george saunders

I listened to the full cast audiobook. I think that's the way to get it done. Although, I will say that our book club (we are all Saunders fans) liked it in any format.

xp - Not quite purgatory. That's where one expiates one's sins in order to become purified and ascend to heaven, but the bardo, where regrets and desires keep one tethered to a past life, unable to move on to the next. So the bardo is a fruitless stasis. That makes for a tough challenge in terms of narrative and Saunders means of handling that challenge bogged down too much to repay me for the effort of finishing it.

His mix of gleeful cruelty and sappy sentimentality sets my teeth on edge. Liked the first couple of collections but it's been diminishing returns since then.

i finished L in the B, it did seem like a short story idea stretched out to novel length. Some of it was quite moving, some of it struck me as emotionally manipulative, either way it didn't make me want to read anything more by him.

i had never read any Saunders until Lincoln in the Bardo & i really loved it, i found it very moving.