Some writers might take a book to do it. Carol Shields did, in Swann. Timothy Findley did, in The Wars.
Alice Munro takes a short story to build a life from fragments left behind.
In this case, in “Meneseteung”, the fragments are culled from a book called Offerings (“Gold lettering on a dull-blue cover…author’s full name underneath: Almeda Joynt Roth”) and snippets from the local newspaper, the Vidette.
From such sources, the curious amongst us can “put things together”.
They use notebooks and gravestones and microfilm, “just in the hope of seeing this trickle in time, making a connection, rescuing one thing from the rubbish”.
But, first, the verse. It follows a photograph (dated 1865, eight years prior to the book’s publication, in 1873) and a preface.
Even the verse’s titles contain clues, but the actual works contain actual information, though its nature remains uncertain.
“Perhaps Almeda was called Meda in the family, or perhaps she shortened her name to fit the poem.”
It is difficult to spot the line between artistry and identity. (But, in fact, later a discovery of a gravestone is detailed, a stone with ‘Meda” on it, which appears to answer this uncertainty.)
Some of the curious go so far as to include details commonly left out of imagined scenes.
Alice Munro mentions this in a later story (“Dear Life”): “Fresh manure was always around, but I ignored it, as Anne must have done at Green Gables.”
Perhaps in an effort to cultivate versimilitude, the re-imaginer of “Meneseteung” includes these details, bringing the scent of the past off the page:
“And, like an encampment, it’s busy all the time – full of people, who, within the town, usually walk wherever they’re going; full of animals, which leave horse buns, cow pats, dog turds that ladies have to hitch up their skirts for; full of the noise of building and of drivers shouting at their horses and of the trains that come in several times a day.”
Those horse buns, cow pats, and dog turds that the ladies — including Meda, no longer ALmeda — hitch their skirts for? They even attract flies.
“Strangers who don’t look so prosperous are taunted and tormented. Speculation surrounds all of them – it’s like a cloud of flies.”
But, speculation? Isn’t that what the curious re-imaginer is doing as well? Speculating?
And, if so, perhaps it’s not such a decent pastime. If it draws vermin to the scene.
“The young girl herself, being a decent girl, has never walked down to the last block or the swamp. No decent woman ever would.”
In “Meneseteung”, the last block and the swamp are afforded room on the pages of memory, or, at least, imagined memory.
Notebooks and gravestones and microfilm?
Perhaps, for some. Alice Munro uses fiction instead.
Note: This is part of a series of posts on Alice Munro’s stories, as I read through her work-to-date. She is one of my MRE authors and I plan to read the stories in Friend of My Youth throughout this month; this is the third story in the collection. Please feel free to check the schedule and join in, for the series, or for a single story; I would love the company.
Thanks so much for the site for the Skimings photo and biography: I really enjoyed seeing/reading this. The historical connections are making this collection a new favourite for me.
The things I liked best about this story I think are the various statements that pinpoint the culture of Meda’s early life such as “There is nothing wrong with her looks, and naturally she is in better shape than most married women of her age, not having been loaded down with work and children.” And then this about her avocation: “And all that reading and poetry – it seemed more of a drawback,a barrier, an obsession, in the young girl than in the middle-aged woman, who needed something after all to fill her time. Anyway, it’s five years since her book was published, so perhaps she has got over that. Perhaps it was the proud, bookish father encouraging her!” I particularly liked this next one: “One thing she has noticed about married woman, and that is how many of them have to go about creating their husbands.” This seemed like such a perfect description of a practice that is sill recognizable in many marriages. Lastly, I marked this one which was the doctor’s advice to Almeda when she sought his advice on her sleeplessness:”Don’t read so much, he said, don’t study; get yourself good and tired out with housework, take exercise. He believes that her troubles would clear up if she got married. He believes this inspite of the fact that most of his nerve medicine is prescribed for married women.”
I also enjoyed the setting of the story. A reference book (Alice Munro by Carol Ann Howells) locates the story in Goderich and the Menesetung River is apparently the Maitland River. There was also a Goderich poet, Eloise A. Skimings known as “the poetess of Huron County”. So, as you indicated, Munro has taken factual fragments and built a very intriguing fiction. The concluding paragraph is delightful: I can almost see Alice Munro winking.
Thanks so much for the quotes and additional information, Sandra.
It hadn’t occurred to me, until you’d pulled out these bits, that the commentary is actually so revealing of the person who is interpreting as well, who can observe that Meda wasn’t loaded down with work and children (so, perhaps, the observer is not, either). The comment about all the reading also brings to mind Barbara in “Oranges and Apples”, the way that she is always, always reading and doesn’t seem to want to do anything else. And, yes, I hrumphed in recognition of the “creating their husbands” line: how often do we observe (and, at times, perhaps, participate in) just that!
I love spotting the overlap with Goderich in this collection, in “Oranges and Apples” the talk of the bandshell in the square and the stairs to view the sunset, and in “Five Points” with the cars parked at the shore to look out at the lake and the freighters coming and going, and in the mentions of the salt mine (more than one story IIRC).
There is a photograph of Eloise A. Skimings here. And the fact that her book was Golden Leaves and the book in the story has golden lettering on its cover makes me think that AM was winking indeed.