Normal People

Alice Munro.

So people are learning (or rather, not learning) that just because someone can write a cohesive, moving and catchy short story, that doesnโ€™t make them a saint? I feel sorry for Munroโ€™s daughter but not surprised to find that Munro is just a regular olโ€™ person, not a paragon of virtue. Because most people are not, and artists probably least of all to be fair.

That Munro is a โ€œmonsterโ€ is absurd. She just sounds run of the mill in her personal life, as are most people. Weak, entitled and prone to keep the status quo in place. Big shocker. As mentioned, I feel terrible for her daughter (and others affected) but Munroโ€™s short stories in my view stand alone and apart from that, as does all art. Good artists can barely control what they emit, anyway, and its quality has nothing to do with what sort of person they were or how they lived their own lives (often horribly).

Daumโ€™s bloviating sounds just as overproduced as the encomia that followed Munroโ€™s death. And just as worthless.

Munroโ€™s art stands on its own or does not. In my case, having enjoyed Munroโ€™s work in the past, I just loaded a Munro collection on my Kobo and will read that in short order. On with the art, as alwaysโ€ฆ.