Why Alice Munro’s Work Felt Empty

Welcome back to the Sunday culture edition, where an Atlantic writer or editor shares what’s been keeping them entertained. Our special guest today is David Frum, an Atlantic staff writer. David has written about J.D. Vance, the dangers of American autocracy, and his daughter’s last gift. He is a lifelong fan of the Talking Heads, a rehabilitated T.S. Eliot enthusiast, and a critic of Alice Munro’s writing. He’s also keen to visit an Impressionist exhibition touring Washington, D.C., in the fall.

David Frum recently engaged in a heated cultural debate. This summer, one of Alice Munro’s daughters revealed that Munro’s second husband had sexually abused her throughout her childhood. Despite knowing the full extent of the abuse, Munro remained loyal to the abuser. The abuser pleaded guilty in 2005 and received a suspended sentence with two years of probation. This story was known in Canadian literary circles but became public only this year.

The controversy didn’t surprise Frum. Great artists are often flawed individuals. For him, the debate over Alice Munro was not about her actions but about why he never considered her a great artist. In Canada, Munro was seen as a great talent and moral witness. However, Frum found her stories insipid and tedious, with unspoken secrets that never amounted to much. Munro’s own tendency to shrug off significant issues explained the inconsequential nature of her narratives.

Frum resonates with John Keats’ assertion that “beauty is truth, truth beauty.” While not the whole story, Frum believes that habitual lying kills the soul of art in a unique way. Armed with this understanding, he can now critique Munro’s art with a renewed perspective on its emptiness.

As a teenager, David Frum loved the music of the Talking Heads and still does. Has there ever been a more danceable depiction of civil unrest than in their song “Life During Wartime”? The band’s music continues to captivate him.

Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway
A place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I’m getting used to it now

Frum also loved the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Works like “The Waste Land” still haunt him, and lines from other poems, such as “Burnt Norton”’s “garlic and sapphires in the mud,” remain impactful. However, much of Eliot’s enigmatic poetry now feels like attitude rather than art to him. He suspects his adolescent literary hero may not have the depth he once believed.

A significant event Frum looks forward to is an upcoming exhibition of Impressionist paintings in Washington, D.C. A group of French artists introduced a new style that would soon be known as Impressionism in 1874. The exhibition, which he saw in Paris, will be displayed at the National Gallery of Art in the fall. Paris in 1874 was reeling from siege and revolution. Yet, the Impressionist show from that time almost entirely ignored these tumultuous events. Instead of commenting on the revolution, the Impressionists chose to revolutionize art itself.

Frum also speaks about a personal connection to Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Voice.” His mother died at an early age, and soon after, a friend introduced him to the poem. The key stanza questions whether the poet’s beloved is “calling” to him or if it’s an illusion caused by a rainy autumn day:

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

This poem struck a chord again when Frum’s daughter, who was a baby when her grandmother died, passed away suddenly at the age of 32. Hardy’s words resonate deeply with him:

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.

The enduring power of art and literature continues to influence and shape Frum’s perspectives. Whether engaging in cultural debates, revisiting old favorites, or anticipating future exhibitions, he remains deeply connected to the world of arts and culture.

Source: The Atlantic