Books
I felt in him what women feel in men, something so tender, swollen, tyrannical, absurd; I would never take the consequences of interfering with it.
— Alice Munro ‧ Lives of Girls and Women
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
The narrator sees a mixture of tenderness, swelling pride, domination and absurdity in a man, then draws back from interfering with it. Those conflicting descriptions make the attraction or vulnerability feel complicated. The final refusal places the possible consequences beyond what the narrator will take on.
Context reviewed