Alice Munro
Well I’ve given up apologising for the relapses……
So to bring you up to date, I’ve submitted my thesis for examination and nervously await my examining Viva. I have no idea when it will be. Since February, when I submitted, I haven’t dared even look at my work. I did re-read an article I wrote for an online journal of some repute and I didn’t find it impressive; I had shied away from saying the difficult things which now annoys me a lot. It was just all a bit ‘safe’. I think my negative thoughts about Yates’s writing about women and their sexuality involved very explicit writing – on his part – and therefore need similar scrutiny on mine. I just didn’t feel able to do that in an article – pathetic! It is all in my thesis though.
In the meantime, I’ve been taking a break from all things Yatesian but I have been reading some of the work of Alice Munro who I understand ‘rates’ Yates and has for a long time: so not completely leaving Yates behind! I absolutely love her work and can see lots of links with Yates’ work not least in the way she uses and fictionalises her own biography: The View from Castle Rock and Runaway were my entry points but Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is a sublime collection of writing. I now have Too Much Happiness waiting for me. Canada and it’s landscape just comes alive as does a very unique authorial voice.
Enough for now but I’ll be back….
