"The View From Castle Rock"

The View from Castle Rock was an amazing storing in Alice Munro's collection of short stories "Family Furnishings." I really enjoyed this story as well. It was much different from the other stories so far in this collection, helping vary up the long collection of stories. There was a lot going on in this story, so I'll keep my overview of it somewhat short because otherwise I think it could get confusing.

This story is about a family who is making the voyage over to America from Europe. First it starts with the father speaking of his dream for him and his family to go there to start fresh and maybe make more money than they do at present. And the father takes one of his sons up to a tower to view what he thinks to be America from across the sea, when really it is only an island that is not too far away. But the image stays with his son until the make the journey, which is several years later when his father is an old man and his son has a child with another on the way.

The journey is long and boring at times, but the father does not hold back his story telling. Some people can't stand it, but others find it as something to do. But what I really liked about this story is that it was so different from the other stories in this collection. And she really gets in the heads of all the characters and their personalities as they are traveling to the new world and the difficulties that come with it.And her detail description is amazing as well, like it has been the entire collection so far. She must have done a lot of research for this story because everything she describes, and the language the people use, and their mannerisms seem so real and accurate for the time period. I'm not a huge reader of historical fiction but I did really enjoy this piece.

Happy reading everyone :)