Nettles
By Alice Munro
Guide to Reading国共十年对峙时期
Alice Munro is a prolific writer, who has made a major careerout of short fiction。 In the past 35 years， she has produced numerous short stories that are read in and outside of Canada， often appearing in such prestigious magazines as The New Yorker and 魔方规律The Atlantic Monthly. Today she is still active in her writing career。
Like her many other stories, the subject of the story “Nettles” is about the problem of a middle—aged woman-the passions, confusions and dilemmas that any woman in a modern society might be confronted with， regardless of race， color or nationality. In this story, the narrator meets her childhood friend by chance at the very stage of her life when she is caught up in a troubled relationship with her husband and her children. She is delighted with this reunion。 This joy quickly turns into a tender and ambiguous feeling toward this m
an—-a desire and passion she herlf is not sure of. The two of them go through a wildstorm。 In order to protect themlves from being knocked down by the violent wind， they hold each other firmly. When the wind pass， they kiss and press together in a gesture of recognition of survival. At this moment the man tells her his deepest cret. She realizes that “he was a person who had hit rock bottom。" She is happy that he treats her as a “person he had, on his own， who knew。” What happened or rather, what does not happen between them gives her a new perceptionof love， “Love that was not usable, that knew its place. Not risking a thing yet staying alive as a sweet trickle， an underground resource.”
The narration of this story is marked by a clear regional identity and shifts in time with a prominent element of retrospectionrevealing the protagonist’s ambiguous hold of the past, throwing light on the prent. The author employs a skillful but natural narrative voice， which effortlessly leads the reader on toward an openand yet conclusive ending。 While reading the story， the reader is likely to forget that this is only a fiction and that the protagonist is but a character created by art。 The author succeeds in bridgi
ng the gap between art and reality and prenting the fictional character as an acquaintance or even a friend。 Thus the reader is apt to identify with the protagonist， feeling what she feels and worrying about what worries her.
In this short story the author addressveral esntial problems of everyday life such as friendship and love, marriage and divorce。 Once again “Nettles” displays Munro’s lasting strength that aris from her ability to create an illusorysimplicity that combines the telling of a simple plot and the probing of complicated feelings and subtle meanings of life.
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1.In the summer of 1979， I walked into the kitchen of my friend Sunny’s hou near Uxbridge, Ontario， and saw a man standing at the counter, making himlf a ketchup黄酒 sandwich。
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2.I have driven around in the hills northeast of Toronto, with my husband－my cond h赫图阿拉
usband, not the one I had left behind that summer－and I have looked for the hou， in an idly persistent way, I have tried to locate the road it was on， but I have never succeeded。 It has probably been torn down. Sunny and her husband sold it a few years after I visited them。 It was too far from Ottawa, where they lived, to rve as a convenient summer place. Their children, as they became teenagers, balked at going there. And there was too much upkeep work for Johnston－Sunny's husband－who liked to spend his weekends golfing.
（Rewritten as: Years afterward, driving around in the hills northeast of Toronto with another man， I looked for the hou. I tried to locate the road it was on, but I never succeeded。 It had probably been torn down. Sunny and her husband sold it a few years after I visited them。 It was too far from Ottawa， where they lived， to rve as a convenient summer place。 ）
I have found the golf cour－I think it the right one, though the raggedverges have been cleaned up and there is a fancierclubhou.
3.In the countryside where I lived as a child, wells would go dry in the summer. This happened once in about every five or six years， when there was not enough rain。 The wells were holes dug in the ground. Our well was a deeper hole than most， but we needed a good supply of water for our penned animals—my father raid silver foxes and mink-so one day the well 大年初一习俗drillerarrived with impressiveequipment， and the hole was extended down, down, deep into the earth until it found the water in the rock. From that time on we could pump十二楼的莫文蔚out pure, cold water no matter what the time of year and no matter how dry the weather。 That was something to be proud of。 There was a tin mug hanging on the pump, and when I drank from it on a burningday， I thought of black rocks where the water ran sparklinglike diamonds.
