Last year, I was rummaging through a used bookstore to see what titles would catch my eye. Somewhere among the endless titles was the author Alice Munro, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning anthology “Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You” was staring back at me. With curiosity, I bought it with the intent of seeing if there was something about her prose that spoke to me. With phenomenal blurbs on the back, I’ve taken up the challenge of working my way through these pages to see if I have found a new favorite. Given that she has a fascination with time and interpersonal relationships, I’m sure this will be a fulfilling journey. The only way to find out is to dive right in.
Unlike many authors I plan to cover throughout Short Stop’s existence, the big appeal of covering Munro’s 13 story anthology is my lack of awareness. This was an impulse buy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film adapted from her work. Like last year’s journey with William Faulkner, the big goal is to answer the question of who is Alice Munro and why is she highlighting this work. I’ve chosen a less dense work that is hopefully more accessible, so here’s hoping that what follows is a satisfying ride. With that said, starting with the story “Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You” is one of the great introductions that really throws you into the deep end with her. Without any awareness of her approach, having a story that jumps across decades that features multiple loves and deaths is quite a staggering read. It was maybe a bit difficult to fully appreciate what she was doing, but once the groove is found, there is something thrilling about the anticipation I’ve formed going forward.
As far as I can tell, the story is not presented in a direct narrative, but instead a snapshot of various characters who enter at exit through various points in the story. The most noteworthy is the narrator Et, who is mostly an observer. She is a smart woman who desperately longs for romance and normal life, but finds herself at odds with her sister Char. Char is beautiful and despite her desire to not have any suitor, she keeps landing boyfriends that seem to fill her life with joy. Et is an outsider, feeling that animosity as she chooses what details to share with the audience. It could even be argued that her vindictiveness causes her to warp facts and make the audience believe that she is the virtuous one. Munro’s gift, at least in the framework, is her ability to make the reader try and determine where the honesty lays and who the real antagonist is.
For me personally, the thing that is equally attractive to the prose is how Munro’s various sections build on morbid concepts. In the opening section, everyone is on a journey that takes them to America. There they find various gravesites and an allusion to history in the past tense. There is a sense of death already looming over the prose. As things go on, there’s references to ghosts and suicides that help to make the reader feel the implicit dread of what’s to come. Et is so overwhelmed with death that she sees it everywhere. Munro’s ability to make the initial trajectory feel impenetrable also allows the reader to focus more on themes instead of trying to understand what the greater plot is. So far it’s the story of two women and their brother; a seven-year-old who drowns early in the story. As one can guess this leaves behind grief for the family, though it comes with a fair amount of speculation.
Munro isn’t someone who makes her subtext all that obvious. In fact, a certain devious theory emerges for those who take time to slow down and read into Et’s prose. Throughout the section where she details her brother’s death, one can pull out the suggestion that Et was responsible for his death. Given that she has vindictiveness towards Char, it’s easy to see the potential for her to lash out at others in desperate attempts to eliminate those she’s jealous of. She is someone who wants to be loved, but never finds the convenient answer for it. She notes other times when people consume blue substances in failed suicide attempts or even eating disorders that may be holding back something miserable. Still, Char is the beautiful one and there is some joy in watching her deteriorate, if just to get the love of her life.
His name is Arthur. Early in the story, he is discussed in relation to chivalry and knighthood, being compared to King Arthur. While this can be seen as a heroic gesture, from Et’s perspective it may as well be an allusion to the story “The Death of Arthur” where the king is killed in a murder plot. Given that Et loves Arthur, she’s more willing to go after Char, believing that taking away her beauty will cause Arthur to see her beauty. For someone who is seen as smart, her ego gets the best of her and she does some dumb things. She is trapped in her own desire, unable to move away from this tragic falling out. While they had a moment of joy earlier in their lives, Et is unable to move past it. She is trapped in the past, as if buried in her own misery. It explains why she sees herself as a ghost, haunting these events until she possesses what she ultimately wants.
