Books: Small Is Beautiful

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(2 of 2)

In the three linked stories that follow--Chance, Soon and Silence--another young woman, a student of classical literature named Juliet, throws in her lot with a man she meets on an overnight railway trip. The stories then follow her across decades as time works its deeper operations--slowly, definitively, sometimes mercilessly. "So this is grief," she thinks at one point. "She feels as if a sack of cement has been poured into her and quickly hardened." After many years she arrives at last at a final equilibrium that could almost be called peace if you did not know all the things that still linger bitterly within her.

In the final pages of Powers, the unforgettable story that concludes this book, an old woman realizes that what she wants to do "is not so much to live in the past as to open it up and get one good look at it." That's what Munro offers her readers, the hope of that one good look. Her gift for nuance is such that you find yourself trying to imitate her. But what works for a fiction writer might not be the best idea for a reviewer. You risk having the reader fail to grasp your full meaning. So let's be clear about one thing here: this is a rave.