A Real Life - Alice Munro

First published in The New Yorker, February 3, 1992

I read a very persuasive (obviously)  opinion piece this morning in The New York Times that brought me back to this page. In short, it helped me recognize or perhaps remember one of the reasons or benefits of this whole blog/exercise. I’ve been writing on other platforms recently about the importance of being a human, and human creativity and cultivating all things human as AI moves with greater intensity into our lives. As a quick aside, as I’m typing this out, Grammarly and Gemini are underlining in red, yellow, and dotted lines the mistakes in grammar I’m making and suggestions for improvement on my phrasing. I began this blog before these tools were available, and I’ll admit to using them as they became available, but I think I’ll refrain from their use as I can now see the value of my human errors in the final product…these entries.

Above, I used the word exercise to describe the reading and writing here. I believe I’ve used that word in the past, and after my reading this morning, I feel stronger about the use of this word in developing my humanness…and the value of this extends beyond the stories in BASS and the words I type here. I believe, I came to realize after several months of reading and writing here back in 2008 and 2009, that unconsciously, I started this blog for my benefit. That fits the pattern since I consider myself a selfish person…overcoming my selfishness is a lifelong struggle that I’m working on…and recognize. But, through this reading and writing, I see that I have, (when I actually read and write), broken down those weak muscles and made them stronger. And now, after this morning's reading, I can see the HUMAN necessity to read and write. And as I insert the above sentences before a major portion of this post (I originally began the post with the paragraph beginning “I really have no concrete recollection…” below), I am rereading some of my writing and seeing how circular some of my thoughts are, and I’m good with that because it’s me working through my thoughts. 

And how ironic, glancing up again at the title of the story that I am placing all these thoughts under. Perhaps it’s equally as interesting that this is happening with the association of one of, if not the most difficult authors, I encounter in the BASS. 

It’s a hard exercise session, and one filled with reflection and a chance to assess my shortcomings.              

I really have no concrete recollection of purposely skipping them over, and I now, with the realization that I have, feel somewhat ashamed. Wrote several times about my struggles with the writings of Munro, and even with this post, I am finding difficulty in getting the words onto the screen, as I finished the story several months ago…maybe even sometime in 2025, and this issue is a giant speed bump in my posting here. As I was searching for previous posts where I reviewed Munro’s stories, I discovered that I had outright skipped over writing about her last two stories.

Carried Away - 1992 

Friend of My Youth - 1991

Again, I have absolutely no recollection of making the conscious decision to omit these stories…and now, I feel the obligation to make things right by submitting thoughts about these two. 

Here are my entries on the others. 

Wigtime - 1990

Differently - 1990

Spelling - 1979

Wood - 1981

Monsieur Les Deux Chapeaux - 1986

Circle of Prayer - 1987

Meneseteung - 1989

While searching for my posts, I came across this comment on a Munro post where, unsurprisingly, I was writing about my struggles with her stories. 

 

“Maybe you just don't fully appreciate Alice Munro's writings---their beauty, grace, and subtlety. The strength of her stories lies in their quiet messages and nuanced meanings. She rarely makes her stories conspicuously understood on initial reading, and sometimes a second and much more careful reading is necessary to get down to what she intends primarily to convey in the scenes and situations she writes about.”

I appreciate the time the anonymous commenter took to send me this message; they are absolutely right, and I am actively working to improve my reading of these collected authors… including Munro. 

But as I work on this entry, which is taking longer than I hoped, I have found myself breaking an early practice of this journal. I don’t know/remember if I have ever set it into writing - the actual process of reading and writing here- but a basic idea of this practice was to read one story and write about it immediately after completion. This worked for several years, but I have found that I have moved away from this process and jumped ahead in my reading and left the writing behind. 

This seems to be a fundamental break in what I was hoping to accomplish with this exercise - but at the same time, I have noticed that the often written-about “state” of encountering a story at a certain time, then rereading it and interpreting it differently the second time due to changes in your life, is happening quite a bit.

The Girl on the Plane - Mary Gaitskill

 

I think I’m on my third version of this post, which, as one would expect, has taken on the flavor of the time in which it was written. It would be so much easier if I were able to write about the story immediately following reading it, and that is the goal, but we are where we are in this project, and I’ll be playing a little catch-up. As it stands now, I’m writing about the second story in the anthology and reading the twelfth. 

Write faster, man! 

Mary Gaitskill is one hell of a writer, and after reading about her, she’s one hell of a person, too. Fearless, bold, and looking over my shoulder, back at the early 90s, she fits perfectly into that new decade. I was going to opine on the story, “The Girl on the Plane”,  but there are so many others that have provided thoughts from every conceivable angle that I thought I’d focus more on a few words Mary wrote in the anthology's Contributors’ Notes - always a rich source, for additional insights into the author’s mind and story.

