“Something”：The “Dark Sides” of Alice Munro’sStory-Telling in Its American Context

David R. Jarraway

(Department of English，University of Ottawa，Ottawa K1N 6N5，Canada)

“Something”：The“DarkSides”ofAliceMunro’sStory-TellinginItsAmericanContext

David R. Jarraway

(Department of English，University of Ottawa，Ottawa K1N 6N5，Canada)

导读：(“那种东西”：难以言说的生活本质)

(赵海萍，宁波大学科学技术学院人文学院讲师；刘继华，宁波大学科学技术学院人文学院副教授)

文学以及文学的创作就是一个对人类、人生、人性探索与追问的过程，在这一过程中，最难的莫过于对人性的思考与发现，尤其是人性中难以捉摸、难以把握、难以言说的那些东西，也就是渥太华大学英语系教授David R. Jarraway的文章《“有一种东西”：美国语境中艾丽丝·门罗小说中的“隐秘面”》(“Something”：The“DarkSides”ofAliceMunro’sStory-TellinginItsAmericanContext)所专门论述的“隐秘面”(“dark sides”)。一个作家，能够立于文学丛林之中引人瞩目，给人以长久的影响，必然是认真、严肃思考生活和人性的作家，是能够真正使人产生思索、给人提出问题的作家，因此必然是探索这些“隐秘面”的作家。艾丽丝·门罗能够获得诺贝尔文学奖，能够成为“当代短篇小说大师”(瑞典学院颁奖词)，能够使“仅仅20页的篇幅中所表达的远超过一部长篇小说的内涵，……能够用一篇短篇小说来涵盖几十年的历史”(瑞典学院常设秘书长Peter Englund接受加拿大广播电台CBC采访时言)，其中一个重要的原因正是她对生活中“隐秘面”的探索。Jarraway的文章就专门探讨了门罗短篇小说集OpenSecrets中的“隐秘面”主题。

文章所谓的“美国语境”，并不是指门罗将小说背景设置在美国，也不是从美国文学的视角来分析门罗的创作，而是对门罗与美国作家、画家之间互相影响的关系的梳理。Jarraway看到了门罗与美国作家William Maxwell、Joyce Carol Oates，以及画家Edward Hopper等人之间的联系，尤其是他们之间的共同之处，以此来揭示OpenSecrets中“Carried Away”“Open Secrets”“A Wilderness Station”“Spaceships Have Landed”等作品中的“隐秘面”。

Jarraway发现，William Maxwell对门罗的影响最为深远，门罗自称Maxwell对她的影响“尤其而且永远”(“especially and forever”)重要，其原因是她发现这位美国作家所关注的东西恰好与她自己所关注的东西相合，那就是故事(生活)“中心附近”(“near the centre”)的“一道不同的光或一片不同的影”(“a different light or shading”)，是“无法言说的一种东西”(“something there’s no word for”)，是美国文学批评家Richard Poirier所说的美国文学中“公开的秘密”，即某一种“模糊”“不明晰”(“vagueness”)。这种“模糊”指的是“生活中无法抓在手中的幽灵”(“the ungraspable phantom of life”)。

熟悉门罗的人都知道，还有一个美国作家对她产生的影响可能甚至超过Maxwell，那就是女作家Joyce Carol Oates。Oates与门罗的关系自然也是Jarraway文章探讨的重要主题。Jarraway对这一点的探讨仍然围绕“模糊”进行。他发现，生活中“现实性的流失”(“the lapse of realism”)对Oates和门罗具有同样的吸引力，如Oates所说，那些“与常人不同的人物”(“people who seem to deviate from the norm”)为两人的创作提供了最好的素材。门罗的人物“同时有两种生活”(“both lives at the same time”)，一种是“正常的生活”(“normal life”)，一种是“另一种生活”(“another life”)(这个说不清道不明的“另一种生活”恰好也说明了“模糊”的特质)，这与Oates的“白天的自己”(“day-self”)和“夜晚的自己”(“night-self”)如出一辙。笔者认为，门罗对“两种生活”的探讨，实际上是对真实生活下的另一种真实生活的描写与探讨。这另一种真实生活是心理上的真实生活，相比芸芸众生每天耳目所触的物理和物质上的生活，这种心理上的真实生活被看成是虚幻的，是不现实与不真实的。然而，人的生活与其说是物理与物质的生活，不如说是一种心理的生活，是感受的生活、感觉的生活，因为只有感受到、感觉到的生活才是精神上的生活。从这一点上讲，与物理和物质上的真实生活放在一起的时候，这种心理上的真实生活反倒是更为真实、更为实际、更像是可触可摸的实际存在，而物理与物质上的真实生活却成了一种虚幻的、不重要的镜像。简言之，物理与物质上的真实生活其实只提供了一个生活发生的场所，而心理上的生活才是真正发生的生活。Jarraway文章中虽然没有明说这一点，但从他对Oates与门罗关系的论述和对门罗作品主题的讨论中，不难看出他应该会同意这一看法。

