Mac Alice Munro expert talks Nobel laureate's 'timeless' appeal

Canadian author Alice Munros Nobel Prize win catapulted her back into the cultural spotlight and sparkedbooksellers to scramble to stock their shelves with volumes of her stories.

The 82-year-old Wingham, Ont., natives back catalogue boasts more than a dozen anthologies and a host of other short stories, making it daunting for lay-readers looking to discover Munros work to know where to begin.

• Related: Alice Munro is 1st Canadian woman to win Nobel literature prize

To help get readers started, CBC Hamilton contacted Carol Mazur, a retired McMaster University librarian who, between 2000 and 2006, compiled Alice Munro: An Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism. The Grimbsy, Ont.,resident told a reporter about her initial reaction to Munros win, why the scribe's work is relevant to audiences in 2013, and her recommendations for people looking to find outwhat the Nobel fuss is all about.

What was your initial reaction to Alice Munros Nobel win?

I was overjoyed. I thought she certainly deserved it and that her body of work has been consistent. Shes put out first-class stories for just about all of her writing career. So I think if anyone deserves it, she does.

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Shes an incredible writer. What attracted me to her work was her style, and also the fact that she writes so well about human situations and how she can kind of pinpoint personalities so clearly in maybe a sentence or two. I dont know too many other writers who can write so succinctly and with so much insight.

How did you end up spending six years of your retirement compiling an anthology on her work?

I had a supervisor in the library who was a big Alice Munro fan, and his name was David Cook. He lived in Oakville and he lived on the same street as Alice Munros in-laws. So he knew her personally and he was a big admirer of her writing.

Every time one of her new books came out, hed be the first to buy it and read it. And then hed pass it on to me and ask me what I thought about the stories after I read them.

Unfortunately, he passed away very young, when he was just about to retire. He had published a bibliography of Alice Munro up to a certain point. He was keeping track of her writing and articles about her. And he had this on his computer at work. It was passed on to me.

I wasnt sure what to do with it, but I wanted to pay tribute to him somehow. He was such a wonderful person and he admired Alice Munro so much. I wanted to complete this bibliography, thinking it might take a year or so. Little did I know that six years later, it would be published.

What works would you recommend for people looking to get into Alice Munros work?

She only wrote one novel. Its called Lives of Girls and Women. If anything, I think it would be good to start with that. Even though its not a short story, its one of her classic works.

• Related:CBC Books: Alice Munro's best books

Why that novel?

It was a coming-of-age story, which is quite popular. She seems to capture the time in life of a young girl and what shes going through her feelings, how she matures in many respects. Its a kind of story that keeps you interested.

Also, her stories are known for their abrupt and surprising endings, but the novel is more conventional in that way. I cant remember the ending now, but I dont think there was a big surprise at the end.

She writes about human nature and about human lives in a way that most people can relate to.Carol Mazur

Another story I personally liked was called Boy and Girls. Some of it is based on stories about her fathers fox farm and he mentioned these fox cages. Theres a brother and sister and theyre kind of up in their room. Its almost like shes setting cages around the genders as far what the roles for boys are and what the roles for girls are.

Why is Alice Munro still relevant in 2013?

Shes relevant because she writes about universal things. She writes about human nature and about human lives in a way that most people can relate to. The people she writes about arent always normal or even likeable people. But you can understand where theyre coming from because of the way she depicts either their thoughts or what they do. I think her stories are kind of timeless, even if some of them take place in the 1930s, 40s and right up to the present.

Also, I think people today would appreciate the abrupt endings in her stories. Things are pretty open-ended these days. Nobody likes certainty. I think it appeals to a modern audience to have endings that are ambiguous.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.