Thresholds and What Seems to Be: Munro’s First Sentences

Simon Zupan; Jason Blake

doi:10.4312/elope.19.1.107-119

Authors

Simon Zupan University of Maribor
Jason Blake University of Ljubljana

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.1.107-119

Keywords:

Alice Munro, stylistics, first sentences, short story

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of Alice Munro’s first sentences from her 149 stories published in her 14 collections. Despite the epithet “Munroesque,” there is a remarkable variety to the typical Munro story and Munro’s style. Many of her stories begin with short, mundanely declarative sentences of a few words; many other first sentences stretch over several lines; many foreground time or, more accurately, time past. The variety of these first sentences might lead the cataloguer to despair or to proclaim fatuously that the Munroesque quality of her fiction lies in how different it all is …. Though generalizations are dangerous, there is one constant: for all their stylistic diversity, Munro’s first sentences tend to establish a tension between what is realistic and tangible and the seeming, what lies beneath or hidden.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Amis, Martin. 2020. Inside Story. Toronto: Knopf Canada.

Bal, Mieke. 2017. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 4th Ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

—. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd Ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Barry, Peter. 2017. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Blackburn, Simon. 2016. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bloom, Harold. 2009. Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Alice Munro. New York: Infobase Publishing.

CBC.ca. 2022. “Alice Munro on CBC Radio’s Morningside in 1978 – CBC Archives.” https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/munro-on-morningside.

Chatman, Seymour. 1990. Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Culler, Jonathan. 2000. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Duncan, Isla. 2011. Alice Munro’s Narrative Art. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Eagleton, Terry. 2008. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

—. “An Interview with Terry Eagleton.” The Oxonian Review. https://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/aninterview-with-terry-eagleton/.

Ford, Richard. 2006. The Lay of the Land. New York: Knopf.

Gibson, William. 2014. “The First Sentence Is a Handshake.” Interviewed by Joe Fassler. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/william-gibson-by-heart/382027/.

Glover, Douglas. 2012. “How to Write a Short Story.” In Attack of the Copula Spiders: Essays on Writing, 23–42. New York: Perseus Books Group.

—. “The Style of Alice Munro.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 45–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Groff, Lauren. 2011. “Lauren Groff Reads Alice Munro.” The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. June 21, 2011. https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fiction/lauren-groff-reads-alicemunro.

Grubisic, Brett Joseph. 2022. “The Rumpus Interview with Tamas Dobozy.” The Rumpus, March 22, 2013. https://therumpus.net/2013/03/22/the-rumpus-interview-with-tamas-dobozy/.

Howells, Coral Ann. 1998. Alice Munro. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

King, Stephen. 2013. “Why Stephen King Spends ‘Months and Even Years’ Writing Opening Sentences.” Interviewed by Joe Fassler. The Atlantic, July 23, 2013. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/why-stephen-king-spends-months-and-even-years-writing-openingsentences/278043/.

Le Guin, Ursula K. 1988. “The Fisherwoman’s Daughter.” Liverpool Biennial. https://biennial.com/files/pdfs/7891/ursula-k-le-guin-the-fisherwomans-daughter-1988.pdf.

Leech, Geoffrey N., and Mick Short. 2007. Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. New York: Pearson Longman.

Lodge, David. 2011. The Art of Fiction. New York: Random House.

Löschnigg, Maria. 2016. “‘Oranges and Apples’: Alice Munro’s Undogmatic Feminism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 60–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Matthews P. H. 1997. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McGill, Robert. 2016. “Alice Munro and Personal Development.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 136–53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Munro, Alice. (1968). 2013a. Dance of the Happy Shades. New York: Random House.

—. (1971) 2001a. Lives of Girls and Women. New York: Vintage Contemporaries.

—. (1974) 2014. Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You. London: Vintage.

—. (1978) 2013b. The Beggar Maid. New York: Random House.

—. (1982) 2006a. The Moons of Jupiter. Toronto: Penguin Canada. eBook.

—. 1986. The Progress of Love. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

—. 1990. Friend of My Youth. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

—. 1994. Open Secrets. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

—. 1998. The Love of a Good Woman. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

—. 2001b. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

—. 2004. Runaway. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

—. 2006b. The View from Castle Rock. London: Vintage.

—. 2008. “Free Radicals.” The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/02/11/freeradicals-2.

—. 2009. Too Much Happiness. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

—. 2012. Dear Life. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

New, W. H. 2016. “Re-Reading The Moons of Jupiter.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 116–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Prince, Gerald. 1982. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin: Mouton.

Prose, Francine. 2006. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. London: Union Books.

Simonds, Merilyn. 2016. “Where Do You Think You Are? Place in the Short Stories of Alice Munro.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 26–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Simpson, Paul. 2014. Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge.

Staines, David. 2016. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 1–6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thacker, Robert. 2011. Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives: A Biography. Toronto: Emblem.

Toolan, Michael J. 2013. Language in Literature: An Introduction to Stylistics. London: Arnold.

Ventura, Héliane. 2016. “The Female Bard: Retrieving Greek Myths, Celtic Ballads, Norse Sagas, and Popular Songs.” In The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro, edited by David Staines, 154–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wood, James. 2008. How Fiction Works. New York: Picador.