心理上的生活表面上看来似乎不是真实发生的，但是透过物理生活的表面，会看到“有什么东西在发生”(“something is happening”)。这在美国画家Edward Hopper的作品中可以得到启发。Hopper是Oates和门罗都喜欢的画家，在他的作品中，事物外表是熟悉与平常的，而内在是神秘与不可捉摸的，如Walter Wells所说，“有什么东西在发生。假如不是此刻正在发生，那就是已经发生，或者将要发生”(“Something is happening. And if it isn’t happening at the moment，it has just happened，or is about to”)。Jarraway认为，这种不确定性(“open-endedness”)正是门罗与Hopper之间最清楚的联系。

在门罗的作品中，这种不确定性不但在于事件的不确定(“uncertainty”)，更在于自我的不可知(“unknowable self”)。Jarraway指出，对自我的不可知这种不确定性贯穿于门罗的作品，同时指出，加拿大作家Robert Fulford早就发现了门罗作品中的这一主题：“你无法真正理解任何人，你只能在理解的边缘啃上几小口而已……这是艾丽丝·门罗二十年来以这样那样的方式一直在告诉我们的真理。”

这种不了解与无法理解，就是门罗作品中的“隐秘面”，就是“那种东西”。在文章的结论部分，Jarraway提出，美国文学话语中广泛存在一个大主题，那就是对“家”(“house and home”)的质问，而门罗作品中不断出现的“那种东西”，是对这一大主题的“主观‘回避’”(“subjective ‘avoidance’”)。Jarraway文中虽然没有明确提出，但我们依然可以看到，这一点是门罗作品与美国文学语境紧密联系之中的一个区别，也正是这一区别使得门罗的作品具有了不同于美国文学的特点，因为越是不同的东西，越能激起门罗的创作欲望。因此，门罗的作品中揉入的是多元的东西，既有显性的、明晰的方面，又有模糊的、隐秘的方面，既关注显性的、明晰的东西，但更关注模糊的、隐秘的东西。她的作品虽然写的都是平常的人物，其肌理、层次却更丰富，思想厚实，更能吸引读者一次又一次地重访她的“小说之屋”(“the Munro ‘House of Fiction’”)，去探寻“那种东西”。

Jarraway的文章中心突出，深入浅出，紧紧围绕门罗与美国文学的联系来探讨门罗作品中的心理现实主题。值得一提的是，这样一篇论述深入的学术文章，读来却并不觉得厚重。它脉络清晰，文字清楚，没有堆砌文学术语，没有用艰深的“行话”装点门面，拒人门外。它没有长篇大论的理论阐述，只是在论及Poirier时对心理学的一些概念作出了简明的解释，在文章的结论部分对David Macey和Ralph Waldo Emerson的观点作出了一些阐明。文学评论当然离不开理论，但Jarraway非常明白，理论的作用是提供一条路线，文学评论家的任务在于对文本的解读和对作品主题的分析，理论的运用应该很自然地融入分析之中，而不应该与分析脱离。西方的文学评论多数与Jarraway的文章相似。这一点能够为我国的文学评论提供很好的启示。其实，我国的文学评论也曾有过很好的简明、清晰、朴实的传统，但自20世纪末期以来，由于外国语言学在中国的强势发展，文学评论，尤其是外国文学评论，受到了语言学研究模式的严重影响(有人用的是“污染”一词——这个词有些过激，但语言学研究模式的影响之大从中可见一斑)，不少文学评论动辄高举“理论”的牌子，有些期刊也唯“理论”马首是瞻，有些文章唯恐“理论”不“高”不“大”不“系统”，读者读来如在云里雾里，论者自己其实也不知所云。读读Jarraway等西方文评家的论述，我们更加迫切地感到，国内这种所谓“理论”挂帅的不合理现象真的应该变一变了。文学评论不应该再向语言学邀宠，而应该重新做文学评论自己了。

“Thereisalwaysinthislifesomethingtodiscover.”—AliceMunro，“TheAlbanianVirgin”[1]107

“...weliveamongstriddlesandmysteries—themostobviousthings，whichcomeinourway，havedarksides，whichthequickestsightcannotpenetrateinto...inalmosteverycrannyofnature’sworks...”—LaurenceSterne①

“...itispartofmoralitynottobeathomeinone’shome.”—TheodorAdorno[2]39

In “A Conversation with Alice Munro” that took place around the time thatTheLoveofaGoodWomanwas published in 1998，the editors at Knopf Doubleday pose the inevitable interview question，“What writers have most influenced you and who do you like to read?” Munro’s immediate response is instructive since all of the writers in the first instance are American：“Eudora Welty，Carson McCullers，Katherine Anne Porter，Flannery O’Connor，James Agee. Then Updike，Cheever，Joyce Carol Oates，Peter Taylor.” But then she adds William Maxwell，and with a significant qualification：“... and especially and forever，William Maxwell.”②The “especially and forever” thus anticipates six years later a glowing tribute Munro will pay to Maxwell，the longtime fiction editor at theNewYorkermagazine that had done so much to solidify Munro’s own reputation in the States (and elsewhere) over the years. But it’s also a rare moment of artistic apology for Munro，and highlights the “something” alluded to in my title.

