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Lives of Girls and Women is nearly always recommended as an ideal introduction to Alice Munro. Everyone who preaches this doctrine knows that it is doing Munro a bit of a disservice: Lives of Girls and Women is her only novel, and it is certainly not her best work. Nonetheless, it is a seductive book, one that consistently turns dabblers into Munro devotees.
Munro follows the late childhood and adolescence of Del Jordan, an intelligent girl growing up in Jubilee, Ontario (one of the most palpable fictional towns in all of Canadian fiction) in the 1940s. Del is ordinary enough--she doesn't fit into her community, but this is the lot of any gifted child in a small, working-class town. Her father raises silver foxes for a living, her mother (a tentative feminist living in a decidedly traditionalist community) drives the back roads trying to sell encyclopedias to farmers. Del's passage through the usual travails of growing up (family deaths, lost friends, the awkward beginnings of sexuality) is rendered with extraordinary skill. It is easy to find compassionate writers, but the Munro of Lives of Girls and Women is a much more valuable find: a writer blessed with empathy, humour, and even cruelty. She can lovingly eviscerate her characters when it is necessary, yet never slips into the lazy shorthand of caricature. Some of her short story collections are better made (Open Secrets and Who Do You Think You Are?, for example), but the scope of Lives of Girls and Women makes it one of Munro's most memorable books. --Jack Illingworth --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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"...Munro brilliantly captures the initial tremors of this profound social transition." - Toronto Star
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
REALISTIC AND BRILLIANT,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lives of Girls and Women (Mass Market Paperback)
I was forced to read this book during the final exams for my H.S.C. but actually found that it was very enjoyable. It is the touching story of a young girl growing up in Canada in the 40s, who yearns to be an artist, and her journey towards womanhood. The format of the story is unique and the characters are likeable and real enough to believe in. This is a well-told semi-autobiographical novel which stays in the memory long after it's has been read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great literature - Munro is a master structuralist,
By Jay Stevens (Missoula, MT) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lives of Girls and Women: A Novel (Paperback)
What an amazing book! This not merely a good book for middle-aged women, or good instruction for girls, or any such claptrap. To label Munro as good "women's lit" is demeaning to women and demeaning to "The Lives of Girls and Women." (Plus it makes men who enjoy reading her a bit funny.) It's a great book! In any category!Munro is a master of characterization and narrative structure. Del's description of her mother, for example, reveals: (1) Del's feeling of discomfort at her own place within Jubilee's hierarchy and environment; Del wants to fit in, and her mother embodies the eccentric within her own self. (2) Del's mother's strengths, pulling herself from abject poverty, putting herself through school, starting her own business in conservative postwar rural Canada - this woman evokes our admiration, despite the disgust of our narrator. It's these multidimensional portraits that makes Munro so great - yes, a character (Del's mother) can earn our admiration, disgust, and pity all at once... Then in the building of conflict, Munro ALWAYS surprises us. Every scene is fresh, new, interesting, every culmination of conflict resolves in ways we would never expect. Take the time when Del was being molested by her mother's boarder's boyfriend. One day she goes off with him in his car out to the country, and we're expecting some "Bastard Out of Carolina" child-raping exploitation and subsequent weepy victim hood. But Munro makes a left at the light, has the man simply masturbate in front of the child, who for her part is excited, charmed, and repelled by the sight and is grateful to be introduced to the mystery of the penis. And lastly, Munro refuses to depict her women in the same, old tired way. Her women are not dragged around by the hand by handsome strangers, as they so often are in movies. Her women are not victims of rape, incest, or peer pressure, as in way too many contemporary novels. No, Munro's women are real. They have drive, ambition, and a deep desire to be seen as people. Definitely one of my favorite books, ever.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lives of Girls and Women: A Novel (Paperback)
I couldn't possibly say all I want to say about how good this book is. I am Alice Munro's biggest fan and this is my favorite of her books. Many of her later stories are larger in scope, more ambitious in their reach, but this book is truly a gem. Get lost in Del's world. Munro creates a lush, astounding, painfully, gorgeously real world. Read this book and then read it again. And give it to every one of your friends.
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