to mention sort of crazy. Even the young girl in the story Trespasses was disturbing and there was a nice twist at the end. I also liked Tricks even though the twist has been used many times before (a thing Munro herself alludes to). All in all, this was an excellent collection. I will be reading Munro for the rest of my life.

Alice Munro is a wonderful storyteller. She is an expert in short story writing, and I have read enough of them to compare. Runaway is no exception. After having read Dear Life, I thought I would try Runaway, after reading the sterling reviews on the book. I must say I was not disappointed. Personally, I like a writer who focuses on the depth of the character, on what makes them "tick", so to speak. Every story in this book had this type of character. Maybe it's just because I can identify with them, and say to myself, "yes, I know how they feel". All I know is that each one is so richly developed, likable or not. I highly recommend, and cannot wait to read another book by this author.

I’ve always loved Alice Munro’s stories. The first collection I read was Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, back in college. Her writing style is simple but the writing is thought-provoking. I often can’t help but thinking about her story for many days after I read it. Very often I read a story many times but still don’t get it completely. I think that’s how a good piece of literature should feel, the meaning is there but it leaves plenty of room for interpretation.

I am not usually a fan of short stories but this book may have converted me. Alice Munro's collection hits you where it hurts. She is not a "happy" writer, but a soulful one. At times, you feel as though she has peeked in your closet or underwear drawer and found out about your heartaches or secrets. For the "loner" who doesn't really want to feel "oh-so-alone", this collection may make you feel, somehow, inexplicably connected to the world. I read and re-read pages because I didn't want to let go of the feelings she stirred with a few well-chosen words. If you don't connect with someone in one of her stories, you either haven't lived, are exceptionally lucky, or haven't thought about the complexity of the human spirit, the randomness of life events, or the dimensions of a well-experienced life.

This book was unlike any I have read, with possibly the exception of "Olive Kittridge." The stories were deeply detailed; I sometimes wondered why certain passages were included. But, for the most part, I found them interesting and thought provoking. Each story touched on a turning point in a character's life; some event or realization that altered her perception of her life and surroundings, both past and present. The book was somewhat of a testament to how our views and opinions change as we grow older and learn to accept and appreciate our mortality. A strange and memorable read, my first of Alice Monro; I believe I will read more.

I listened to the fine audio version of this and recommend it highly. Munro has the ability to take plots which if described mechanically, as one reviewer did, can sound formulaic (one could say the same of Shakespeare) but never read that way. Sometimes we want to know more, as her characters do, but Munro recognizes the falsity in that. A less talented writer would have made Juliet's story into a tragic melodrama but instead she gives us a haunting portrayal of the consequences of Juliet's character and her choices. Great fiction doesn't always give us what we think we want, but instead helps us understand more fully the challenges of living. She is as deserving of a Nobel prize as any living writer in english. The first story, the title story, was in some ways the weakest. It is pretty good, but if you are a little uncertain after reading it, keep going.One of the reviewers seems to think that Munro is southern, which, of course, she is not.