For commenting on Maxwell’s novel,TheyCamelikeSwallows(1937)，Munro writes：“... there is something new with each telling，some new action at the periphery or revelation near the centre，a different light or shading，a discovery，as there must be in the stories at the heart of our lives,” and goes on to link this moment to a similar one in Maxwell’s later novelTheFoldedLeaf(1945) when Munro further observes that “the friendship between (two adolescent boys growing into men) is turning into something they cannot bear”[3]40-41. Wistfully reflecting on such moments in Maxwell’s fiction，Munro then speculates about a rhetorical means for retrospectively renovating her entire narrative canon：“If only I could go back and write again every single thing that I have written.”[3]35More precisely revolving that “something” at the centre of her work two years later，Munro offers a formulation that might strike some as distinctly postmodern when she further observes：“It’s not the story—it’s more like the spirit，the centre of the story，somethingthere’snowordfor，that can only come into life... when words are wrapped around it.”[4]300

In the decade previously，it’s arguably Munro’s story collection entitledOpenSecrets[1]that comes closest，I would argue，to that unspeakable Maxwellian crux that conceivably offers the author a quite radically new purchase on her narrative art. For this is the volume that also promises something like a paradigmatic shift to a whole new counter-factual reality as Munro discloses to Peter Gzowski in a CBCMorningsideinterview broadcast hard on the heels of the publication ofOpenSecretsin 1994:

I want to move away from what happened，to the possibility of this happening，or that happening，and a kind of idea that life is not just made up of the facts，the things that happened... But all the things that happen in fantasy，the things that might have happened，the kind of alternative life that can almost seem to be accompanying what we call our real lives. I wanted to get all that，sort of，working together.[5]450③

The speculation here about an “alternative life” shadowing some more plausibly factual or real dimension of human experience is provoked，for Gzowski at any rate，in the opening story ofOpenSecretsentitled “Carried Away” by the reappearance in Toronto of Jack Agnew in the female protagonist Louisa’s itinerant life some years after his ghastly death via decapitation in the Doud piano factory back in Carstairs. As Louisa divulges to either a fictive or a real Jack Agnew near the end of the story，“It turned out to be something else I wanted entirely”[1]40. Yet that enigmatic “it” orlapsein realism forms a vital thread linking almost all of the stories in the volume to follow：the mysterious disappearance of Heather Bell in “Open Secrets,” for example，or the riddling cause of Simon Herron’s death in “A Wilderness Station,” or Eunie’s problematic alien abduction in the penultimate “Spaceships Have Landed,” to mention only three. As Maureen Stephens revolves all such phantasmatic alternatives in her own fraught life—“But suppose you did see something？Not along the lines of Jesus，but something?”[1]132—she stumbles onto a rhetorical formulation that just might be the long held “open secret” of American literature much before the novel writing of William Maxwell last century：in Maureen’s words once again，“something not startling until you think of trying to tell it”[1]134.

Repeatedly trying to tell or talk down that which intractably lies hidden to plain sight is the “open secret” which Richard Poirier，for one，refers to in American literature as the achievement of a certain “vagueness.” As Poirier quite precisely explains that term (in a borrowing from William James’sPrinciplesofPsychology)，“the reinstatement of the vague” in American Pragmatism has everything to do with “efforts to create the gel of human relationships even as the gel is forever melting away”[6]274-275. Such vagueness (in a further borrowing of James’sTheWilltoBelieve) approximates “the bottom of beingthatis left logically opaque to us，assomethingwhich we simply come upon and find，and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder about as little as possible...asthe ungraspable phantom of life”[6]279. And it’s Poirier’s further association of that opaque selfhood or phantom being with the image of an abyss—“a gap or an abyssasan invitation simply to get moving and keep moving，to make a transition”[6]279-280—that perhaps best establishes Munro’s own connection to vagueness by means of a character like Annie McKillop，say，in “A Wilderness Station.” For Annie，the gaping wilderness provides her the opportunity not so much to “station” her identity，to go with the story’s title，but rather the momentum “togetourstationchanged” since as one letter-writer states，“themovewillbeoutofonewildernessstationuntoanother，”[1]171and never more so than when Annie，very much on in years，takes to her Stanley Steamer in search of her brother-in-law George Herron in the story’s fourth and final part：“People were still in church whenshestarted，but later on the roads were full of horses and buggies making the journey home... But it turned out Old Annie did not want to be so sedate...”[1]184

Annie’s highly mobile surrender to open space，then，conceivably reinstates at a pivotal point in Munro’s own story-telling more generally the vagueness of America’s modernist subjectivity，an airy or phantom nothing whose “burden of obscurity” will baffle readers “in the very process of thetext’sdelivery to us,” as Poirier notes[6]287. Here，one perhaps might recall the punning “waywardness aboutAnnie’sone eye that does not interfere with her vision and her excellent sewing，”[1]161or maybe even more baffling，her refusal to remain in her house，finding in the bites of flies and mosquitoes “another sign that in the outsideshewas protected”[1]180. As Poirier further observes，“there is a mixture here of directness with exploratory uncertainty，of forthrightness with confusion，a compulsion to speak along with a fear that there may be nothing to say”[6]287—precisely Maureen Stephens’ “open secret” conundrum observed previously.

