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 intent on 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.
Here we are at the end of another Short Stop series. When I started the previous series on William Faulkner, I was convinced that I would reach the end with a sense of satisfaction but not closure. Given that I’m exploring the realm of short stories, I had no expectations of every work connecting and building to some greater point. Upon reading the cryptic “Carcassone,” I was blown over by how perfectly it summarized the project. It gave the reader a sense of the journey that the previous pages had taken them on. By some luck, Munro’s anthology continues that trend with “The Ottaway Valley.” It’s yet another mother-daughter story, but when placed in the larger context of every other story, the masterpiece forms a new level of power that works as a personal send-off.
When I started “There’s Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You,” I had no knowledge of Munro as an author. Even as the work caught me off guard with one of the most riveting concluding pages possible, I wasn’t sure what methodical game she was about to play on me. For starters, it was a story of sisters living with regret and how animosity informs their relationship. I was as attracted to the way she played with time, never providing a straightforward trajectory, as she was the human emotion inside. What I kept seeing but didn’t notice until reading “The Ottaway Valley” is how every work feels of a piece. These are all women with regret. They have struggled to fit into what’s socially expected of them and it’s sometimes come at a cost. The way it’s shifted from a younger and more naïve take into a more mature conversation is brilliant. By having the final paragraph of “The Ottawa Valley” discuss the protagonist’s struggle to remember her mother while being part of her, she has basically summarized her own work. Every story has a mystery that you only understand after completion. In this case, she reveals an even bigger puzzle has been at play, and one we often ignore as we go about our lives.
The core of this final story is an attempt to remember the people in our lives. For Munro, she is attempting to conjure up the memory of her mother who would suffer from Parkinson’s Disease later in life. It’s a plot point readers have seen before, notably in “Winter Wind,” capturing the real-life struggle of the author’s parent. She wonders about her relationship with this woman, likely because the days of seeing her as a guardian are starting to fade. As mother’s body becomes prone to uncontrollable shakes, it becomes difficult to see her as the strong woman who protected her in the past, keeping her on the straight and narrow. For many, watching your parent in their final years is a difficult thing to experience, especially with holding onto the good memories of who they were. The protagonist is doing everything she can to not see her mother as weak and feeble, but it’s difficult. The constant awareness of death is overtaken by the reality that the final years could never be as glorious as the decades before. For those lucky enough, cognitive functions may keep their intuition intact. However, it’s still not the same.
Which is why Munro ends the story on a trip back home. As a Canadian resident, she likely has a close connection to Ottawa Valley as a place. While she describes it as someplace that is misrepresented (where are the hills?), she comes to accept it for what it is. Everywhere she goes, she is reminded of her mother. The contradiction to this is that she can’t actually remember her mother visiting places like grocery stores. Still, she brings her to life, trying to make sense of who she might’ve been. It’s clear that some greater truth is absent. For Munro, there’s always a secret hiding. Still, this isn’t one that the reader will become aware of. They have to interpret the greater life of the protagonist’s mother and what she was in her healthier days. The simple act of imagining a person as mobile and happy is a bittersweet side effect that comes with death. There is a need to remember the better days, accepting that they’re finally at peace.
From there, pieces begin to click. Munro’s complicated relationship with men comes to the forefront as she recalls her mother’s husband. The language is likely to catch most off guard for the simple reason that a simpler term is “father.” Even more than mother, “father” feels absent. The description of this man is fairly clinical and lacks an emotional attachment. It’s unclear why, but it is expertly paired with another encounter on a train. She recalls meeting a man who looks like Bob Hope. He even talks like him. She begins to contemplate whether it’s Bob Hope in a military uniform who goes around messing with people. The ambiguity is enough to reveal some greater truth. She doesn’t know the men she meets. It’s also an indicator that no matter what, she can never truly know anyone. They’re likely destined to be defined by their connection to other people, never given a nuanced and sympathetic understanding.
Maybe it’s there in how Aunt Lena contradicts the idea of an aunt. She’s not warm and welcoming. As the one relative to the protagonist’s mother still living, one would hope she’d have clues to the past. They’re not shared. Meanwhile, Dodie is someone affectionately called “Aunt” despite having no blood ties. However, she has a close relationship with the mother and thus presents one of many flashbacks that ground the piece. Whereas Munro has used nostalgia to critique characters, she now has turned it into something more conventional and sentimental. Don’t think this means that the author is getting soft. It just means she’s looking for something more sincere in her characters.
