Maybe I’m losing my perception. Maybe I’m just overdosed on reading. This story in Alice Munro’s anthology follows a woman on a brief vacation after her relationship falls apart. It is self analysis on her part, even as written in third person, as she seeks to understand her attraction to her former lover. She is staying at a small inn where she interacts with several very different types of men. In wondering how she would have responded to these men, she seeks to discover her self that she has somehow lost in her relationship with her former lover.
It’s sort of gone on and on and I don’t really see a real focused or empathetic character in Lydia. She is rude to an elderly gentleman who is obsessed with the persona of Willa Cather, to the point where she appears to purposely hurt his feelings. It is likely that human nature with its ego of self-preservation has led her to do this as part of her own healing process.
Munro is a great storyteller of character in ways that we can usually recognize ourselves and our own flaws as well as needs. This particular story, however, didn’t really have me hooked.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
So the guy in question is completely out of the story?
Yep. And frankly, I think he’s the better for it.