That combination of “forthrightness and confusion,” of course，rehearses once again the problematic of realism alluded to earlier with Munro’s Maxwellian insistence upon interposing some kind of alternative as an accompaniment to “what we call ourreallives”—in Annie McKillop’s case，a certain relaxation of the “order imposed on her days” with the removal of the Herron brothers from her life，and symbolized by her “open door” and the animals’ “comingandgoingin her house” at once[1]167. Joyce Carol Oates，a long time reader of Munro (and vice versa as noted earlier) characterizes this problematic as “an elliptical and poetic sort of vernacular realism”[7]43much in the spirit of Annie’s allergy to “the monotony of life or the drudgery she may have been born to，”[1]172hence another reinstatement of the vague④. But as Oates goes on further to relate，the vagaries of such an elliptical realism can also serve as a salutary stay against “the deep suspicioningof people who seem to deviate from the norm，who threaten the protocol of narrow domesticity”—characters，that is，viewed as “lesions in the carapace of uniformity that provide the writerlikeMunrowith the most extraordinary material”[7]42-43. Hence，a character like Maureen，once again from “Open Secrets,” wistfully reflecting upon the disappearance of Heather Bell from her C.G.I.T. summer outing:

Sometimes whenMaureenis just going to sleep but not quite asleep，not dreaming yet，she has caught something. Or even in the daytime during what she thinks of as her normal life. She might catch herself sitting on stone steps eating cherries and watching a man coming up the steps carrying a parcel. She has never seen those steps or that man，but for an instant they seem to be part of another life that she is leading，a life just as complicated and strange and dull as this one. And she isn’t surprised. It’s just a fluke，a speedily corrected error，that she knows about both lives at the same time.[1]132

Could it be that in the “Open Secrets” narrative，Heather Bell has indeed bounded past the carapace of uniformity and sided with the vagaries of that “other” life just as Maureen describes?

With the sharp contrast presented in the preceding passage between a “normal life” associated with daytime and “another life” just short of sleeping and dreaming，this important meditation on “both lives at the same time” contains another significant intersection with Oates and American literature more generally. In a hypnotic reflection on Edward Hopper’s justly famous painting entitled “Nighthawks，1942,” novelist Oates like the character Maureen finds “another life” in the form of a “night-self” calling out to her from the dark “interiority” of Hopper’s canvas. As a young teenager，Oates remarks further that she found this vaguely aberrant notion of subjectivity descending upon her，as in Hopper’s “Nighthawks,” during “those long，lonely stretches of time when no one else in the house was awake (as far as I knew)；the romance of solitude and self-sufficiency in which time seems not to pass or passes so slowly it will never bring dawn”[8]346. In clear contrast to the night-self’s “mystery in the insomniac night” under the influence of the enigmatic Hopper，Oates pits the very conventional and the very house-bound “day-self”：“a ‘self’ that was obliged to accommodate others’ expectations，and was，indeed，defined by others，predominantly adults.” The stark juxtaposition of day and night here，rather like the “light or shading” for Munro of “something” in Maxwell，thus provokes Oates ultimately to proclaim：“Yes，butyoudon’tknowme... in adolescent secrecy and defiance. You really don’t know me!”[8]346

In a further meditation on contemporary art，this time on Charles Sheeler，Oates discloses her being overtaken by variations of her very own “night-self” while perusing Sheeler’s painting entitledUpstairs(1938)：“simple geometric figures are so arranged to suggest stairs leading up from a well-lighted room into the darkness of an unseen upstairs—an ominous unknowable future...whereall is still，silent，utterly mysterious. One seems to be gazing upon one’s own future.”[8]353The self’s disappearance into a futural darkness similarly underscores for Maureen in “Open Secrets” the true significance of Heather Bell’s disappearance，and perhaps Maureen’s own longing to elude containment in the same way:

Idareyoutorunaway. Was it possible？There are times when girls are inspired，when they want the risks to go on and on... From the chintz-covered hassock at her husband’s sideMaureenlooked out at the old copper-beech trees，seeing behind them not the sunny lawn but the unruly trees along the river—the dense cedars and shiny-leaved oaks and glittery poplars. A ragged sort of wall with hidden doorways，and hidden paths behind it where animals went，and lone humans sometimes，becoming different from what they were outside，charged with different responsibilities，certainties，intentions. She could imagine vanishing.[1]117⑤

“But of course you didn’t vanish,” the passage concludes，“forthere was always the other person on a path to intersect yours and his head was full of plans for you even before you met”[1]117. In Munro’s reading of Maxwell，that ghastly intersection for the female protagonist in Maxwell’s novel significantly entitledTimeWillDarkenIt(1948) perhaps takes the form of her husband’s arm “whose hand settled on her heart，and she let it stay there for a moment，thinking how hard and heavy it was... how importunate，how demanding；how it was not part of her and never would be，insisting on a satisfaction，even in sleep，that she could not give”[3]39. And so for Maureen back in “Open Secrets” when her husband “first put his arm around her waist，in the office，andshe thought he must believe that she was headed for the wrong door and was redirecting her... because of his propriety，not because she hadn’t longed to feel his arm there”[1]129⑥.

