Munro's world is one of post-war Canada, when women are beginning to experience a constrained kind of freedom. In "What is Remembered", a chance meeting at a funeral has a profound, yet stabilising effect on Meriel, a young wife and mother. "Young husbands", writes Munro, "were stern in those days". Between learning how to kowtow to bosses and manage wives, there was so much else to learn: mortgages, lawns and politics for a start. The wives, meantime, were afforded the opportunity of "a second kind of adolescence"--but only in the confines of the family home, while the men were absent, and only after wifely jobs were accounted for. In the book's title story, a capable, spinsterly housekeeper finds love in the most unexpected place, in the most unexpected way. However the opportunity presents itself, it is what you choose to make of it that really matters, the author seems to be saying. Johanna could be deeply disappointed with her "opportunity" but, in her straightforward way, amends a few details and makes the most of it.

Alice Munro's stories are retrospective; tales of lives lived, for better or worse. If you want something, take it, quickly. You only get one life, and this is it. --Carey Green

2005-07-12 beautiful writing, but oddly frustrating

Some stories are more successful than others and contain excellent description, some very moving moments and a portrayal of some of the realities of life often painful, sometimes beautiful usually insightful.

Yet, for me I found the stories frustrating in their brevity (yes, I know they're short stories), too sudden in their endings and more like a snack that leaves you hungry, but doesn't make you want more of the same.