Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness

Alice Munro

Too Much Happiness

Vintage 2009

ISBN: 9780099524298

$22.95, 303pp, paper back

I have chosen Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness as an example of literary fiction, specifically to demonstrate something of the art of writing the short story. If you haven’t studied the foundations of short stories, a good starting point is getting to know and understand how a story has traditionally been structured and how conventions of literary forms can be subverted and reassembled, which is something that Munro has accomplished to some degree; she really has mastered a contemporary approach to story writing.  Within these exploded and revised form’s she has established something new, her writing makes sense.

Munro has been compared to the great master of short stories Chekov, she is influential in the same respect, he is known as a master of the short story and his work is seminal. Likewise Munro fundamentally changes expectations of the Short Story form, whilst stylistically resembling another great Canadian female author, Margaret Atwood in her dialogue and narrative and like Atwood, she writes about women; also the mood and pace of life within these stories are similar- set mostly in rural Canada, there is also a pace,  silence and sharp observations of human character and morality, but without judgement; not questioned, but presented as being causative of events, and shown in detail, objectively and through the narrative rather than stated explicitly. Whilst many of the settings in Too Much Happiness are in Canada, Munro does set some of her stories in Europe: London, Sweden, France and Russia.

Munroe’s stories shift in time and place. Some of them, may cover a 30-year period. Like many authors of her time, she has abandoned the three unities found in the 19^th century literary classics and established by Aristotle in Ancient Greece (350 BC) in his book Poetics. These rules were set out for plays on a Greek stage. They are: Unity of Action; A play should have one main action, with few subplots; Unity of place: the play should take place in one setting or location; Unity of Time: the play should take place over 24 hours. This convention has been subverted by major literary revolutions during World Wars I and II. Munro redefines the short story and defies all of these conventions and from this has emerged a new form with new clarity and sense of purpose.

One good example is Munros Childs Play, where subplots, different locations and time frames are explored. Child’s Play is about a girl who has an intellectual disability, her death at the hands of two other girls, and the long-term effects on their lives. The story is told over at least a thirty-year period, and the events revolve around the central tragedy. It is a story about morality and ethics, and the protagonist seems somehow detached, like an objective reporter. Similarly Wood is unfolds over many years and is a story about Marriage, Partnership and parenthood. It is also a statement on demographics, on the characters and on their relationship with a working-class female who takes on a trade in carpentry. The man she works for is from a middle-class background, university educated, but involved in traditionally working class jobs. Class mobility, seems to be a theme here, and class lines are blurred. Munro’s stories also carry with them her relatively educated, yet domesticated, ‘civilised’ world view; her characters have professions, they generally eat meals together, and although there is often a central character who does not, they do family activities. This is not a voice from the fringes, her characters are Carpenters, Doctors, Teachers, Academics, Cafeteria workers, however they mostly live in rural areas. The characters live within a middle-class milieu, regardless of their social demographic. Munro’s voice is important regardless of the heterosexual colour of her books, there are no gay characters in her stories, the people take on traditional, well-regarded social roles. She seems to be critical of her surroundings however and I believe this perspective is of value and is what makes her voice interesting, possibly important. For the most part, her lead characters are women; she subverts psychological truths of individuals, looks at truths within a domestic framework, and within schools and colleges and places of employment where women might exist and she represents women of modest to middle class accomplishments. The men are nearly almost always educated and white. Each story is different yet will share some motifs from other stories. I believe that she avoids clichés, by telling her stories with acuity and accuracy, which has helped her longevity as an author. 

Author Jasmin Sara Moret- Former BA student at the University of Sydney and Drama student of Newtown High School of Performing Arts, NSW. Also hold a Diploma of Popular Music Performance from JMC and a Certificate III in Live Production and Services from Brisbane’s College of Theatre Practice. Student of Creative Writing via Griffith University (Open University)