It therefore should not surprise us to discover that the painting of Edward Hopper holds an important attraction for Alice Munro as well⑦. In an “Open Letter” from 1974，she renders one painting in particular by Hopper this way:

A barber-shop，not yet open；the clock says seven and it must be seven in the morning，yes，a cool light，fresh morning light of a summer day. Beside the barber-shop a summer-heavy darkness of trees. The plain white slight shabby barber-shop，so commonplace and so familiar，yet everything about it，in the mild light，is full of a distant murmuring，almost tender foreboding，full of mystery like the trees.[5]88-89

Like Oates’s attraction to Hopper and Sheeler，Munro’s initial daytime response to the interiority of the “commonplace” and the “familiar” inevitably gives place to its opposite as the “darkness” and “mystery” of the exterior come to take its place. In such moments，clearly，we are in the vicinity of that mysterious “something” in Hopper to which Munro is intuitively responsive. “Silently inHopper’spictures,” Wells likewise responds，“somethingis happening. And if it isn’t happening at the moment，it has just happened，or is about to. We are brought to some existential threshold.” Concludes Wells：“Near the end of his life，Hopper said that each of his pictures represented ‘an instant in time arrested—and acutely realized with the utmost intensity,’somethingakin to those epiphanous moments in Joyce or Proust.”[9]11-12

For Munro，then，the Hopper painting thus becomes the very emblem of the “open secret” quite like a poem by Emily Dickinson，according to Diana Fuss. “Throughthe mimetic act of unlockinganEmilyDickinsonpoem,” so Fuss contends，“readers are invited to discover theirownunbounded interiority... For Dickinson，the most private spaces are the most public，and hiding is simply the best way to be seen”[10]60. The open-endedness of the secret arguably forges the clearest link between Munro and Hopper one surmises. For as Gail Levin，Hopper’s most important biographer records，“the one important feature” shared between Hopper’s artist studio in New York city and his summer home in Truro，Massachusetts，was their “treasured sense of openness—of openness that he could look out on，no matter how small his own interior space might be,” that is，“the kind of viewHopperhad as a boy in the family house at NyackNewYorkwith its unobstructed view of the river down the hill”[11]258-259. What is more，as Fuss further remarks，“the door in Dickinson’s poetry is a completely indeterminate figure” like the “instability” of the human subject itself，and finds further corroboration in the work of German philosopher Georg Simmel “that the door is far superior to the dead geometric form of the wallsinceto Simmel，a wall is ‘mute,’ but a door ‘speaks’”[10]43. And because “a door more successfully transcends the divide between the inner and the outer，a doorbeingwhere the finite borders on the infinite，”[10]43little wonder then that in the “ragged sort of wall” that we recall drawing Maureen Stephens outside her own private space into something more public，she should hold such great store by “the hidden doorways，and hidden paths behind it”—doorways egressing into that “big bulging awful mysterious entity called THE TRUTH” as Munro phrases it (Knopf Doubleday “Conversation”) for “becoming different”[1]117.

After the publication ofOpenSecretsin 1994，Munro moves on to a volume ofSelectedStoriesin 1996 which may be thought of as a kind of portal to all of her later work particularly in light of the quotation she carefully chooses to round out her own “Introduction” to that mammoth collection—a passage from Laurence Sterne’sTheLifeandOpinionsofTristramShandy，Gentleman—which rehearses all over again something of the darker opacities of “THE TRUTH” about selfhood just scanned:

Butmark，madam，weliveamongriddlesandmysteries—themostobviousthings，whichcomeinourway，havedarksides，whichthequickestsightcannotpenetrateinto；andeventheclearestandmostexaltedunderstandingsamongstusfindourselvespuzzledandatalossinalmosteverycrannyofnature’sworks:sothat...wecannotreasonuponit...[12]xvii

Interestingly，Oates is prepared to view Munro’s treatment of the “dark sides” of the phantom subject right from the beginning of her publishing career，citing a passage in “Walker Brothers Cowboy”[13]fromDanceoftheHappyShades(1968) about father’s life “turning into something you will never know，with all kinds of weathers，and distances you cannot imagine”[7]42. So with John Updike[14]，who views that very same passage as a specific reflection on the “the wooing of distant parts” of selfhood inSelectedStories，and quite likely all of Munro’s writing to follow⑧. And perhaps，via a work likeSomethingI’veBeenMeaningtoTellYou(1974)，we catch the darker sides of that mysterious “something” extending into Munro’s much later work as well，into a work likeHateship，Friendship，Courtship，Loveship，Marriage(2001)，for example，where we might hypothesize a possibleraisond’êtrefor the story-telling art itself—“I did not think of the story I would make... in particular—but of the work I wanted to do，which seemed more like grabbingsomethingout of the air than of constructing stories”[15]119—or even into a more recent story collection likeTooMuchHappiness(2009):“There issomething，anyway，in having got through the day without it being an absolute disaster. It wasn’t，was it？She said maybe. He hadn’t corrected her”[16]117.

