Munro and Levi

It is possible to read too many Alice Munro stories in a row. After reading Dear Life, I started straightaway on The Love of a Good Woman, and although I enjoyed individual stories in the latter collection, I find it difficult to recall precisely what each story is about, or even the main characters, except in the vaguest terms. The plots and the characters overlap with one another, and I see secondary colors when I should see primary ones. I did not care for the title story very much, thinking that it could be much improved by radical excisions. "Jakarta" is a classic Munro meditation on love and the sacrifices it entails. "Save the Reaper" stands out for that menacing scene in the rundown house. "Before the Change" for its charged topic of illegal abortion.

It was with some relief, I admit, when I turned to my first book by Primo Levi. In The Monkey Wrench, a rigger tells the stories of his projects to a chemist, the latter based on Levi, who was a chemist before giving up that profession for writing. In William Weaver's translation, the stories are strongly sane. They are strongly optimistic. And their strength comes from a deep fund of patience, humor, and delicacy. At least that is the impression conveyed to me. It makes me take to the author immediately. Not just the writing, but also the writer. I don't wish to meet Alice Munro (and I seriously doubt that she would want to meet me), but I wish I could meet Primo Levi and have a drink with him.

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