rupi kaur the sun and her flowers A Critical Review of Mainstream Fringe Culture

Rupi Kaur, Simon and Schuster

ISBN Number: 978-1-4711-6582-5

 Price: $24.95

Number of pages: 248

Paperback

Rupi Kaur studied rhetoric at University of Waterloo in Ontario and spent hours with her family dissecting Punjabi Folk poetry. Kaur’s origin and gender are never mentioned directly in her book of poetry and illustrations “The Sun and her Flowers”. She is from a Punjabi background and has lived in Canada with her family since she was four years of age. It seems to me that Kaur may have restrained herself from expressing her identity through her gender and her race, so as not to lose a feeling of authenticity and worldwide relevance. Despite being read differently and favourably abroad from Canada, she finds still finds a strong connection with audiences in her adopted homeland in Canada and America, There is something very big and important happening there, in fact there is a new, flourishing explosion of important, young female poets, a renaissance, strewn with voices from the margins, LGBT, Women from war torn-countries, people from migrant backgrounds and black people that seek to redefine the old antiquated parts of a largely western literary scene and gain acceptance and fame within that demographic, updating the cannon with a burgeoning new voice, within the western world. Kaur leads the trend, this is the scene especially in Canada and America and it is significant part of a new socio-political psyche.

Kaur, was discovered on Instagram and besides being a great writer, her popularity is extremely large, notably in the English-speaking world. Incredibly, according to Book Net Canada, in Canada “between 2016 and 2017 the units sold (poetry) increased by 154%” It is odd perhaps but Rupi Kaur’s work to date has been at the centre of this literary revolution, In Canada and nearby America, the statistics are incredible. She is now a huge literary celebrity in the west, yet this isn’t the complete picture.

Kaur, is an intersectional poet to the west, whom might not be as rigorous or critical as her grass roots poet peers. Kaur has been noticed and perhaps has moved into the mainstream market, she is widely accessible. I’m not sure that all artists are comfortable when this happens as poetry can be personal, political and transformative to the few that need to hear. The work of poets is important as it can hold a necessary candle out for the disenfranchised, outnumbered and marginalised, sometimes this is not fit for nor relevant, to the mass market, the musings may be vulnerable and private for the outnumbered to find solidarity that most could not relate to, this work could not become a monetised commodity. The biggest criticism that intersectional Poets face from academics is that the work is a confessional spectacle and the artist, is guilty of a kind of grotesque flogging of oneself as a product within a market place. Meanwhile the truth might be is that some of us just need to talk when it is relevant, authentic, critical and honest, and then it can be a balm to the culture, individuals and the society that contains it. Disappointingly particularly in the west, seemingly the poets become the sum total of the binaries they represent and consumable at that, there might be the tendency of artists to rely on the same bag of tricks, to contextualise everything within a socio-political framework, it’s a narrow focus and can only be remedied over through making important relevant work accessible.

I feel that “The Sun and Her Flowers” is perhaps cautious about over presenting issues of feminism, gender, race, family and culture as a study of herself and yet it is still categorised and contextualised this way to some degree. The poems are translated into 30 different languages, regardless, the nuances of her Punjabi culture are there in the way Kaur uses words, the lack of capital letters and punctuation, the syntax of which are of her native tongue yet intermingled to create something universal, As a major departure from this critical framework, it’s important to note that contexts change according to audiences. Luckily, there is an worldwide buzz extending beyond the western world, the conversation seems to transcend some of these binaries, the literary criticisms no longer make sense overseas from her new homeland Canada, Kaur travels and talks to people from her old homeland and she is available to others from Non-English speaking countries. If we follow Kaur, in her career, the academic lens is transformed via an international stage, transcending this  traditional western centric interpretation, we are forced to embrace the world if we participate in the conversation.

I enjoyed reading “The Sun and Her Flowers”, I liked the way the words were placed together, small, poignant, psychological snippets, luminous, fragile personal statements, in poetic form that can be read as a stand-alone poem or be followed as a linear emotional journey, or story. In a western context, Kaur, like some of her peers are the subject and the artist all at the same time. It is interesting that in Punjabi, Kaur comes from a different a tradition where folk poetry is verbally delivered by all, the author is always anonymous, these musings were not a commodity that could be bought, in the western world this is not so. Through Kaur, where anonymity was required within her culture of her country of birth, celebrity status has ensued, throughout the world.

Author Jasmin Sara Moret- Former BA student at the University of Sydney and Drama student of Newtown High School of Performing Arts, NSW. Also hold a Diploma of Popular Music Performance from JMC and a Certificate III in Live Production and Services from Brisbane’s College of Theatre Practice. Student of Creative Writing via Griffith University (Open University)