In hisEdmontonJournalreview ofHateship，Friendship，Courtship，Loveship，Marriagejust mentioned，Thomas Wharton observes：“Reading Alice Munro is a quiet reminder that，amid the big ideas，the big important books always in a rush to sum up ‘society as a whole,’ it is always the solitary，observing，ultimatelyunknowableself，to whom life，and death，happen.”[5]503Robert Fulford，however，dates this preoccupation in Munro much earlier，remarking with reference toSomethingI’veBeenMeaningtoTellYouthat “You can’t really understand anyone，you can only nibble at the edges of comprehension... a truth Alice Munro has been telling us，in one way or another，for two decades”[5]269. Alison Lurie，however，finds this particular preoccupation especially evident in a later work likeTheViewfromCastleRock(2006)，underscoring there “Alice Munro’s commitment to indeterminacy and the essential confusion and mystery of life”[5]545. But to go back to that “something you will never know” from Munro’s very much earlierDanceoftheHappyShades，my own inclination is to view that hypnotically charged “something” as the repeated occasion，as I argue elsewhere，for a kind of subjective “avoidance” within the larger interrogation of “house and home” underwriting much of American literary discourse almost from its inception[17]，hence a final context for revolving Munro’s story-telling art with which I shall briefly conclude.

The significant placement of characters like Annie McKillop and Maureen Stephens inOpenSecretswith respect to doors and doorways along with their ultimate extrusion，either real or imagined，into some secret but wide open space—such eventualities offer readers of Munro something of a placeless sense of mystery surrounding the human personality that accords rather well with David Macey’s own psychoanalytic view of subjectivity as something “non-known” (in a bow also to Maurice Blanchot)—something rather like “an absence” or “a void,” an “always-already lost object,” and hence “a mirage of totality”[18]75,77. Dorrie Beck，for instance，who fails to show up at her engagement dinner in “A Real Life,” or even at the “open door” (hence her name) of her own house as Millicent discovers—“the evil silence and indifference of a house lately vacated bysomebody”[1]61—thus becomes yet another vague or void subject in a rather long litany. “Caught between the imperatives of the super-ego and the instinctual demands of the id,” Macey further observes，“the ego is not，however，masterin its own house，and cannot aspire to Cartesian certainties” any longer[18]74. Instead，Macey concludes，(bowing to Michel Leiris this time)，“the ego is a collage of identifications，the work of a psychic bricolage,” and Macey underscores his houseless characterization by emphasizing the ego’s inability to exist “in situation,” an “abstraction,” therefore，“that becomes an opaque obstacle to the understanding of concrete subjectivity”[18]75，81.

Macey thus nudges us towards the notion of a Jamesian dismantled self in Deleuze and Guattari’sAThousandPlateaus：CapitalismandSchizophreniawhose veritable “becoming” lies precisely in “one who knows how to be nobody，to no longer be anybody. To paint oneself gray on gray”[19]197. “From Hardy to Lawrence，from Melville to Miller,” write Deleuze and Guattari firmly in the American literary context，“the same cry rings out：Go across，get out，break through，make a beeline，don’t get stuck on a point...breakthroughthewallof the signifier... toward the realms of the asignifying，asubjective，and faceless.”[19]186-187How else to explain，in the concluding story ofOpenSecretsentitled “Vandals,” Liz’s wanton trashing of the Ladner country house in light of Bea Doud’s own capitulation to a controlled (and controlling) egotism—one “insanity” who is “living insideanother’sinsanity,” as she refers to it[1]225. Nor is Liz’s horrific refusal of the claustral domestication of subjective space necessarily a feminist stance as Warren，Liz’s partner in crime，reflects about a similar experience from his boyhood:

But then something took over. They dumped a bottle of ketchup on the tablecloth and dipped their fingers in，and wrote on the wallpaper,“Bewareblood!” They broke plates and threw some food around... Nobody had seen them getting into the house and nobody saw them leaving.[1]236-237

Precisely at the point，therefore，when Dorrie reappears in “A Real Life”—“in the dim window light... a most mysterious and maddening person whom Millicent seemed now to have conquered”[1]64—Ralph Waldo Emerson is there in American literature perhaps to warn us about the strict demarcations of domestic space. “The experience of creativeness,” Emerson importantly remarks in an essay on Plato，“is not found in staying at home，nor yet travelling，but in transitions from one to the other，”[20]30as Annie McKillop proves only too well in her own transit from one wilderness station to another.

