It’s real! It happened! My phone blew up very very early in Utah time! Take the day off! Hug your mom! Revel in the tears of men!
This is a great day! SMALL NOVELS ABOUT INNER LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN MOTHERFUCKER! CANADIAN!
Please enjoy your morning. Normal posting will happen momentarily.
Tags: alice munro, all for alice, feminism, glory, high fiving a million angels, joy, tears, the nobel prize, victory
High-fiving a million angels, indeed!
Wooo-hooo!!
“Alice, come out from behind the tool shed and pick up the phone.” THIS IS ADORABLE.
And huzzah!
YES. So completely deserved.
Alice Munro is one of those quiet writers whose stories I can read in a single sitting and think, “This was pretty good, that was nice,” and I can put them down and do something else, but then for the rest of the day, or week, or month, when I have a brief moment of downtime during an otherwise busy day, the story slips back into my head, quietly insisting that actually, it’s brilliant, thank you very much, and it’s right.
exactly/
“We say of some things that they can’t be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time.” omgggg
Literally did a fist pump and went “Yesssssss!” when this came though the wires at work. Those Swedes sure do know what they’re doing with their free childcare and THESE APPLES.
A very good time to remedy the fact that I’ve never read any Alice Munro! Placed a library hold for Lives of Girls and Women (cause those are my favorite kinds of lives) but would welcome other recs too!
That has one of the all-time best openings to a story ever: “Boys hate was dangerous, it was keen and bright, like Arthur’s sword snatched out of the stone, in the Grade Seven Reader. Girls’ hate, in comparison, seemed muddled and tearful, sourly defensive. Boys would bear down on you on their bicycles and cleave the air where you had been, magnificently, with no remorse, as if they wished there were knives on the wheels. And they would say anything.”
Any suggestions as to which Alice Munro book of stories to buy first? Have been meaning to read her forever and this is the perfect catalyst!
Post at 4pm! ETA: 2pm!
Yes! Can’t wait.
Yes yes this seconded!
Franzen wuz robbed.
One of those old German ladies must have snuck onto the Nobel panel.
I know people around here like to hate on J. Franzen, but he is a Munro fan too, and this NYT piece he wrote about her is just wonderful: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/books/review/14COVERFR...
(And, if you read beyond the headline, you’ll see he was slyly calling for her Nobel all the way back in 2004, when this piece was published!)
I loved \”Freedom,\” and I will allow him to be spoken of kindly in relation to Alice in this one thread. If you take this sentiment off the thread, I cannot protect you from Mallory. This is the Neutral Zone.
Good to know. 🙂 I promise not to upset Mallory about this off-thread!
If forced to guess whether Franzen had ever used the word ‘snarky,’ I would’ve guessed no, and it seems I would’ve been wrong.
It isn’t PEOPLE, it’s ME, and I don’t LIKE to do it, I LOVE IT SO MUCH that even just thinking about it fills me with a wild and a savage joy, THANK YOU VERY MUCH (no, but he’s written a few good lines in his day).
In an interview with AP in 2003, Munro described the ‘60s as “wonderful.”
It was “because, having been born in 1931, I was a little old, but not too old, and women like me after a couple of years were wearing miniskirts and prancing around,” she said.
I now live by the ethos ‘I wear mini skirts and prance around because Alice Munro told me so’
!
Also, also! Her first collection was published when she was 37! 37! It’s all going to be ok.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Is it a legit excuse to stay home from work so I can re-read all her books? YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!
Take THAT, Phillip Roth!
IN YOUR FACE MURAKAMI
Oh, now that just makes me sad. Murakami’s year will come. Roth? Bah, I don’t care if he ever wins or writes another book about his penis ever again.
no no, I know, his day will come. This day BELONGS TO ALICE.
Oh but I love Murakami.
me too but this is NOT HIS DAY
Murakami isn’t even the best Murakami.
Oh my, this is exciting and lovely.
Haruki isn’t even the best Murakami.
I was so excited by the announcement this morning I was doing my happy dance while making breakfast. I have brought my copy of “Selected Stories” to work so I can peruse during lunch. So glad I can share my excitement on The Toast! Alice Munro, Canadian Chekov indeed!
Pretty sure “SMALL NOVELS ABOUT INNER LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN MOTHERFUCKER! ” is the best thing I’m going to read all day. Can’t wait for your post, Nicole.
Guys, I am just so happy. I am so so so so happy.
AAAAAH AAAH AAAAAHHHHHHHH I told my cubemate and she is in her forties and doesn’t know who Alice Munro is and I am privately hoping that this never happens to me again because oh my god I can’t read her even a little bit, she makes me so uncomfortable and this is THE BEST NEWS. AAAAAAAH
SHHIIIIIIIIIIIT YES SHE DID
BEST DAY BEST DAY BEST DAY
WHERE IS MY COPY OF RUNAWAY
“HobbyHorse33 was in love with Alice.”
Ughhhh why hasn’t anyone called David Gilmour for comment yet.
REJOICE! I am going to watch in celebration :D.
I’ve already blown up my FB page with this, but YES YES YES YES YES and FUCK YOU DAVID GILMOUR
Paris Review long interview with Munro here: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1791/the…
“She has none of the bravura or bluster of a famous writer, and it is easy to forget that she is one. Speaking of her own work, she makes what she does sound not exactly easy, but possible, as if anyone could do it if they only worked hard enough. As we left, we felt that contagious sense of possibility. “
FUCK YES
I just pulled the three books that I have off my shelf to reread. “I did not take the words seriously, and I thought that in a moment you would look at me and see that you had said this to the wrong person, to a woman who had abandoned the whole posture, the vocabulary, for dealing with such tributes.”