george saunders

seems entirely appropriate to me.

based on the nytimes piece I am extremely anticipating reading this dude's work. slogging through the last quarter of the book I'm on now, _John Dies at the End_...

I'd recommend starting at the start

what's up with that civilwarland reissue, does that exist yet

I want: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/books/review/tenth-of-december-by-george-saunders.html?ref=books

started civilwarland...title story is fantastic, as is the 400 lb CEO. The rest, so far, are a bit too much like Brautigan or Pynchon to be enjoyable to my taste. Then again I was pretty drunk when reading, so maybe I should go back.

guess i'd read all? of 10th of dec previously in the nyer but they were valuable to re-read imo

am currently watching him on charlie rose

I totally lost my shit at the title story in Tenth of December.

enjoyed pastoralia a lot but could not make it through several stories from persuasion nation

which ones?

http://www.theawl.com/2013/02/real-as-hell-a-conversation-with-george-saunders

^ great

I just finished Pastoralia, which is my second Saunders book. I think "Sea Oak" is one of the best short stories I have ever read. I have been wanting to talk about it with somebody, but my wife, a Joycian who doesn't read anything written after 1945, refuses to read postmodern fiction of any kind, at least until she finishes her dissertation (which is fair). So happy to have this thread, then, and nabisco's great posts, which are some of my favorite posts I've read on ILX. It was great to read such an articulate analysis of Saunders' use of language, and why it's so effective:

there's a rich uncle who spouts optimistic banalities about hard work in such a way that you feel he believes it, you understand him -- and even better, when the aunt's grave is desecrated, Saunders pegs the entire role of the policeman simply by putting question marks at the end of his sentences. (I wish I had the book here to quote: I think he says "Typically we find it's teens?" and in that question mark you hear everything -- the desire to be helpful and reassuring, and the complete powerlessness to actually be helpful and reassuring.)

The FIRPO story really got to me, too. It was like a Carver story narrated by the doomed child instead of the unhappy parents of the doomed child. "Winky" and the one about the barber were just ok, but I really loved the rest.

Anyway, I've read CivilWarLand In Bad Decline (though it's been years and I think I want to read it again; someone gave it to me as a gift a long time ago in an attempt to get me to quit reading Sedaris), and now, Pastoralia. Which one next?

Diminishing returns? I'm half way into The Tenth of December and finding it not good and his concerns and ticks too repetitive. I mean, I know it's apt to have a character think an absurd or mundane thought then think "ha ha" and wrote that but he's used it in every story bar one so far. And the ending of "escape from the spiderhead" is the exact ending he's used in two stories in previous collections. People have spoken highly of" the semplica girl diaries" but I couldn't really believe the idea of the SGs in the first place and then the story tails off in a not very interesting way rather than actually ending. There are a few like that too. The only story I thought was good thus far was the two page one called "Sticks".

I enjoyed the narrative language of the SG diaries but couldn't actually work out what it had to do with the character of the narrator and spent the first half of the story thinking of the zen koans on t-shirts thread on I'll and thought the narrator was meant to me writing in a second language. Didn't really make any sense to me, anyway.

On ilx not I'll

escape from spiderhead is pretty bad -- takes a bunch of themes he's done before, makes the real-life parallels obvious, puts in a christian sacrifice at the ending. i liked most of the others.

i don't even remember spiderhead. is it the one with the old dude trying to kill himself? i liked that one. i didn't like most of the others.

i think i liked it best of his books, the writing is very virtuoso

that's the worst thing about it

that doesnt make any sense

spiderhead = testing emotion drugs on people

i. i think saunders is worse now that the purpose of each sentence is not to communicate the interiority of the american lower-middle and working classes and instead to communicate how good george saunders is at communicating the interiority of etc.
ii. there's been a real flattening of idea and of sentiment that's gone along with this

though i think 'tenth' is probably less bad than the one that came out when i was an undergraduate, which i overrated at the time, because of how i was an undergraduate

the semplica girl diaries is--to use a phrase which seems to be becoming so much popular on ilx that we could probably abbreviate it--a little too on the nose

i think saunders is worse now that the purpose of each sentence is not to communicate the interiority of the american lower-middle and working classes and instead to communicate how good george saunders is at communicating the interiority of etc.

this is the sentence that killed david foster wallace

(not a disagreement. i haven't read saunders recently.)

fair

I don't really like his sci-fi stories. The final story in Tenth is completely devastating though. Otherwise the ones that have stuck with me are the first story with the child abduction, and the one with the puppy and the kid tied to the tree.

i. i think saunders is worse now that the purpose of each sentence is not to communicate the interiority of the american lower-middle and working classes and instead to communicate how good george saunders is at communicating the interiority of etc.

― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, October 11, 2015 3:59 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk he always seemed a lil too literal and proud of himself to really communicate any sort of deep ~interiority~ or w/e he is often an astonishingly good writer tho and funny

I read him for the yuks tbh -- that affected affectlessness.

fairly tepid review of the novel

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/the-sentimental-sadist/513824/

I'm guessing that's a deliberate hit job, but it doesn't really encourage me to pick up the novel, either.

There was a point when Persistent Gappers of Frip came out, and I started to think, "You know, maybe this guy isn't very good anymore" and the voice kind of curdled on me. I haven't read Tenth of December, but is it fair to say everything since Pastoralia is just more of the same? Even at the time (although it's very good) Pastoralia felt like a retread. At this point it seems like his interviews are more enjoyable than his writing.

pretty much

tenth of december is great imho, and i went in thinking i was kinda sick of him, similar themes to his earlier work but the prose is more dynamic or something

A bit more than "similar" IMO. I thought it was rotten. I liked that one page story called "pole" though.

Have enjoyed most of his work, but 400p is not the length at which i want to read it.

Most of Tenth of December seemed overwrought and and/or too crafty, also maybe not crafty enough, re pattern recognition---if a hyper and otherwise goofy boychild and an old man with dementia are wandering the same landscape, of course they're eventually going to come into proximity and have A Saunders Moment, very painterly. But did like for instance when the way the Unstable War Vet, the kind that used to be standard on TV etc. before vets pretty much vanished from TV etc, gets re-absorbed into the family dynamic, for a while--and of course might actually freak out etc. later, with family members getting some measure of blame, suspicion etc; Saunders does always seek some kind of verisimilitude, and there he gets it. But overall, I think Karen Russell's Vampires In The Leomon Grove is much better at social commentary x imaginative writing, with no overselling.

D'oh! The Lemon Grove, of course. I'll prob read some more Saunders----Civilwarland In Bad Decline was pretty good, I take it?

I read CivilWarLand when the paperback came out in the mid-90s, when it was a good bridge between the sci-fi I read as a teenager and the Proper Literature I pretended to like in my twenties. Anyway, it's amazing (or so I remember) but the shtick probably doesn't come across as original as it seemed at the time, if only because it's been imitated so often (especially by Saunders).

That Lemon Grove thing seemed fun in the excerpt on Amazon.

I've only read 10th of December but found it fantastic, especially The Semplica-Girl Diaries which can be read online http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/15/the-semplica-girl-diaries

should probably read his older stuff

The NYorker has a ton of Saunders stuff avail to read

Lincoln in the Bardo was an inspiring read. Can't think of another contemporary American author with such an impressive grasp of language and style. It's both straightforward and experimental, postmodern and touching, even spiritual. I'm going to check out his early work when I get the chance.

Oh yeah, and of course it's very funny too.

The cacophony of voices and styles is elegantly integrated with the themes and narrative, really just a very clever way of telling the story, surprisingly easy to follow.

I've heard so-so things about it but you've just convinced me to give it a shot

Great! I'm not sure I'd want to argue that it's perfect in every way, but I def think it's an enjoyable read all the way - and even though it's labeled as a novel, it's really more written in the style of a drama which means you read it in no time

this story is very lovely!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/21/george-saunders-fox-8-short-story-man-booker-prize-lincoln-bardo

oh yeah, and he won the Booker Prize.

did anyone other than niels on here read lincoln in the bardo? i picked it up the other day and there is no way in hell i could read that book. that looked like the kind of book that people buy and then never finish but maybe i'm just dumb.

Same. I’ve read his other stuff but could only make it through the beginning

i read it and loved it, but i could totally see picking it up and not finishing it.

i like his style a lot but, like carver, he's spawned a lot of imitators, and his style has some limits.

his turns toward the sentimental can be heartbreaking and also veer toward sap