Taking Emerson at his word，therefore，readers casting Munro’s story-telling within its American context offer themselves several opportunities to explore the deep sense of irony attached to the troping of house and home generally in contemporary fiction，if according to Adorno，“... it is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home”[2]39. And it is a sense of irony，following Deleuze and Guattari further，that Dorothy’s repeated invocation of “No Place like Home” fromTheWizardofOzsuggestively endeavours to impart in her own traumatic states of transition，like those of Annie and Dorrie and perhaps Munro herself，throughout much of Victor Fleming’s 1939 film. Yet much before Munro’s fiction and Fleming’s film，the writing of Herman Melville in American literature serves as the provocation for Deleuze and Guattari elsewhere to remark that “Everything begins with Houses,” and additionally to suggest that the ironization of the house in American fiction is part and parcel of “a kind of deframing following certain lines of flight... in order to dissolve the identity of the place”—and，by implication，human identity—“through variation with earth”[21]187,189. The promise of freedom and agency signalled by such ironization and such dissolution is “something” at least held out to a character like Rhea in “Spaceships Have Landed”：“Outside was the night with the river washing out of sight...andthe dirt roads faintly shining on their way to nowhere...”[1]205But “knowingall this was there，”[1]205something tells Rhea she may not be up to the challenge of its “darker sides,” at least not yet:

... She couldn’t pay attention to it... Billy Doud had chosen her，an engaged girl was confiding in her，her life was turning out perhaps better than anybody might have predicted. But at a time like this she could feel cut off and bewildered，as if she had lostsomethinginstead of gaining it. As if she had suffered a banishment. From what？[1]205

Fortunately for Rhea，she retains the memory of a former time when she and Eunie might “cut from Eunie’s yard down to the riverbankwherethey became different people... The Two Toms... not male or female...butsomebody exceptionally brave and clever... and—just barely—indestructible”[1]197. In reflecting upon “the way people’s different memories deal with the same (shared) experience,” Munro is persuaded that “The more disconcerting the differences are，the more the writer in me feels an odd exhilaration” (Knopf Doubleday “Conversation”). Which is perhaps the best invitation for readers to revisit the Munro “House of Fiction” for “something” further since，in her words，“You go back again and again，and the house the story，always contains more than you saw the last time”[12]xvii.

Notes：

①Quoted by Alice Munro，“Introduction” toSelectedStories[12]xvii.

②For the full text of the conversation，see http://knopfdoubleday.com/2010/01/08/alice-munro-interview/ accessed on March 16，2014. Frequent reference is also made to the work of William Maxwell in the McCulloch and SimpsonParisReviewinterview from 1994(McCulloch J，Simpson M. Alice Munro：The Art of Fiction[J]. Paris Review CXXXVII.137，1994：226-264.)

③In theParisReviewinterview from the same year，Munro once again gives voice to the Maxwellian importance of making a place for “alternate realities” in her story-writing:“Changing your perceptions of what is possible，of what happened—not just whatcanhappen but what reallyhashappened. I have all these disconnected realities in my own life，and I see them in other people’s lives” (McCulloch J，Simpson M. Alice Munro：The Art of Fiction[J]. Paris Review CXXXVII.137，1994：244). Hence，if there is something of an “alternative” to our “real lives” recorded here，then as Julia O’Faolain remarks in the 1994TimesLiterarySupplementreview ofOpenSecrets，“realism can only be a convention and a willed distortion” since Munro’s “new stories pivot (now) on reality’s slipperiness”[5]460-461. The problematic of “reality” in Munro’s fiction is thus taken up in what follows，but I shall return specifically to the issue of the “disconnected realities” seen in “other people’s lives” especially in the conclusion of my paper.

④In theParisReviewinterview，Munro talks about her new life as a young mother in West Vancouver in the early 1960s very much in the same terms：“Life was very tightly managed as a series of permitted recreations，permitted opinions，and permitted ways of being a woman. The only outlet，I thought，was flirting with other people’s husbands at parties；that was really the only time anything came up that you could feel was real.” Accordingly，Munro divulges，“... something I’d like to write about and haven’t is that subversive society of young women，all keeping each other alive” (McCulloch J，Simpson M. Alice Munro：The Art of Fiction[J]. Paris Review CXXXVII.137，1994：242)，and it’s interesting to speculate that a character like Annie McKillop might just be a move in that very direction as I argue in what follows.

⑤If the “dare to run away” in this citation’s opening line is motored by a flight towards “something,” it seems possible to imagine how Munro’s later collection of stories entitledRunaway(Munro A. Runaway：Stories[M]. Toronto：Penguin Canada，2004.) might want to enlarge exponentially this motivational dynamic in several of the narratives contained therein；hence，in “Chance,” for example：“I thought something was going to happen...” “Then something happened that was as sudden and unbidden as her tears” (Munro A. Runaway：Stories[M]. Toronto：Penguin Canada，2004:60，68)；or，in “Soon”：“My faith isn’t so simple... I can’t describe it. But it’s—all I can say—it’ssomething. It’s a—wonderful—something” (Munro A. Runaway：Stories[M]. Toronto：Penguin Canada，2004:124)；or，in “Trespasses”：“Delphine spoke about herself—her tastes，her physical workings—as about a monumental mystery，something unique and final” (Munro A. Runaway：Stories[M]. Toronto：Penguin Canada，2004:210，131，158，265，and passim). A further gloss on this entire dark passage might be provided by Munro herself in a brief commentary entitled “On Writing ‘The Office’” from 1978：“A woman who sits staring into space，into a country that is not her husband’s or her children’s is likewise known to be an offense against nature. So a house is not the same for a woman. She is not someone who walks into the house，to make use of it，and will walk out again. Sheisthe house；there is no separation possible”[5]174. The problematic relationship between the house and identity，particularly the “night-self” aspect of that identity implicit in Oates’s previous remarks，I therefore take up as a final “American context” for Munro’s story-telling further down.