Dodie recalls a moment with mother that may seem a bit random at first, but begins to tie something much more interesting into the fabric. While the reader has gotten used to the protagonist’s recollection of her past as well as fictional hypotheticals, having Dodie enter the picture allows for a greater sense of character. There’s still not a whole lot to understand mother, but it humanizes her, creating the reality that, yes, she was young and promiscuous once.
The incident takes place in a barn. While certain authors have romanticized barns as a place to “roll in the hay,” Munro’s focus is a lot more innocent. She recalls one of the men who worked at the farm urinating in a certain corner. This in itself isn’t shocking as most men did it. However, there was a day where Dodie and mother were watching him. There’s the joy and curiosity reminiscent of “The Found Boat” in exploring sexuality from a very childlike standpoint. It’s naughty and the voyeurism only adds to the appeal. It’s their little secret. However, the moment that makes the moment greater is Dodie’s revelation that she thinks that the man was aware of this and actually let it happen. At one point he is described as turning to his side so that they could see. Did they actually witness anything, or is this moment totally innocent?
It may seem like an odd detail, but Munro is playing with the implicit functions of a memory. It’s as much a bonding moment for the two women as it was a symbol of mother’s maturity. The curiosity in human anatomy could symbolize burgeoning sexuality, where they are forming more complicated thoughts on relationships and predicting the adulthood that awaits them. Sure, the act itself is juvenile and gross, but the celebration suggests a growth that isn’t immediately obvious. It’s one of those moments that was real and reminded Dodie of mother’s greater potential. She used to be adventurous. She wasn’t just some mother who was imagined going to a grocery store. She was wild and strange. It’s endearing even with its cryptic focus.
It may explain why Dodie is one of the most distressed about mother’s passing. There was actual joy in their relationship. Given that Munro often has painted sisters (even as recently as “Memorial”) as having an emotional distance, it makes sense that Lena is less cognizant of this passing. There is the sense that family is a complicated thing and one that comes with sacrifices that may frustrate the simple concept of love. There is a need to stay strong. It raises questions on whether people can truly love each other the closer that they get. In the sense of marriages, Munro constantly points to conflict as their defining feature. It’s more about persevering and trying to remember why anybody puts themselves in these boxes to begin with.
While this is a story about mother, there’s still this struggle to believe that the protagonist has any sense of who she was. Upon being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, mother did her best to hide the truth. She wanted to believe she was stronger than her disease. As a result, the protagonist isn’t always privy to her thoughts. She becomes closed off. In a moment often romanticized as a parent exposing greater truths about their lives to pass on their story, mother is hiding it. There is a sense that her legacy will die with her. The protagonist’s will start anew and have her own story to tell. It makes an interesting point as to whether it’s worth getting close to anyone. Maybe Lena’s detached because of decades going back to childhood of mother not sharing her passions and desires with her.
Even then, the brilliant thing is that while the disease is portrayed as tragic, it’s also a perfect symbol for the passage of time. Whereas mother is understood to be stronger in youth, her shakiness has revealed a changing tide. It was there in “Marrakesh” and returns here. As memories fade and the body loses its independence, the past is closing. Death comes for everybody, and the question is whether one attempts to live a little longer by passing on a few lessons to the living. As a teacher once told me “Nobody is dead so long as they’re remembered.” The attempts for Munro to remember her mother as something greater shows this in practice. She desperately tries to push past the crumbling inevitability of time but finds it difficult. Mother is becoming more and more of a blur.
This is also present in the idea of Uncle Jim. Whereas Lena is quiet and reserved, Jim is more of a wild card. As another connection to mother’s past, he presents yet another complicated relationship with men. He’s an alcoholic which is described as a contradiction. Whereas mother and Lena were expected to be matriarchs, having Jim being a bit reckless was tolerated. It again points to the idea of men having more social standing during Munro and her mother’s lifetimes, suggesting that they were forced to forgive people for their faults. It’s unclear why Jim was allowed to be an addict who never bettered himself, but Munro points out that it was accepted. Alas, the irony of placing him in this story is that he’s another tie to the past that provides implicit memories but cannot be reliable. As an alcoholic, it’s likely that he’s been impacted by the abuse and has thoughts that are more unclear than the sober characters.
