The View from Castle Rock

There's more than a hint of the Icelandic saga about some of the stories in this collection: the tough-minded matter-of-fact narration; the non-judgmental, external point of view. Only briefly and incidentally does Munro peek into any single character's self-awareness. Like the Icelandic sagas, these are chronicles of the author's ancestors, written with the implicit pride that such a family deserves to be chronicled. For anyone who has read Munro's previous stories, The View from Castle Rock will come as a surprise, and those who admire her emotionally acute self-dissection may be disappointed. I prefer to give Munro the latitude to write differently, particularly since she crafts her new genre so skillfully. This may not be her best collection ever or contain any story as good as her earlier masterpieces, but if there is any living writer in English more deserving of the Nobel than Alice Munro, I'd like to know who.Added after re-reading earlier in the day: I need to retract one element of what I wrote before; the last story in the collection, "What Do You Want to Know For?", is a very great story, one of Munro's most polished ever.

I really respect Munro because she researches her family history that influences these stories. The View from Castle Rock is a collection of short stories that are focus on different characters in each story. The characters aren't Munro exactly, but there is a lot of family influence! Some stories might seem slow, but they are very interesting to read!

Enjoyed this story of a family and the things they deal with and would read it again if I had nothing to read.

Munro is magical. Once you start reading her stories you want to read more and more and then go back and re-read them. Her stories leave you thinking about events and emotions from your own life . How many writers can do that? This one is a little different in that she attempts to trace and expand on the stories of her own ancestors as they make their migration from the Scottish Highlands to the USA and Canada.

ANOTHER EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES BY ALICE MUNRO WHO KNOWS THE MINDS AND THOUGHTS OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THIS DISTRICT OF CANADA, WHICH IS THE AUTHOR'S HOME COUNTRY. SHE WRITES ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE ISOLATED FROM ONE ANOTHER NOT ONLY BY THE SPACE BETWEEN HOUSES, BUT ALSO BY THEIR OWN PARTICULAR FEELINGS OF WANTING LOTS OF PRIVACY WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS OF NEIGHBORS. A GOOD BOOK THAT DISCUSSES INTERACTIONS BETWEEN AND AMONG PEOPLE WITH THIS LIFE STYLE. ANNA M. SEIDLER