Munro Review

Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are? is simply one of the best books I've ever read. It was my first introduction to Alice Munro some years back, as it was a required reading for an English course at Acadia. I have to admit, before picking it up I was thinking it would be boring; falling back on some ridiculous preconceived notion about Canadian female authors I suppose. Well, it was anything but boring. In fact it was the exact opposite: exhilarating would be the right adjective. Yes, I was held captivated from start to finish. Since reading this book years ago, I've read quite a few from her, and I've enjoyed every single one of them. This one, however, is unique and powerful in its own right.

For one, the main character, Rose, is not your typical female character. She is a unique, dynamic character that the reader is allowed to follow from the time she is a child to when she is well into her middle age. We are privy to knowing her thoughts, her actions, how she maneuvers throughout her relationships, and how she affects others. She is not perfect by any means. But who is really? And I think that is what I found so exciting and rich about this book, was how it reminds you of how interesting various people are at certain moments in their life. So the snapshots that Munro provides to us with her limited third person narrative, with Rose being the focal point, encompasses something closer to real life drama, or what is often hidden behind the masks people convey or beyond the various facts or routines which appear on the surface. I would challenge anyone to show me a book that brings us in so intimately to a character the way this one does, especially given its size.

Alice Munro pays attention to the subtleties of life. Whether it's the moment Rose is in class in grade school and says she has a grapefruit for breakfast even though it is not true (to appear more affluent), to when she is pitying her husband and how out of place he is at a party amongst the hippy Vancouverites, we are thrown into deep waters with Rose. Munro understands the ego very well. She gets it down on paper and is unafraid to give you a jolt and wake you up from the everyday world and yet have you look at the everyday world from a different perspective. Somehow the real world seems more alive after reading Munro.