Alice Munro Can Move Characters Through Time

You Put Together Two People Who Have Not Been Put Together Before; And Sometimes The World Is Changed, Sometimes Not. They May Crash And Burn, Or Burn And Crash. But Sometimes, Something New Is Made, And Then The World Is Changed. Together, In That First Exaltation, That First Roaring Sense Of Uplift, They Are Greater Than Their Two Separate Selves. Together, They See Further, And They See More Clearly.

And If You Had No Tongue, No Celebrating Language, You’d Do This: Cross Your Hands At The Wrist With Palms Facing Towards You; Place Your Crossed Wrists Over Your Heart (the Middle Of Your Chest, Anyway); Then Move Your Hands Outwards A Short Distance, And Open Them Towards The Object Of Your Love. It’s Just As Eloquent As Speech.

Most Of Us Remember Adolescence As A Kind Of Double Negative: No Longer Allowed To Be Children, We Are Not Yet Capable Of Being Adults.

The Better You Know Someone, The Less Well You Often See Them (and The Less Well They Can Therefore Be Transferred Into Fiction). They May Be So Close As To Be Out Of Focus, And There Is No Operating Novelist To Dispel The Blur.

Pride Makes Us Long For A Solution To Things – A Solution, A Purpose, A Final Cause; But The Better Telescopes Become, The More Stars Appear.