If Munro was a film-maker, she would make the sort of films I like; those which focus on character development, subtle detail and the small tragedies of everyday life.Some short story writers I can think of are William Trevor( whom I find acidic, clever,cold and somewhat cruel) and Colette who is nearer in terms of both her innate feminism and delicate and observant style.Neither are the same as Munro. She is neare Edith Pearlman, but less magnanimous and comforting than her. This is no criticism, it is a different style, shot through with strange observations, the difficulties of being female and feminine and still wanting it all.She is not an overtly humorous writer, although there is humour in some of her situations; an elderly 'girl' mother being bathed with her baby granddaughter by the baby's rather hypercritical and over-educated mother.The routing of a pastor's entrenched religious beliefs by a fiercely intelligent atheist who in her youthful argumenation, does not realise that a pathetic belief is all the man has to support him against his fear of death.The sudden menstruation of a young girl after a suicide; the evacuation of blood somehow horribly linked in her mind with the casual way she had treated the man's loneliness.He fear of having caused his death rendered ridiculous by a fellow traveller who falls in love with her.You will notice that the humour is astringently delicate and rests on misunderstanding and human arrogance.I felt the stories veracious, as though they were entirely true little insights into love, ageing, loss and the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to.Lives fill and empty like the ebb and flow of some metaphysical tide.A woman loses her adored daughter for no really good reason other than her mind is apparently slightly messed up by a slightly unimpressive retreat group who have convinced her that her mother is lacking in charitable and worthy intentions.He life continues parallel to her mother's but the two are separated by a gulf of unresolved misunderstanding. He mother's pain matures to resignation and even a reluctance to admit her daughter's existence to partners.Wheels turn but their is no comfortable tying up, we are forced to live with the losses and sadnesses of the characters, as indeed we have to live with our own.If this sounds heavyweight, it isn't. The prose is delicate, disarmingly so. Conversation is to the point and characters speak as you feel they really would. Details are added to add poignancy, a man's vulnerability is transmuted into a stomach described as a 'white pancake'. We do not disdain the characters, we feel for them as we would in a Chekhov story. There is humanitas here and also seamlessness. Any abrupt ending is intended.One of the most unlikeable characters is the horribly louche and sinister riding school owner to whom his often melancholic wife has a terrible physical addiction unquenched even by an implied brutality. Her emotional delicacy is belied by her physical abilities and herein lies the key, the flesh is very weak. This reminds of Tennessee Williams' characters with their hidden quirks and sexual peculiarities.Another unlikeable character, is the subtly dreadful and monosyllabic Irene whose hairy primal qualities have entranced a girl's father, invading her dreams with Freudian symbolism of which she is all too much aware.In Munro the mundane becomes a clear iconography of character, few stereotypes here, and if they are, they know they are!The word which was never said, the thing which was unwittingly left undone, the question as to the mystery of human relationships, attraction and repulsion- these issues are Munro's subject. The letter which skims over the truth, and the lives lived as if we actually knew what we were doing, which basically none of us do. This is truthful and profound.

Each time I reached the end of one of the short stories in Runaway, I felt like in a small way I had seen glimpses into the most intimate and important moments of other people's lives. These stories are charged with emotions, with delicate and subtle feelings, with characters that come out of the page with real naturalness, more than in any other book that comes to mind. Alice Munro is able to paint her characters with great depth, with all their imperfections, with real, natural emotions, and to open up their worlds to us.These may be "short" stories but each one seemed to contain more inside it than most novels I've read. I didn't in the least share the feeling of a previous reviewer who stated that the stories 'left him wanting more'; for me if they were any longer they would simply be too heavy, too demanding. I found their length to be just right. They tell us everything Munro wants to tell us - and with great economy, as she barely puts a word wrong in her beautiful prose.

Stuck in an airport lounge for five hours this collection of short stories saved my sanity. I had been to see the movie by Aldomavar which is loosely based on some of these stories but the writing gives an ever darker edge to these strange tales of women young and old running away and finding new lives and new loves and loosing old loves and old ties along the way. Mesmerising. Once read, these stories are never forgotten.

Alice Munro is one of the greatest short story writers that ever lived. I first came across her work through "Lives of Girls and Women" which I loved and often taught in my English literature classes in a community college in London. This collection includes 3 stories which Pedro Almodovar used as a basis for his most recently released film. If you like Almodovar's films, in general, you will probably like Munro's stories as well.Many of them deal with the issues of women's experiences in the current time. As a male I find her stories enlightening and informative in relation to the female condition which can still be so misunderstood. In some ways I don't feel qualified to write a decent review as I am not a woman - but there is certainly much enjoyment and learning to be had in Munro's writing. She deservedly won the Nobel Prize for literature a year or two ago.

Beautifully written selection of short stories in in taut, elegant prose. These stories invite you to dip into people's lives for a brief period, get to know them - or so you think - over the space of a few pages, then move on. Some people don't like short stories - a bit like meeting a really interesting person on a train, they are left wanting to swap phone numbers and get to know them better. But if you are the kind of person who is satisfied with the perfect little interlude itself, then you 'get' short stories and you will love these as brilliant, haunting examples of the craft.