As always, Alice Munro impresses with her beautiful writing style. Right now, these stories tugged a little too hard at my heart strings and I came away from them feeling sad. ( )

Excellent. ( )

The Progress of Love - 2
Lichen - 3
Monsieur Les Deux Chapeaux - 2
Miles City, Montana - 4
Fits - 3
The Moon in the Orange Street Skating Rink - 3
Jesse and Meribeth - 4
Eskimo - 2
A Queer Streak - 4
Circle of Prayer - 3
White Dump - 2 ( )

Alice Munro is an acclaimed writer but I just can't get into her writing. I believe there must be something deeper in her stories but I just can't fathom what it is. ( )

I tried earlier to read this author's first short story collection, Dance of the Happy Shades, and could find neither content nor style to keep me engaged. This collection was published about 18 years later and shows remarkable leaps to the skills I would hope all Nobel Prize winners in Literature would have. The author constantly shows remarkable insight into her characters and nuances in their situations that most other writers never approach. Have you ever had a situation where a parent or teacher or other key person made remarks to you and others in a group, seemingly not talking to you anymore directly than to the others, but in which you knew unquestionably that the person was relating a message intended specifically for your edification? They knew something you had done or were contemplating doing or had experienced, and they were masking their lecture to you in the form of a general group message. They knew. And they wanted you to know that they knew. But without ever letting anybody else know. The first story in this collection hit me hard in just that way. The author said she knew something significant about me -- in detail -- without ever using my name or town or anything connected to me in that way. Unfortunately, about half-way through the collection, it seemed she was talking intimately to other readers and my level of interest dissipated somewhat. That's okay. I suspect she'll have another message just for me in another collection and I'll be ready to absorb every word. ( )