The perspective is evident as it is misleading the more that one reads into Et. Is she entitled to a romance that has passed her by? Is Char really the villain of the piece or is there a lot of hearsay going on? This is all up for the reader to determine, but Et could just as well have found ways to move beyond these loves that weren’t meant to be. She could be an optimistic person who saw what worked for Char and Arthur and be happy. Instead, she’s stuck ruminating on what she can’t change. She is doomed to die alone with this secret. That is, unless she can stab the knife one last time.
It isn’t entirely clear what kills Char, but one thing is clear: Et is going to be there to make her final moments miserable. There’s the theory that she died from illness or even a decaying body. Her eyesight has been going out and her body has grown more anorexic. She is far from the pretty face that she starts the story with. Some could argue that because the rat poison is missing that she accidentally consumed some. Whatever it may be, it’s not clear whether she died from not taking care of her health or from a tragic mishap. Then again, is Et hiding her true intentions from the audience and she set it all up, taking advantage of her sister’s senility? If you believe she murdered her brother, it’s easier to believe she is downright demonic.
Who knows if she even loved Arthur, or if his description is even accurate. Does Et describing his slide into poor decision-making accurate? Whatever it may be, the title appears in the final paragraph as the final knife twist. She recalls a seemingly innocent memory from earlier in the text where Et and Arthur were happy doing performing arts together. She thinks of a picture they took together and how it has bothered her for years. Does this really exist, or is this all an emotional ploy to make her seem better than she is?
Again, it’s difficult to really determine who is the antagonist of this piece because Munro is an expert in making the characters exist in a morally grey area. One of the things that stands out for me is how over 23 pages, she has managed to cover decades of plot. Most short stories would be good to cover a few days, but Munro clearly is already playing with time in a way that forces one to notice Et’s long con. There is an effort to make the difficult moments feel mundane, allowing everything to feel like a natural extension of life and these small exchanges reveal character details without forcing the audience to recognize them. If anything, it’s the type of story that makes you want to restart it immediately to find out what you may have missed. What was the deal with Et and Char’s relationship, and what was the deal with the puppeteer? Without being frustrating, this feels like a story that has enough ambiguity to leave readers hypothesizing for days while highlighting different passages.
One of my hopes is that I’m able to find research and historical connections with Munro. For now, I’ve mostly found one article that analyzes the story. I think the most interesting detail that I’ve found is the etymology of the two names. Both could be shortened versions of longer names; Et for Harriet and Char for Charlotte. It can be suggested that these names were chosen in this way not so much as nicknames, but because of their symbolic incompletion. They don’t feel like whole people, and thus they spend the story desperately trying to find their whole identity. It’s never outright said in the story, but it's easy to suggest given how self-reflective Et’s narrative tries to be. Also, the article makes allusions to the idea that maybe they’re play on words of destruction, notably Et for eat and Char for charred, reflecting things that ultimately lead to Char’s demise.
The final thing that I found interesting about this article is a supposed correlation to The Women’s Rights Movement. Given that this was a time when women were speaking up and expressing themselves, the title alone could reflect things that were long repressed inside of them. While the story of a woman trying to suppress another’s happiness may not seem feminist, it can be seen as a cautionary tale on freedom. There is difficulty for everyone to be free and happy, and thus creates rifts that result in sourness and revenge. Char’s freedom means that Et is imprisoned by her emotions. Even if this is a broad look at the subject, there’s something to be said about how society’s change informed many women’s views of the world. While freedom is desired, there’s a chance that it won’t be delivered in the way that one wants.
As an introduction to Munro, I’m personally impressed with what she achieves over this story. What starts as something unassuming slowly becomes more morbid, unveiling a mystery that also ties into a great character study of how years of repression can ultimately be harmful. But again, does Et deserve happiness or is she lying her way into appearing more sympathetic? While I do believe at this point that Munro has a sympathetic view of feminism, I think she’s also keen on exploring how perspective matters and what it means to be a dishonest narrator. Families can be torn apart over jealousy, and that’s clearly what happened here. I loved this journey and hope that the stories to follow can capture as much of a rapturous, thought-provoking punch as this one. It's so full of detail that even if it runs through time a bit too quickly, it stops long enough to show you moments where things could’ve been changed for the better. It’s all about what we choose to do with that freedom of choice.
Coming Up Next: “Material”
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