Rating: 
Summary: Not quite at the Munro level, but still fabulous
Review: The theme of this short story collection is the various paths that love escorts individuals down. Some of the stories are filled with passion; other nostalgia. The characters vary as the stories vary. Love can be man and woman, mother and daughter, siblings, etc. The stories do not always end happily ever after as the characters dive deeper into morass due to one exposure after another of some dark secrets. Alice Munro has a deserved reputation for some of the best literary works of the nineties. Her current anthology, THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN, overall is a well-written collection, but does not seem to reach the level of excellence set by the author in her previous works. Though several of the eight stories are excellent, some of the tales seem to need constant shock therapy to keep the heart pumping as Ms. Munro reveals one new disjointed surprise after another to keep the story line moving, but only jolts the reader's flow. Overall, this is a fabulous book, but readers need to be aware that it is not on the Munro level of quality. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Mushy Middle but Firm Finale
Review: After the first fairly gripping story, the fiction quickly falls into some Alice Mundane prose and it seems like it's going to be that way for the long haul. The author seems to have forgotten the necessity of plot in several stories, and the reader is left dragging along to the end only because of confidence in an otherwise accomplished writer. "Cortes Island" has some worthwhile character development, but "Jakarta" and "Save the Reaper" feel like directionless wandering, as if Munro is playing the grandson's alien chase game with her story development: see a possibility, grab onto it there for a while and see where it goes and then grab onto another. While this technique can certainly be successful and give the image of "living" or "evolution" fiction, it doesn't always work, and these three stories prove it. Furthermore, the "shocking" action of her characters is not believable enough because, despite all the drawn-out development, the reader still can't see the justification in the character's minds. Sure, everyone does the unexpected sometimes, but if all Munro's characters do that, we lose the idea of the story. Pauline, for example, in "The Children Stay," seems to feel too much devotion and affection for her children to be able to just forget them completely for a wild night of sex that leaves her sore, even though they interrupt her life. Most women find that children interfere with the professional, artistic, social (etc) lives they had before becoming mothers, so what sets Pauline apart to actually be able to leave the girls forever for a romance that turns out to be a fling anyway? Munro didn't prepare us enough for her decision, and the story is weakened. The real genius of her work starts to emerge again, though, with "Rich as Stink." A mature little girl and her childish mother create an interesting role reversal which must meet its limits finally in a powerful way, when nature takes charge. This story feels glued together with real intrigue, although the purpose and development of the minor characters could have been improved. "Before the Change" is reminiscent of Munro's previous work, with a letter-writing young woman revealing her story to her (ex) lover. Here we see Munro's capability with powerful character development and loose links which neatly connect in the end. Certainly the finest story in the collection is the last-- "My Mother's Dream" was so intricately handled it is worth an award by itself. Munro provides, finally, a more appropriate number of characters for a short story and is able to present and enrich them throughout the work effectively. She brings us into the world of the family here, pulling us in with suspense and connection, making us truly care about the people and hope for them and with them and get completely involved. Finally, as is true of the entire collection as well, Munro does not disappoint us in the end. Just when you were about to say, "She's losing her knack for the great short story form," she whacks you with three whoppers and whispers, "My dear, I am never too old to tell a great tale."
Rating:
Summary: Mushy Middle but Firm Finale
Review: After the first fairly gripping story, the fiction quickly falls into some Alice Mundane prose and it seems like it's going to be that way for the long haul. The author seems to have forgotten the necessity of plot in several stories, and the reader is left dragging along to the end only because of confidence in an otherwise accomplished writer. "Cortes Island" has some worthwhile character development, but "Jakarta" and "Save the Reaper" feel like directionless wandering, as if Munro is playing the grandson's alien chase game with her story development: see a possibility, grab onto it there for a while and see where it goes and then grab onto another. While this technique can certainly be successful and give the image of "living" or "evolution" fiction, it doesn't always work, and these three stories prove it. Furthermore, the "shocking" action of her characters is not believable enough because, despite all the drawn-out development, the reader still can't see the justification in the character's minds. Sure, everyone does the unexpected sometimes, but if all Munro's characters do that, we lose the idea of the story. Pauline, for example, in "The Children Stay," seems to feel too much devotion and affection for her children to be able to just forget them completely for a wild night of sex that leaves her sore, even though they interrupt her life. Most women find that children interfere with the professional, artistic, social (etc) lives they had before becoming mothers, so what sets Pauline apart to actually be able to leave the girls forever for a romance that turns out to be a fling anyway? Munro didn't prepare us enough for her decision, and the story is weakened. The real genius of her work starts to emerge again, though, with "Rich as Stink." A mature little girl and her childish mother create an interesting role reversal which must meet its limits finally in a powerful way, when nature takes charge. This story feels glued together with real intrigue, although the purpose and development of the minor characters could have been improved. "Before the Change" is reminiscent of Munro's previous work, with a letter-writing young woman revealing her story to her (ex) lover. Here we see Munro's capability with powerful character development and loose links which neatly connect in the end. Certainly the finest story in the collection is the last-- "My Mother's Dream" was so intricately handled it is worth an award by itself. Munro provides, finally, a more appropriate number of characters for a short story and is able to present and enrich them throughout the work effectively. She brings us into the world of the family here, pulling us in with suspense and connection, making us truly care about the people and hope for them and with them and get completely involved. Finally, as is true of the entire collection as well, Munro does not disappoint us in the end. Just when you were about to say, "She's losing her knack for the great short story form," she whacks you with three whoppers and whispers, "My dear, I am never too old to tell a great tale."
