[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″]I[\/fusion_dropcap] actually finished this story early last week, but I’ve been unsure how to write up about it.\u00a0For one thing, it is a story where the less known before reading it the better.\u00a0For another, though it is short and quick, it spans several years and several events, so the temptation is to recount the whole story in order to really say what it is about, which\u00a0would be\u00a0wrong.\u00a0For another thing, I can’t do it justice. It is a great story, perhaps my favorite of the year, and I’m tempted to simply say, go read it.\u00a0I’ll say a bit more, though.<\/p>\n
When the story begins, we are sitting around a dinner\u00a0table.\u00a0A wealthy man and his daughter are entertaining an architect who has come to restore a tower in the Anglican church. The wealthy man is not Anglican — his church is the Methodist —\u00a0but you can’t expect the Anglicans to take care of something like that.<\/p>\n
The daughter’s name is Corrie.\u00a0She’s 26, and it is obvious her father expects her to grow into a spinster.\u00a0He doesn’t like that idea, and he looks at everyone as a potential mate, including the architect.<\/p>\n
His name was Howard Ritchie, and he was only a few years older than she was, but already equipped with a wife and\u00a0a young family, as her father had immediately found out.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nI love the word “equipped” there; it perfectly expresses the father’s idea of marriage.\u00a0Howard sees this tension as he meets with the man and his daughter, and his interest is piqued in Corrie, who appears to be somewhat flippant: “Spoiled rich miss. Unmannerly.”\u00a0When Corrie takes Howard out to see the grounds, he sees another thing he expected: she is lame in one leg.\u00a0As they visit, he learns she is planning a trip to Egypt. His basic impression as he leaves that night is this:<\/p>\n
Some creepy fortune hunter was bound to snap her up, some Egyptian or whatever.\u00a0She seemed both bold and childish. At first, a man might be intrigued by her, but then her forwardness, her self-satisfaction, if that was what it was, would become tiresome.\u00a0Of course, there was money, and to some men that never became tiresome.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThey end up corresponding slightly while she is in Egypt.\u00a0Very soon (to the reader — this story clips along), they are having an affair, and soon after that Corrie’s father dies.\u00a0And that’s really just the beginning.<\/p>\n
It is a tremendous story, written by a master.\u00a0Munro seems to have gone through this and cut out every single paragraph, sentence, or word that was not pulling its weight in creating this world.\u00a0Highly recommended that you read this one and then read it again.\u00a0Since it is only available to subscribers, this is the perfect excuse to go subscribe to the magazine.<\/p>\n
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Trevor reviews Alice Munro’s “Corrie,” from the October 11, 2010 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>. Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Alice Munro: \"Corrie\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[232,94],"tags":[998],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-12244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alice-munro","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2010-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Murno-Corrie.jpg?fit=320%2C320&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-3bu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12244"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21438,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244\/revisions\/21438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12244"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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