Just a brief brush against the story. I’m reading this story in 2026, and the world is a much different place than it was 34 years ago. The story today stirs different emotions in the reader than it did in 1992/1993; our collective tolerance of certain behaviors, perhaps, has gone through some societal psychotherapy, not to excuse the behavior, but perhaps it has uncovered and brought forth the raw, honest interior of humans.

“The Girl on the Plane” is a story about a conversation, the dynamics between men and women, and finally, perception from and of: the characters, the author, and the readers, illustrating that we need to own that perception and it’s our responsibility to consider the impact of our behaviors, which we seldom do.  

Here is a passage from the Contributors' Notes.  

“I don't see how people can be responsible for their behavior if they are not responsible for their own thoughts and feelings. In my opinion, most of us have not been taught how to be responsible for our thoughts and feelings. I see this strongly in the widespread tendency to read books and stories as if they exist to confirm how we are supposed to be, think, and feel. I'm not talking wacky political correctness, I'm talking main-stream. And not just written stories either; I was flabbergasted by the public debate over the film Thelma and Louise, in which grown people discussed a Hollywood movie as if its purpose was to instruct us on how to live our lives, condemning or praising it based on whether they thought the instructions were valid. (I would not be surprised if some of these same people also wrote essays bemoaning "victimism.") Ladies and gentlemen, please. Stop asking "What am I supposed to feel?" Why would an adult look to me or to any other writer to tell him or her what to feel? You're not supposed to feel anything. You feel what you feel.

Where you go with it is your responsibility. If a writer chooses to aggressively let you know what he or she feels, where you go with it is still your responsibility.”

I would love to see Gaitskills' notes or thoughts about this story before publication - just to see how the passage of time, post publication, influenced the above, if at all. 

Two portions that I’d like to highlight. 

“In my opinion, most of us have not been taught how to be responsible for our thoughts and feelings.”

And 

“You feel what you feel.

Where you go with it is your responsibility.” 

Wise words.

A Brief Intermission

It's easy to sidetrack me. Over the last few Christmases, I have asked for the latest volume of BASS. I can't help but dive into the introduction to see what the guest editor has to say about the state of the short story, their opinion on literature in general, and of course, "the times we live in…". The editor for The BASS 2025 is Celeste Ng. In her introduction, Celeste does a fine job of detailing her story selection process as well as listing a few details about each story. I decided to place this little intermission into this project, interrupting the reading of the 1993 volume, because Celeste does a fine job of reminding us about the importance of reading fiction (the importance of reading short stories will be in another Intermission, which will feature interview excerpts with the previous BASS series editor Heidi Pitlor).

 

Below you will find Celeste's thoughts about reading fiction as they were published in BASS 2025. The disinformation portion is quite important, but please pay attention to her thoughts on empathy and emotional truths. There's a lot of that missing in our time.        

 

 

Reading fiction matters immensely, especially right now.

 

This is surely not news to you, but we're living in an era of disinformation, in which knowingly false stories—or to put it more bluntly, lies—are purposefully deployed to manipulate others, usually for the benefit of a select few. 2024 is hardly the first year this has happened (and sadly, it surely won't be the last), but this past year we've seen incredibly clearly the real-world effects disinformation can have. I'm reluctant to repeat any of the complete falsehoods that have spread on social media and in the real world alike, often from people in positions of power, but I suspect I don't need to give you examples. If you lived through this year, and the past few years, you already know that the space between reality and fantasy has become increasingly blurred in many people's minds-and to many, the distinction may not even feel important anymore.

 

So why should we still read fiction in a time of lies? If "alternative facts" are running rampant, isn't the antidote (real) facts, rather than made-up stories? Aren't made-up stories part of how we got into this mess?

 

Facts and verifiable data are immensely important-and I'm deeply grateful to those who work to counter false claims with real information. But I'd also argue that that's only one front in the battle. Research shows, again and again, that a single personal story is more likely to change a person's mind than any amount of statistics.

 

Obviously, this doesn't mean that when you read a story, you'll suddenly find yourself in agreement with its characters or author-stories are not magic spells, and I'm not saying that just reading short stories will save the world, either. But stories build our empathy by asking us to imagine what it's like to be in someone else's position, thinking their thoughts and feeling their feelings. Unlike disinformation, a short story tells you up front that it is fiction, and when you know it's all just pretend, you're often more willing to play along: Okay, sure, I'll step into this world, it's just fifteen or twenty pages, and it's all pretend anyway... It's like taking a weekend trip to a place you've never been and aren't sure if you'll like, but hey—it's only a weekend, right?

