Thanks for the Ride
I’m accustomed to thinking of Alice Munro as the chronicler of Lives of Girls and Women, so I was surprised to come upon a male narrator in “Thanks for the Ride”. Dickie is hanging out with his cousin, George, who is three years older, in Pop’s Cafe (can’t you just see it in the small lakeside town?), when he meets Adelaide, who suggests that they stop by Lois’ house and go for a drive.
Tricky, isn’t it. Because ultimately it is a story about girls and women afterall. “But I did not want to talk any more, having discovered another force in her that lay side by side with her hostility, that was, in fact, just as enveloping and impersonal. After a while I whispered: ‘Isn’t there some place we can go?’” But it’s not necessarily the kind of story that was commonly told about girls and women.
The Office
And the same thing could be said about this fifth story, which is about a woman who declares herself a writer, something that took more determination and initiative in that time.
“But here comes the disclosure which is not easy for me: I am a writer. That does not sound right. Too presumptuous; phony, or at least unconvincing. Try again. I write. Is that better? I try to write. That makes it worse. Hypocritical humility. Well then?
It doesn’t matter. However I put it, the words create their space of silence, the delicate moment of exposure.”
I think this might turn out to be one of my favourite stories — settling in with novels like Carol Shields’ Unless and Ursula Hegi’s Intrusions — but it’s a story with an edge. You don’t get to “I really wanted to murder him” without an edge, do you. (Do you have other favourite novels about writers?)
An Ounce of Cure
Many readers will understand how the narrator, who loved Martin Collingwood even before, fell harder for him when he took the role of Mr. Darcy in the stage production of Pride and Prejudice at school. And they’ll understand, too, how she had to hate Mary Bishop a little, for playing his Elizabeth Bennet. This frequently anthologized story was likely one of my first exposures to Alice Munro as a schoolgirl, but it wasn’t a favourite at the time; now I wonder if that’s not because it captures the banal heartbreak of adolescent crushes just-a-little-too-brilliantly. (Have you resented some stories for being just too good?)
“From this point on I have no continuous picture of what happened; my memories of the next hour or two are split into vivid and improbable segments, with nothing but murk and uncertainty between.”
Have you read any Alice Munro lately?
You can join in with Dance of the Happy Shades if you like:
Walker Brothers Cowboy; The Shining Houses; Images JAN19
Thanks for the ride; The Office; An Ounce of Cure (above)
The Time of Death; Day of the Butterfly; Boys and Girls FEB 16
Postcard; Red Dress – 1946; Sunday Afternoon FEB23
A Trip to the Coast; The Peace of Utrecht; Dance of the Happy Shades MAR2
Thanks again for the comments, Sandra: good to know that someone else is enjoying these early stories. If anyone else wants to join in, you can do so at any time.
Re: Walker Brothers Cowboy
How interesting that it’s reputed to be Goderich. I did wonder about that (because of the proximity to Clinton), but the idea of it being a grain town threw me off. Mind you, now that I think about it, Goderich’s salt silos are actually silos of grains, aren’t they?!
Re: Thanks for the Ride
Or was it that none of them is as innocent as it seemed Lois’ experiences do seem to have a certain worldliness, but it’s almost as though they’ve all had at least some awareness of those experiences but only she has been marked as such. Judged by that admission.
Re: The Office
I really enjoyed the fact that you kind of think you know where this story is going…but…that’s the delicious part of some of these. Comfy. Chilling.
Re: Ounce of Cure
I’m not sure if that’s entirely it. Although I do think she’s captured something significant here, I felt at a real distance the whole way through. Maybe that sense of fuzziness is due to the narrator’s state?! Of her coming-of-age tales, I think others have resonated more strongly for me.
An Ounce of Cure
Munro tells these coming-of-age stories with kindness and genuine empathy but they have less depth for me now: it must be my age right? I do, however, like the Pride and Prejudice images and I think they strengthen the basic theme considerably. And the closing paragraph in which the narrator pulls back her youthful projection serves the reader of any age very well. It was interesting that the narrator was not upset so much about what happened as about the way it happened: “…the shameless, marvellous, shattering absurdity with which the plots of life, though not of fiction, are improvised.”
The Office
I wonder what Munro said to herself before this story began to flow? What if I get my room of my own “with a lock on the door”and my five hundred pounds a year? Will I then produce a prize-winning novel or the collection of poems which will win the next GG? Will I finally get the peace and quiet I need to create something of my own? Is this Munro’s working out of that old adage: “Be careful what you wish for”?
She still took me by surprize.
Thanks for the Ride
I think one of the things that stood out for me while reading this story was the distance I felt from all of the characters: was that something others experienced?
I thought maybe things were summed up in Dickie’s observations while he was in Lois’ house: “…something about this life I had not known…my mother, George’s mother, they are innocent. Even George, George is innocent. But these others are born sly and sad and knowing.” When I tie this to the “loud, crude, female voice, abusive and forlorn” calling “Thanks for the ride!” I too feel very sad. What is it? The lack of innocence in Lois maybe?
Thank you for the inspiration to reread Alice Munro. Walker Brothers Cowboy was an additional inspiration. I read it possibly 25 years ago and was amazed at a)how much I remembered and b) how fresh it still is. I also remember personally the Raleigh man and the Fuller Brush man but didn’t have the personal connection Munro’s narrator has. I found a reference in Coral Ann Howells’book Alice Munro which identifies Tuppertown as Goderich which added to my enjoyment of the story. My favourite sentence is “The tiny share we have of time appalls me, though my father seems to regard it with tranquillity.” I also liked the one you mentioned earlier containig the thought the narrator’s father’s life was ” flowing back from our car…into something you will never know.”