⑥Cf. a quite similar moment later in theOpenSecretssequence with the narrative entitled “Spaceships Have Landed”：“When they parked，and sometimes even when they drove，Billy put an arm around Rhea’s shoulders，he squeezed her. A promise... He tapped his fingers on her，on her knees，and just at the top of her breasts，murmuring appreciatively and then scolding himself，or scolding Rhea，saying that he had to keep the lid on her.”[1]203

⑦In his majesticSilentTheater:TheArtofEdwardHopper(2007),Walter Wells cites a passage in Clement Greenberg’sTheCollectedEssaysandCriticism(1986) where the claim is made that although “the best of Hopper’s images are ‘literary,’” according to Greenberg,“they convey ‘insight into the present nature of American life for which there is no parallel in literature’” (Greenberg C. Clement Greenberg:The Collected Essays and Criticism[M]. John O'Brian(ed.). Chicago:The University of Chicago Press,1986:12). Both Oates and Munro would undoubtedly beg to differ with this assessment of Hopper.

⑧For an extended reflection on the “distant parts” of selfhood specifically in the American literary context，see myGoingtheDistance(Jarraway D R. Going the Distance：Dissident Subjectivity in Modernist American Literature[M]. Baton Rouge：Louisiana State UP，2003).

WorksCited:

[1]Munro A. Open Secrets[M]. Toronto：Penguin Canada，1995.

[2]Adorno T. Minima Moralia：Reflections from Damaged Life[M]. Jephcott E F N (trans.). London：Verso Editions-NLB，1978/1974.

[3]Baxter C，Collier M，Hirsch E. A William Maxwell Portrait：Memories and Appreciations[M]. New York & London：Norton，2004.

[4]Rooke C. Writing Life：Celebrated Canadian and International Authors on Writing and Life[M]. Toronto：McClelland & Stewart，2006.

[5]Thacker R. Alice Munro：Writing Her Lives，a Biography[M]. Toronto：McLelland & Stewart，2005.

[6]Poirier R. The reinstatement of the vague[C]//Pragmatism：A Contemporary Reader. Goodman R B(ed.). New York & London：Routledge，1995.

[7]Oates J C. “Who Do You Think You Are?”[J]. The New York Review of Books. 2009，56(19)：42-44.

[8]Oates J C. Where I’ve Been，and Where I’m Going[M]. New York：Plume，1999.

[9]Wells W. Silent Theater：The Art of Edward Hopper[M]. London & New York：Phaidon Press，2007.

[10]Fuss D. The Sense of an Interior：Four Writers and the Rooms That Shaped Them[M]. New York：Routledge，2004.

[11]Levin G. Edward Hopper：An Intimate Biography，Updated and Expanded Edition[M]. New York：Rizzoli，2007.

[12]Munro A. Alice Munro：Selected Stories[M]. Toronto：Penguin Canada，1998.

[13]Munro A. Dance of the Happy Shades[M]. Toronto：Ryerson Press，1968.

[14]Updike J. Magnetic North[J]. New York Times Book Review. 1996-10-27：7-11.

[15]Munro A. Hateship，Friendship，Courtship，Loveship，Marriage[M]. New York：Vintage Contemporaries，2001.

[16]Munro A. Too Much Happiness. Toronto：McLelland & Stewart，2009.

[17]Jarraway D R. Future Interior：Subjective (A)Voidance in John Updike’s ‘Rabbit’ Novels[J]. Canadian Review of American Studies,2010，40(1)：45-62.

[18]Macey D. On the Subject of Lacan[C]//Psychoanalysis in Contexts：Paths between Theory and Modern Culture. Elliott A，Frosh S. London & New York：Routledge，1995:72-86.

[19]Deleuze G，Guattari F. A Thousand Plateaus：Capitalism and Schizophrenia[M]. Massumi B (trans. & foreword). Minneapolis：University of Minnesota Press，1987.

[20]Jarraway D R. Wallace Stevens and the Question of Belief：Metaphysician in the Dark[M]. Baton Rouge：Louisiana State UP，1993.

[21]Deleuze G，Guattari F. What Is Philosophy？[M]. Tomlinson H，Burchel G(trans.). New York：Columbia UP，1994.

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David R. Jarraway(1949-)，加拿大渥太华大学英语系教授。