 

At the end, though—assuming the story's done its job-this made-up story will have allowed you to access an emotional truth. Facts may tap politely at the prefrontal cortex, appealing to your rational brain, but fiction snakes its way into your limbic system and nests deep in your emotions. By skirting all the rational barriers we hunker behind, sometimes fiction can reach us in a more visceral way. And in doing so, short stories in particular can act like little tuning forks, helping us to clarify our own values—then allowing us to bring ourselves into alignment with what we believe. In a time when our values are being tested daily, it's hard to think of anything more important.

 

The Struggle

 

Writing is hard. I'll write it again…writing is hard. Writing now is hard. Readers of this blog – and that is written with the assumption that I have "readers" are, at this point, probably pretty exhausted with reading about my struggles with maintaining a steady writing habit here. I believe I use these few lines about the pains as a sort of runway to get the post off the ground. It's a simple, clear runway that I can return to easily. There are other runways, but at this time, I'll use it until I get better at taking off from other runways.

Another runway I like to use is the mention of how happy I am to read (insert author's name here) again. In this case, we'll use Updike. I usually refer readers to the anthology spreadsheet linked on the side of this page to see how many times I have written about Updike or when we will encounter him again.

So, in this struggle of writing, I am exercising the ability to write and…think. At least, that's what I'm told is happening. And in exercising these two skills, I am supposed to get better at them. Rather than being told what to think, there is a bit of independent thought happening as I poke at the keys. My thoughts are supposed to develop, and the ability to convey those thoughts through writing is also supposed to improve.

At least, that's what everyone tells me… and I tell everyone else.

I guess we'll have to see about that. Perhaps all this will stave off the mental decline that awaits us as the years tick past. (This whole BASS exercise will be a great way to track my ups and downs of the reading/thinking/writing skill, I suppose). I do think this is an impressive collection for me to reflect upon someday, and perhaps this line of thought that I seem to be dwelling upon at this moment is appropriate when reflecting on Updike's story.

Encountering Updike at the beginning of BASS 1993 was a surprise as I glanced over the table of contents on the back cover. The stories are usually ordered alphabetically by the author's last name in the anthology. The last time this order was disrupted was by John Gardner in 1982.  

1993's editor, Louise Erdrich, explains in her introduction:

"I wanted to play with the order so that I could set off the strengths of each piece. The collection begins with the most evocative first paragraph, which I think belongs to John Updike's "Playing with Dynamite," an unostentatious, painful, faultless story about a crack in the ice, a marriage and a man's entry into the uneven, reality of old age."

Wow – "unostentatious, painful, faultless" – an impressive collection of three words, and then the placement of the story at the beginning of the anthology – quite the honor.

As I prepared this morning to sit and write about this story, I glanced at the first paragraph, fully prepared to skim it, and then skim the rest of the story to refresh my memory and then get into writing about it. After a quick skim and moving onto the second page, I realized that I hadn't read this story yet and that, luckily, I had some time to read it this morning before moving into the writing phase. The story quickly absorbed me as I found it relatable, and interestingly, when I came to the part of the story describing the destruction of the bird's nest, I realized that I had already encountered this story. I can only imagine reading it in an Updike collection several years ago, but it was interesting that this portion of the story triggered my memory. Surprisingly, it wasn't the mention of old age or sex that stuck with me; it was the birds. I'll have to unpack that over the next few days.

In any case, I was generally satisfied with this story, as it squared nicely with what I have come to enjoy about Updike's writing, what he submits to The New Yorker, and what they choose to publish.

In the Contributor's notes at the back of the volume, Updike writes that this particular story was written on request from the new editor of The New Yorker. He said it was a woman, so I can conclude it was Tina Brown.

Updike writes – "Flattered silly, I pawed through the slips of paper on which I jot down story ideas, often just the titles, and came upon this title. One thing led to another, as I sat at the word processor, most of them having to do with the sensations and hallucinations of late middle age. I have written about aging, doddery, nostalgic American men whose names begin with "F" before, and let loosely related incidents weave their way around a central theme, or bitter fact, before; but the recipe seemed to produce a warmer, richer dish than usual here — at least its presence in this collection encourages me to think so. Life is an adventure, all right, from beginning to end, but life after sixty is a part of the tale that perhaps is more eagerly told than heard. It is the young we love, in print as on the silver screen, as they play with the dynamite of mating. For some time, I have noticed, my heroes seem older than I feel to myself, as if, lacking sex appeal to make them dramatic, they are cozying up to death."

I chose to include this passage from the Notes section as it hit me harder than the story. The "hit" is the relatable message that is conveyed by Updike. Sure, it was there in the story, but to read the message without it being deciphered caused me to re-read and rub the thick pages of the anthology between my thumb and index finger a few more minutes before setting the book aside.