TOO MUCH HAPPINESS

Let me tell you from the get go that this collection of short stories is anything but warm and fuzzy and feel-good. The title story, Too Much Happiness, is a retelling of the last days of Sophia Kovalevsky: a brilliant 19th century mathematician and novelist. The collection also features nine other short stories, each more disturbing and strangely striking than the other.

Munro has said, "A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows."  Reading her short stories is indeed exactly like wandering in a house. At first I found her style of constantly jumping between different time frames of the character's life highly disconcerting. At some points it felt almost tedious and as though she was just shuttling random bits of unasked for information at me. However in each story she always managed to tie up the loose ends and I was always left pleasantly surprised. I wasn't taken aback because Munro suddenly threw murder and erotica into the plots, I was taken aback because the thematic ambience wasn't focused on these drastic "twists". I loved how even after reading the supposed climax, I had no idea where the story was going. 

Munro does not write to show off cleverness or to give you a rush of adrenaline. So if that is what you're looking for I would not recommend Too Much Happiness for you. As she says, "And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you."

Short stories are great to read during exams because they don't take as long as novels but still satisfy your reading appetite. If you start a story and find it boring I ask of you to remain patient; my personal favourites, Child's Play and Wenlock Edge both start off slow. However I found that each story constituted a fascinating read, so just be careful to absorb the details and enjoy!