Saturday, June 02, 2007
Edith
One thing, among many, that really intrigues me about Munro is that she acknowledges that life is about loose ends — and that's where a lot of suffering and angst come from, but also a lot of opportunity and growth. She doesn't try to artificially tie up all the loose ends at the end of a story — stories don't really end, do they, until we die? — but she does give a satisfying accounting of where characters are at that particular point and she usually intimates or outright states that even that point of view or situation will change. No emotion is the final one, to borrow from T.S. Eliot. A number of these stories span a major part of a girl's life, and we get a glimpse of her change in perspective from Point A to Point B, and often there's an implication that the hard-won wisdom of today will be even different down the road. In this first story, the action per se really concerns Johanna, but Johanna is this molded personality already — almost out of the author's (Munro's) hands in her determination, just as she defies the attempted manipulations of the girls who wish to be the author of her fate — so Munro narrates how Johanna plowed ahead into a new life, and it's lovely to behold, but I think what really concerns her are the girls who see themselves as puppetmasters, the girls who, like many writers vis-a-vis their characters, don't know who the hell they're dealing with. That's, I think, why in the end she comes back to Edith (one of many clever young women in this book whom Munro seems to identify with) and shows that she is stung by the knowledge of Johanna's fate, dismayed, insulted, but also bored and wondering why the "antics of her former self" should be connected with her present self. Who hasn't felt that way as a young person — a disconnect between the things you do and who you are? And Munro leaves us with an image of Edith's "real self that she expected would take over once she got out of this town and away from all the people who thought they knew her." This, I think, is an ironic nod to Johanna because that's exactly what she did, thanks in part to the girls' manipulations: She became the mistress of her own affairs, and got out of the town, surprising all the people who thought they knew her. At the end, it's like Munro is assessing Edith, with all her youthful dynamism and haughtiness and room for growth, and asking: Will you fare as well, my dear?
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11 comments:
Erin mentioned the Latin at the end and how some find it contrived. I think what's more important than the Latin is the "chill of satisfaction" that Edith has at the end. For me, with or without the Latin crutch, the chill was meant to signify the thrill of not knowing what the future holds, despite various people pulling at your strings, as she had pulled at Johanna's and Ken's. A sense of freedom, of life's being what you make of it.
And this "chill satisfaction" might well become a "cold realization" 20 years down the road.
This is an excellent assessment, kc.
There is definitely a sense, though, I think, that despite all your plans in life, despite whatever clever manipulations of your own, things will sometimes turn out quite different from what you had anticipated or desired. So although Edith fancies an exciting and successful future for herself, she cannot know "what fate has in store" in that case, either.
Thanks.
Yes, agreed, definitely, on the second part of your comment!
I think Munro really enjoys the disparities between how characters think their lives will turn out and how they in fact do — or the diparities between what people think will make them happy and what actually does.
"She doesn't try to artificially tie up all the loose ends at the end of a story ..."
Right on. I have only read the first two stories, but what I love thus far (prematurely, no doubt) is that she doesn't put a tragic or poignant spin on each story. I love authors like Joyce Carol Oates (kc mentioned earlier), Flannery O'Connor, Kate Bowen, but some of their most cited works have an ordinary character who falls prey to some malevolent influence and learns a tragic or deadly lesson. Instead Munro has ordinary characters (in one and two) who, despite the manipulations of those around them, are going to persevere. (God, I LOVE that second story!) I'm going to enjoy reading Munro's other stories and actually be in suspense about what happens to the main characters. It would be easier to write a powerful story if it has a tragedy, and Munro doesn't need it.
I said something like this in an earlier e-mail to kc, but I love how Munro leaves Edith, a thwarted villain, stuck with her Latin assignment. (Here she is, academically speaking, an adult forced to wait out her childhood until her body and her emotional maturity catch up with her.)
Maybe the Latin was supposed to sound like a punishing form of homework. It has more heft than, "as she sat down with a copy of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice.'"
Ditto, kc. A fine assessment.
I agree, cl, I think Munro very deftly avoids the temptation of turning these stories into predictable tragedies. There is so much more possibility in a less tragic ending.
a thwarted villain, stuck with her Latin assignment.
Well said, dear. You've sold me on the Latin ending, regardless of its content!
Elizabeth Bowen. Shoot me if I ever do that again. (Must have been thinking Kate Chopin?)
Oh my god, I was wondering whether you had a hybrid Elizabeth Bowen/Kate Chopin. Have you read Bowen's "Death of the Heart," by the way?
I never have! Over lunch I broke out my old copy of Fiction 100 and started looking up all the classic short stories I want to re-read now. All your fault, Erin! All your fault!
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