I have long been a fan of George Saunders, since I was recommended the short story collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline some years ago. My regard at Saunders' taut, imaginative, funny, and pointed parables only increased through his follow-up, Pastoralia, and a string of great political and cultural satires in the New Yorker and Slate.com, among places (see here, here and here, and here for more). While I had read probably a third of the stories collected in Saunders' latest, In Persuasion Nation, as they were published in magazines, or sitting around JWW's apartment last winter, it took me until the paperback came out to head down to Shakespeare & Co. to pick it up. It was well worth the wait.
The collection, as with all of Saunders' work, is first and foremost enormously entertaining. It generates its fair share of both chuckles and honest-to-god laugh out loud moments. Beyond the laughs, most of the stories are caustic social satires: of consumer culture, of a society growing intolerant through doctrine and illogic, of bizarre misappropriations of technology, and of a country that is shockingly insensitive to the causes of violence and war. This satire is ferried in through Saunders' stories, which are completely absurd, where characters inhabit insane worlds that have been tweaked just beyond the point of reality, but not beyond the point of recognition: like the young couple who are given up for adoption at a young age to live their lives out in an elaborate market research facility, or Brad Carrigan, American, who inhabits his own television show. What makes these absurd tales so believable and compelling is the rigorous logic that Saunders applies to the world, once the crazy premise is established - and more fiercely, the honest and simple motivations of his characters within these worlds, like the salesman who will take his lunch our to try and convince an unhappy customer that the plastic talking mask that she bought for her infant is a great product, unless he lose his commission, or the mid-level functionary in a government town who agrees to hack up and re-bury the remains of ancient corpses found at a construction site so that he doesn't have to confront his murdered but somewhat happy ghost parents with the fact that they are dead.
Not to make this about Harry Potter or Oprah, but if America is going to keep reading en masse, than George Saunders is where they should pick up...
I long felt that George Saunders was a writer sui generis, with the possible exception of Donald Barthelme. It took me the impulse purchase of Woody Allen's collected prose, The Insanity Defense, to recognize another of Saunder's antecedents. admittedly, Woody Allen's stories are best enjoyed if you can channel his distinctive neurotic voice into your head, but failing that, you are still in for 300-plus pages of sheer enjoyment. ranging from set pieces lampooning academics, Nazis, and kvetching New Yorkers alike to satirical literary excursions taking aim at philosophy, food criticism, and revolutionaries, with a few hallmark sex-obsessed and neurotic narratives thrown in, this collection is welcome as entertainment, for provoking laughter, and for its wide intellect and varied references. The ten to twenty page stories are perfect subway reads, and New York makes the perfect backdrop for reading them, although I'm sure anywhere would work. Stick it in your satchel, and enjoy!
The collection, as with all of Saunders' work, is first and foremost enormously entertaining. It generates its fair share of both chuckles and honest-to-god laugh out loud moments. Beyond the laughs, most of the stories are caustic social satires: of consumer culture, of a society growing intolerant through doctrine and illogic, of bizarre misappropriations of technology, and of a country that is shockingly insensitive to the causes of violence and war. This satire is ferried in through Saunders' stories, which are completely absurd, where characters inhabit insane worlds that have been tweaked just beyond the point of reality, but not beyond the point of recognition: like the young couple who are given up for adoption at a young age to live their lives out in an elaborate market research facility, or Brad Carrigan, American, who inhabits his own television show. What makes these absurd tales so believable and compelling is the rigorous logic that Saunders applies to the world, once the crazy premise is established - and more fiercely, the honest and simple motivations of his characters within these worlds, like the salesman who will take his lunch our to try and convince an unhappy customer that the plastic talking mask that she bought for her infant is a great product, unless he lose his commission, or the mid-level functionary in a government town who agrees to hack up and re-bury the remains of ancient corpses found at a construction site so that he doesn't have to confront his murdered but somewhat happy ghost parents with the fact that they are dead.
Not to make this about Harry Potter or Oprah, but if America is going to keep reading en masse, than George Saunders is where they should pick up...
I long felt that George Saunders was a writer sui generis, with the possible exception of Donald Barthelme. It took me the impulse purchase of Woody Allen's collected prose, The Insanity Defense, to recognize another of Saunder's antecedents. admittedly, Woody Allen's stories are best enjoyed if you can channel his distinctive neurotic voice into your head, but failing that, you are still in for 300-plus pages of sheer enjoyment. ranging from set pieces lampooning academics, Nazis, and kvetching New Yorkers alike to satirical literary excursions taking aim at philosophy, food criticism, and revolutionaries, with a few hallmark sex-obsessed and neurotic narratives thrown in, this collection is welcome as entertainment, for provoking laughter, and for its wide intellect and varied references. The ten to twenty page stories are perfect subway reads, and New York makes the perfect backdrop for reading them, although I'm sure anywhere would work. Stick it in your satchel, and enjoy!
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