Carmen's Reviews > Dear Life

Story 1: To Reach Japan
A story about a woman who's determined to have an affair.

Now, I don't condone affairs. But sometimes I can understand them, e.g. Addicted by Zane. But here, no reason is given for Greta cheating. And it doesn't seem to matter who she's cheating with: any available and interested man will do. So it's not “love” affairs she's having.

My educated guess about why Greta is cheating on her husband is that she's bored. She's a poet who works from home and she has a small child.

The first guy she becomes enamored with is a journalist who takes her home when she becomes drunk at a party. In the car, they're talking and he says this:

"Excuse me for sounding how I did. I was thinking whether I would or wouldn't kiss you and I decided I wouldn't."

What an asshole! Not because, as Greta thinks, he's judging her “un-kiss-worthy” but because there is a drunk, married woman in his car and he's seeing her in a sexual way. What a jerk. What makes you think she wants to be kissed by you??!? How big of a creep are you to offer to drive a woman home from a party when she's drunk and then contemplate whether you should take advantage of her or not?!?! Also, she's married, you prick.

Unfortunately, Greta shares none of my compunctions about his behavior and starts daydreaming about the man constantly for a year. Then she writes him a letter of poetry and stuff and sends it to his work. WTF?!!?

Later, she enters affair number two. This is when her daughter Katy and herself are traveling to Toronto to live without her husband for a month because her husband is leaving the country. This actor is on the train, a play actor, and she describes him as “a boy” so I'm thinking he's at least 10 years younger than her. He entertains all the children on the train, and at the end of the day they start drinking, flirting, and touching. It's obvious to me by now that it doesn't matter who the frick the man is, she is just going after anyone with a penis – except her husband, I guess.

This conversation happens:

GRETA: "I haven't got any - " (condoms)
GREG: "I have."
GRETA: "Not on you?"
GREG: "Certainly not. What kind of beast do you think I am?"

Oh, I don't know.. THE KIND OF BEAST WHO PROPOSITIONS A MARRIED WOMAN RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER SLEEPING CHILD!?!?!!?!? I mean, her child is curled up sleeping right there. Classy. <---sarcasm

So she leaves her child, ALONE, and goes to Greg's compartment to have sex with him.

Then, after their finished having sex, she tells him she has to go back to her compartment. And he says:

""Okay. Okay. I should get ready for Saskatoon anyway. What if we'd got there just in the middle of it? Hello Mom. Hello Daddy. Excuse me just a minute here while I -Wa - hoo!"

*blink blink
What. A. Moron. Seriously. THIS is who you choose to have an affair with? This guy!?!? Incredible.

So she goes back to her compartment to find Katy is missing. She freaks out. Later she finds Katy, unharmed, who says she went to look for Mommy. Greta is feeling very guilty and shameful and as if Katy going missing was “punishment” for Greta having sex with Greg.

Then, in the final twist, (view spoiler)[ Greta and Katy get off at Union Station and the journalist is waiting for them with a hug and a kiss. o.O (hide spoiler)]

This story left me pretty cold. I couldn't understand Greta or her motivations. She made bad choices, and I didn't even understand why. I was just annoyed with her for the whole story.

Story #2: Amundsen
A woman goes to a tuberculosis hospital to be a teacher. There is a doctor there who is an asshole. He's rude to everyone, even the children that adore him. For some reason, the woman starts to date him. He says mean things to her and to a little child. Next thing you know, she's having sex with him. He's still an asshole. He promises to marry her. But after a few months, and a “let's drive to Huntsville to get married” it turns out that it's “let's drive to Huntsville so I can put you on a train back to Toronto like all the other women I fucked and then discarded.” I have no sympathy for the main character. None. The doctor acted like a complete dick right in front of her numerous times, and she didn't say anything. He humiliated a little girl, calling her fat and mocking her – right in front of the MC, who didn't defend the child or stop dating him or anything. She just lets this guy use her and also lets him treat her and other people like crap.

While I think it is, of course, the asshole's fault for being an asshole, it's also her responsibility to say something when he's being mean and rude (especially to a child!) in front of her. I have no respect for a woman who just lets a man walk all over her like that. Grow some ovaries, woman! And it should be no surprise to her that if he has no respect for anyone, that he will eventually be rude and disrespectful to her, too.

Stories 3-7 So boring they are not even worth talking about.

Story #8: Train
This was a long story. I liked reading about the woman, Belle, living in abject poverty. But then Munro had to go and ruin everything by putting a weird sexual abuse undertone to the whole thing and it was disgusting. Also, nothing much happens in this story.

Story #9: In Sight of the Lake
This was actually a pretty good story, about an old woman who's going senile. Best story in the collection.

Story #10: Dolly
This was a pretty good story about the evils of Facebook. I mean, she doesn't use those terms, but that's what I got out of it. How dangerous it is to have ex-lovers come back into your life.

Story #11: The Eye
Boring.

Story #12: Night
There is a really good passage in here about evil thoughts.

Story #13: Voices
Boring.

Story #14: Dear Life
Boring.

Roly Grain, his name was, and he does not have any further part in what I'm writing now, because this is not a story, only life.”

This above quote, from Munro's last story, pretty much sums up the whole book. It's as if she were saying: “I'm sorry that these stories are so boring, but I must remind you they are LIFE. I will leave anything faintly interesting out of these stories because I want them to be REAL and TRUE and BORING just like life is. Not fiction, you know, which actually makes things interesting.” Uh-huh. Thanks but no thanks, Ms. Munro.
...

I can't believe how much fuss is made over this author. She writes, in general, about asshole men who run roughshod over their women and women who are so passive and invertebrate that it seems that they only do not CARE about being dominated, they don't even realize they ARE being dominated. It's as if they are completely passive. With no thoughts or agency of their own.

P.S. Like Flannery O'Connor Lite - a good way to describe this book.

P.P.S. 9 out of 10 people in my book club did not enjoy this book.