<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto"><VAR id=yui-ie-cursor></VAR> Margaret Atwood introduced Alice and 'disappointment<BR>with men' the resonant murmer that went through the crowd.<BR>And the Michael Cunningham definition of real literature.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Members in black bow ties and classy dresses surrounded the<BR>primrose-adorned tables at the National Arts Club last evening where<BR>it seemed that almost all 1900 members of the National Arts Club<BR>turned out to honor a great writer, Canadian writer, Alice Munro.<BR>"Such a list of speakers!", said longtime NAC member, Dorothy Borg.<BR>Novelist Russell Banks was the masterful master of ceremonies,<BR>introducing writer and Random House editor-in-chief, Dan Menaker,<BR>Margaret Atwood, a 1997 recipient of the National Arts Club Medal of<BR>Honor for Literature, and Michael
Cunningham, who won the National<BR>Arts Club scholarship as a high school student not that long ago!<BR>Michael Castellano and Sarah Perito were honored with the scholarship<BR>this year, also presented this evening.<BR><BR>Dan Menaker told a story of accompanying Alice to another event<BR>once--she is semi-reclusive, but one has to be present to receive this<BR>Award---where she expostulated, "Why do we do these things,<BR>Dan?"...That is the question her fiction explores in deep human<BR>variety, said Dan. Russell Banks, describing himself as a<BR>"near-Canadian" via grandfather's genes, said he has learned from<BR>Alice's fiction and "it has changed my life"---the highest honor<BR>indeed. He said her fiction was often about men in their relation to<BR>women, 'sometimes loving, sometimes hostile, always disappointing"<BR>which the whole assembly seemed to resonate with. Margaret Atwood,<BR>who became friends with Alice just by "calling her up"
back in 1969,<BR>after reading her first book. Alice invited her to sleep on her floor.<BR>She did. Margaret said she couldn't write words like "exceptional" or<BR>a "sacred treasure of Canada" about Alice, who hated the<BR>"high-falutin" and "would be judging my well-judged words". So, she<BR>called her "a secular item of modest value" for Canada and for the<BR>world. Margaret recreated an imaginary conversation from Alice's home<BR>town:<BR><BR>1st speaker: 'Maybe she is the greatest writer in the world, you hear<BR>that a lot", says one neighbor..."but I wouldn't know 'bout that"....<BR><BR>2nd Speaker: "She tells the truth, ya know, and people don't always<BR>like that, eh?"<BR><BR>1st speaker: "But she never puts on airs...if you ask her to bring a<BR>pie to the bake sale and she agrees, she will bring that pie."<BR><BR>Michael Cunningham told the most moving story of reading Alice's book<BR>Open Secrets during his mother's last illness---a book he
had sent his<BR>mother. Rereading aloud from the story, "Real Life" which he was<BR>reading when his mother's breathing changed, he said, "the only books<BR>that really matter are those that can be read in such circumstances".<BR>"Alices' matter". One could hear one's own breathing then, it was so<BR>still.<BR><BR>Alice herself said it was ignorance that enabled her to become a<BR>writer: "I was ignorant that there could not be any Canadian writers<BR>[of note]; ignorant that the short story was dead; and ignorant of the<BR>fact that women couldn't write.", she said shyly.<BR><BR>A portrait of Ms. Munro by Wendy Shrijver was unveiled and hung among<BR>all the Chuck Close portraits (and self-portraits) hanging in the<BR>dining room.<BR><BR>Only Eudora Welty and Grace Paley have ever been given the NAC medal<BR>for writing predominantly short stories. Perhaps Anton Chekhov, the<BR>100th anniversary of whose death has recently passed, is the
seminal<BR>world author who never wrote a novel. Like Alice.<BR><BR><BR>--<BR>Mark Kohut (& Associates)<BR>646-519-1956<BR><BR>Redburn Press<BR>P.O. Box 16022<BR>Pittsburgh, Pa. 15242<BR>646-519-1956<BR><BR><BR>-- <BR>Mark Kohut (& Associates)<BR>646-519-1956<BR><BR>Redburn Press<BR>P.O. Box 16022<BR>Pittsburgh, Pa. 15242<BR>646-519-1956<BR><BR><BR></div></div></body></html>