Rating:
Summary: The Love of a Good Woman
Review: Alice Munro is able to convey in twenty pages more character and depth than many people understand about themselves or their loved ones in a lifetime. She allows us to embrace our flaws and accept them with grace and understanding. She is an amazing writer and a voice of humanity to be admired.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Snippets of Life
Review: Alice Munro was recommended to me as a master of the short story form and I was not disappointed. This collection is wonderfully deep and complex - simple and ordinary on the surface but seething with subtle passion beneath. Her ability to shift time and viewpoint is effective and powerful. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Stories about relationships that are never resolved.
Review: Alice Munro's stories leave you pondering long after the story has stopped (they never end). These stories look at relationships between inlaws, mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, lovers, friends. It is more a "woman's book" than a man's.
Rating:
Summary: PAST HER PRIME
Review: All things considered, my favourite fictional narrative is the short story. If you read a novel, you may struggle through a hundred pages before realizing that you have wasted your time. A short story can avoid this dilemma by giving the reader either instant gratification or dissatisfaction. Two universal attributes of a great short story are that they are short and that they tell a story. Anything else is a long narrative.
My favorite short story writers are Chekhov, Maupassant with defernce to William Trevor and Penelope Lively
Years ago I read the Moons of Jupiter an earlier collection of Ms. Munroe. They were enjoyable with all the attributes that I look for in a good short story. She has an obvious grasp of human relationships. though the quality that I liked best was the emphasis on choice. Everyone was free to make their own decisions, no Thomas Hardy predeterminism here. The later collection shows a change in technique. Jakarta, Save the Reaper, and Rich as Stink (what a sense of poetry!) are complex stories with frequent shifts of time and place. I find this constant confusion distracting. Please don't abandon the sequential universe!!!
There are however many qualities in this collection that I enjoyed. The first episode with children in a small town in the late forties was similar to my own experience in a mining town during the war. Her portrait of the awful Mrs. Quin was masterly and believable. The problem is that I do not think that the linkages of the three seperate events really succeeds. By far the most successful story is the Children Stay. This is about a Canadian Anne Karinina scting out her role while playing in an amature dramatic production of Anouilh's Orpheus. Here we have a woman willing to leave her husband and family to run away with a semi itinerant for immediate sexual passion, which is of only brief duration. I liked the final scene in Rich as Stink wher Karin, wearing the wedding dress of the wife of her mothers lover suffers third degree burns when it catches fire. This is a nice ironic twist as it implies that marriage for Karin is like playing with fire. Meanwhile Anne and Derek (the mothers lover)
have resumed their marriage and run of into the sunset.
For me Jakarta was the story that provided the most interest. The background and action mostly take place in the sixties. Two couples are used to illustrate the two divergent views of society at that time. Kent and Kathy Mayberry are a conventional careerist couple, Kent being a pharmacist climbing the corporate ladder and Kathy a middle class housewife. Sonia and Cotter are are a counter culture couple. Cotter is a progressive journalist and Sonia the adoring doormat of a wife. The first part trace the friendship of Kathy and Sonia and uses two short stories The Fox by D.H. Lawrence and Kathleen Mansfield's The Bay to show the essential way that these two marriages differ. Kathy sees marriage as an equal partnership though as witnessed in the beach party shes not above having a fling. Sonia is Lawrence's ideal women seeing herself as an adjunct to her husband . She would never cheat on her husband though he openly sleeps with many other woman. The fate of the two couples is interesting. At the end of the story Kent is married to his third wife a girl younger than his daughter . Cotter who disappeared in the late sixties is presumed to have died in Indonesia. We are led to question whether this is genuine or staged. In spite of the implied setup, Sonia still dreams of going to Indonesia to find him. After this event Sonia spends many years looking after Delia Cotter's blind mother. Once a doormat always a doormat.
My final thoughts is that when Ms. Munroe sticks to her regular style she is very good at capturing the time and place of an event. When she expands we are confronted with a blizzard of words hiding cryptic clues and at times a meandering narrative. At this point I long for my Chekhov.
Rating: 
Summary: not her best
Review: First, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Munro. Let me say that "Open Secrets" is THE book (okay, one of the books) I recommend to people for books that I love. And most of her early stuff ain't bad either. Let me say that as a way to lighten my negative opinion about this book. I think this book can be summed up by one of the characters in the first story (I'm paraphrasing) who's thinking about how as she got older she realized that life took more than she had and left her with less. (Something to that effect.) These stories read as if this were Munro's problem too, as if she's given her best and now she's still got to give more and she's out of gas. The stories seem tired. Case in point: she replaces the brilliant connections and observations she used to make in a paragraph with ten-fifteen pages of incidentals. So much seems like padding. Anyone has a hard time topping themselves as they get older, granted. And I think it would be hard for any mortal to write a book like "Open Secrets" in the first place, and I think it's doubly tough to try and top that. Frankly, I think she didn't top it this time or get very close. And I don't know if she's trying so hard. Since "Open Secrets" she's had a "Best of", this collection and the National Book Award. After reading these stories I think the award was given for the body of work she's created and not for the book itself. "The Love of.." feels like a book written to capitalize on someone's reputation and not to capitalize on what lies ahead. And who knows? Maybe she has another "Open Secrets" in her to share. I hope so.
Rating:
Summary: masterful
Review: Get this collection simply for The Children Stay, one of the
most effective evocations of ache and regret ever set down on paper (and then, because she is Alice Munro, she quickly shows us how ultimately meaningless regret can become in an individual life, given time). In her stories, there are no right or wrong choices, there is no fate, and the stories often extend long past the consequences of her characters' actions, for better or worse, often, whatever they've done, however extreme, they are not punished nor rewarded. They are not saved. The moments of recognition or realization are sterling, perhaps, but not permanent in her characters' lives. They go on.
Rating:
Summary: i don't know
Review: i don't kno
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