Still, like Jim denies his alcoholism, mother denies that she’s sick. It doesn’t fully show in the text save for yet another cryptic memory. As she visits church as a child, mother is forced to wear a dress that is falling apart. It’s held up by pins which even then can’t stop the slip from showing. It’s falling down and causing her to grow self-conscious. She believes the man urinating in the barn is there and noticing her. Even from the pew, she can’t help but grow bashful of anyone judging her. She thinks of communion where she’s walking down the aisle and having the entire room watch her. Mother’s mother suggests that they were reading hymns and not paying attention, but nobody can be sure.
Once again, there’s an implicit symbolism here that is at best indirect. Mother’s mother spends the ceremony giving one last hurrah. She is talking with everyone and enjoying their company. It’s a joyous occasion, though mother remains self-conscious of this slip that hides just out of sight in the pew. If judged as something greater, it could symbolize yet another part of mother’s aging. She has gone from a childhood peering into adulthood to the other side. The slip in itself can be seen as scandalous, but it’s also the reality that so much of her life in the larger narrative is slipping. She can no longer hide her weaknesses from the world. Everything is falling apart and she must come to accept it.
Without ever really admitting it, Munro has discussed a woman’s life from the viewpoint of two generations. The time jumps are more clever and introspective than they have been elsewhere in this anthology. Still, with the journey backward and forwards, Munro reveals why she’s so fascinated by this technique as a literary device. Even if only half of these characters are based in actuality, there is something that becomes autobiographical. She’s dealing with her own experiences and producing something more provocative. “The Ottaway Valley” is the journey home and acceptance of a mother not only dying but being a woman that the protagonist will never understand. She’s one of dozens of characters here that fit the bill.
And yet, the story doesn’t end with the church memory. While it would seem fitting to end with a mother having her last moment of joy, it wouldn’t give a satisfying conclusion for the protagonist. Instead, there’s a continuation into what can be described as a metaphorical wake. As the protagonist gathers with others to read poetry, they recall mother’s impact on their lives with this joyous celebration. It’s not entirely clear what any of these works have to do with the deceased, but it’s still the reverence that shines through. By the end, they share a rare moment of singing in harmony, suggesting a connection that only prose can truly give.
That is what Munro has been searching for with “The Ottaway Valley” and every work in “Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You.” There is a desire to take the fragmented narrative and find a greater unison. Even among those who may seem completely different must be a greater truth. At the end, there’s not a greater understanding of who mother is, but there’s still the reality that the protagonist is more likely to feel what she must’ve been like. The history is fading, but still she’ll try to stay strong. In the closing paragraph, she recalls how mother may have passed, but she has become part of her. It may seem like a contradiction unto itself, but that’s to only look at it in a literal sense.
Whatever lessons mother has given the protagonist are now hers to take. She has been thrown out with the bathwater and must swim. There are instincts that she’ll have to face. Even if she never got close to her mother, the reality is that her genes gave her certain desires that will inform her life. This is the work of an author with a keen sense of awareness of how generations relate to each other. This isn’t always done in ways akin to heirlooms. Sometimes a person is merely going to be possessed with certain drives, and that is the greater point of “The Ottawa Valley.”
After 13 stories, I am proud to say that not only do I love Munro as an author and will be seeking out more, but it has inspired me to be more introspective with my own writing. Like Faulkner, Munro has made her final story one that summarizes her creative life in a way that captures a grandeur you can only appreciate if you’re familiar with more of their work. Munro in particular has been a delight to try and find where her truth lies. She makes you think about your own life and relationships, and I would like to say makes me more keen to appreciate them. By placing “The Ottaway Valley” at the end, there is that extra sense of regret of not noticing the themes that have been building throughout this story. It starts with a petty argument about wasting one’s life over unrequited love and ends with the revelation that we shouldn’t waste our lives over such needless worries. The fact it’s done so subliminally makes it all the better.
I will be taking a few weeks off to relax and enjoy the conclusion of this project. However, I have been enjoying Short Stop way too much to give up now. Whereas I tackled Faulkner because I admire his writing and Munro because she was a new face, my next choice will be one that I am only casually familiar with. I look forward to taking you on my journey this Fall through the work of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories, specifically the anthology “Interpreter of Maladies.” I really enjoyed “The Namesake” and can only imagine this will be a worthwhile extension.
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