Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

“AN AREA OF CONSIDERABLE PSYCHIC MURKINESS AND ODDITY.”

June 1, 2009 at 8:31 PM · Literature

“AN AREA OF CONSIDERABLE PSYCHIC MURKINESS AND ODDITY.” This article in the Economist reports that Alice Munro has won the Man Booker international prize. She is a wonderful writer. We belong to a short story group, and it is good to see a short-story writer honored. But I am also posting on the article to call the following passage to the attention of my Canadian relatives: “Ms Munro comes from southern Ontario, an area of considerable psychic murkiness and oddity. Her stories dwell on her own people and their peculiarities: their repressed emotions, respectable fronts, hidden sexual excesses, outbreaks of violence, lurid crimes and long-held grudges.”