Finally I have entered the world of Munro readers and am delighted to find myself there. It's interesting to learn that the transitions of Munro's own life are reflected in Rose's story and the emotional complexities circling round that central issue of 'who do you think you are', with deep uncertainty about self. In every story, we see this manifested in some way - Rose's indecision about marriage, the aftermath of that decision, misjudged relationships, wild exhilaration, lasting embarrassment...

What do I think? I don't know. Reading the 210 pages of sheer torture, I have not been able to figure out what kind of a person Rose really was. Or what this story is really trying to tell me.Rose grew up in West Hanratty with her stepmother Flo and her father. Seeing her up-bringing and the lack of a real connection with her family, I would often think that once she is out of there, she would be ok.I got hopeful and in a way proud of her when she got a scholarship and met Patrick. I thought her...

I had never read Alice Munro before, so I am grateful to The Mookse and the Gripes group's project revisiting the 1980 Booker shortlist. This book is difficult to categorise, and is somewhere between a short story collection and a novel. I can see why the Booker jury chose to accept it as a novel, because the stories are all episodes in the life of one woman, Rose, and they are arranged in a chronological sequence, but each could equally be read as a self-contained story. Rose's mother died when...

In these ten inter-connected stories of Rose and Flo, Alice Munro explores the universal story of growing up; the question of identity, of resilience, and of escape – with a difference, of course, because this is Alice Munro, the Canadian author of too many awards to mention. In June, 2009 she won the Man Booker International Prize. After reading daughter Sheila Munro’s memoir http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31663, I decided to reread Who Do You Think You Are? (titled: The Beggar Maid: Storie...

It took me five stories to become heavily invested and it was worth it. Munro is very precise in describing conflicts that rage within ourselves.

The Beggar Maid is an engaging set of linked stories about Rose and her stepmother, Flo, over a period of forty years. Initially published in Canada under the title, Who Do You Think You Are, it is the 1978 winner of the Canadian Governor General’s Award. Although this collection of stories bears two different titles, it captures in essence the main protagonist, Rose’s identity crisis chiefly with respect to her social status and sense of self-worth. When we first meet Rose, she lives with her w...

In a review of the Selected Stories that functioned as herald, Updike spoke of “a well-mediated complexity and multiplicity of plot, an intense clarity of phrase and image, an exceptional psychological searchingness and honesty,” “a grittiness…and a bold reach”—promises of pleasure I retained, and recalled over time, until circumstances (fatigue with the fiction I was reading, ambitious browsing in a store that carried a quantity of Munro) placed The Beggar Maid in hand. And it’s wonderful.Flo a...

Sometimes I watch singing contests (like the American Idol) on tv and see good singers lose because they would commit the unfortunate mistake of choosing the wrong songs to sing. I cannot say here that Alice Munro chose the wrong plot, or that the story does not suit her. I do not know what would have suited her. I can see, however, that she's a very good writer although the story here (short STORIES, really, but made into one cohesive novel because of the commonality of characters in each of th...

The same brilliant Alice Munro I have come to know and love. With a bonus: all short stories are about the same character, Rose, so it is almost like a novel, although not quite 😊.

Alice Munro tells me some vital facts about myself, and what fuels my reading passion.Why? I can't review her at all. I read her stories (this is my fourth collection), find pleasure in the calm and quiet settings and characters, full of subtext and possibilities for own interpretations. I bow to her incredible skill to create atmosphere. And yet!I close the collections, one after the other, with a feeling of ... Yes, that is it. With a feeling of the Nothingness that is slowly eating the imagin...

What is there to say about Alice Munro? She is the consummate artist, the supreme master of the short story form. Incomparable in her complexity: the sudden rush of surprising juxtapositions, the dip of a yawning vision of the abyss, the gurgle of delightful humour, the vibrant pleasure of recognition, that moment when you say yes, yes, of course.This collection, subtitled Stories of Flo and Rose, was first published in 1977. The stories are more or less chronologically arranged and follow Rose

Rating: 2.5* of fiveI hate Flo, and dislike Rose, and can think of no possible reason for anyone to read more than the Pearl Rule requires or the first three stories, whichever comes first in your edition.The entire unkind review is on my blog, Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

The Beggar Maid is the first time I've read Alice Munro. She's generally very well received, and a Nobel Prize in Literature is a big accolade.So why do I feel somewhat nonplussed by The Beggar Maid?If I hadn't known this was the work of a literary Titan, would I have moved on with barely a flicker?I enjoyed nine of the ten stories; I found the last story Who Do You Think You Are? both the weakest, and one strangely out of sequence in a book where we travelled through Rose's life with her (and

Who do you think you are? by Alice Munro is the kind of a book that reminds me about the power of literature. The novel (or a collection of stories) is about a girl and then woman named Rose and it presents some glimpses of her life. Sometimes they are life-changing, sometimes just a recollection, a detail that brings a stream of associations, anecdotes, memories. Everything is so polished, so precise that I was sighing with admiration over some sentences, their subtle perfection. The way everyt...

What is it that makes us choose a partner, the person with whom we believe we want to spend our life with? And how do personal circumstances, the expectations of others, and the visions we project of the future we think we desire affect such decision making process?If you are a woman and you read this book, you will recognize yourself, or a previous version of yourself, in the young girl who defines the rest of her life based on her uncontrollable need to please.If you are a man and you read thi...

Royal Beatings - 3/5 starsPrivilege - 4/5 starsHalf a Grapefruit - 3/5 starsWild Swans - 1/5 starsThe Beggar Maid - 4/5 starsMischief - 4.5/5 stars Providence - 4/5 stars Simon's Luck - 3/5 starsSpelling - 4/5 starsWho do you think you are? - 4/5 stars

Some of the most beautiful writing I have read recently. I kept having that feeling you get when you read a really gorgeous sentence or paragraph or scene and you just think, "WOW," and want to put it in your pocket and remember it forever. One of the critics' comments on the back of my copy used the phrase "psychological precision" and I don't think I could really put it any better. One of my favorite things about it was how it captured a person's feelings toward the people in the margins of th...

"Who Do You Think You Are?" is the Canadian title of this collection, and it is a very Canadian sentiment. It is used to put down someone who thinks they might get ahead, someone who imagines they might be better than their setting or their peers. It is a hard-truthed barb used to puncture dreams and fantasies."The Beggar Maid" is a title used outside of Canada, and it just confuses me when I see it, because the book is marked as "read" yet I don't remember ever reading it! I didn't of course —

This is my first Alice Munro, and it clearly deserves its literary accolades. It’s a short story collection that follows the same characters more or less chronologically through their lives: a girl and later woman named Rose, and her stepmother, Flo. The characters are certainly believable, and I became more engaged with it in the latter 2/3 of the book, as Rose becomes an adult living her own life and making adult choices – many will disagree with me on this point, but to me there’s only so muc...

I enjoyed these realistic stories of a girl born poor in rural Canada, growing up with a stepmother with whom she has little in common but gets on pretty well. I liked reading about Flo (the stepmother) more than Rose, which was a pity because most of the stories focus on Rose. Flo is funny, while Rose is rather more serious. But Rose’s life was interesting and archetypical for its time, as she did the marriage-and-children thing and then broke away in what I suppose would have been the 1960s or...