Scan barcode
A review by ryanberger
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
5.0
Well. God damn.
I was introduced to Saunders through a couple snippets of other interviews and he came off as somebody who had a very good, wholesome heart as well as a very strong sense for understanding comedy as a medium, or maybe a science. He did so in a way that didn't ruin the beauty of the thing. I was incredibly interested.
This book proved both of my hunches to be proven tenfold.
Saunders has the uncanny ability to pry beautiful and hilarious moments out of the bleakest narrative I think I've ever read. It is a magic trick that never fails to astonish.
Without getting into spoilers (my appetite to discuss spoilers behind a buffer isn't particular strong for this book), Saunders feeds readers a steady diet of gut punches, bad ends (in the sense that they're meant to make you feel lousy, not that they're poorly written. They're magnificent) and depcitions of anguish that truly shook me. It can be tough to read at times, and I mean that in the best way. Saunders coax's readers forward by rewarding their curiosity as to where this bullet train to Hell is going with frequent stops to smell the roses.
The short stories before the novella are a sliding scale of suffering but, most leave the reader yearing for resolution, for closure, for a win in this wicked world. By the time you're half of the way through Bounty, you're on hands and knees groveling for a reprieve and yet it never comes close to anything resembling torture porn. I don't imagine I'll forget the ending to this one any times soon.
Left off a star because I feel like 2-3 of the six short stories come off a slightly weak (Isabelle, The Wavemaker Falters, and Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror). Also, every cover for this book available gets a thumbs down from me. It's a very ugly book. And I love it dearly.
I was introduced to Saunders through a couple snippets of other interviews and he came off as somebody who had a very good, wholesome heart as well as a very strong sense for understanding comedy as a medium, or maybe a science. He did so in a way that didn't ruin the beauty of the thing. I was incredibly interested.
This book proved both of my hunches to be proven tenfold.
Saunders has the uncanny ability to pry beautiful and hilarious moments out of the bleakest narrative I think I've ever read. It is a magic trick that never fails to astonish.
Without getting into spoilers (my appetite to discuss spoilers behind a buffer isn't particular strong for this book), Saunders feeds readers a steady diet of gut punches, bad ends (in the sense that they're meant to make you feel lousy, not that they're poorly written. They're magnificent) and depcitions of anguish that truly shook me. It can be tough to read at times, and I mean that in the best way. Saunders coax's readers forward by rewarding their curiosity as to where this bullet train to Hell is going with frequent stops to smell the roses.
The short stories before the novella are a sliding scale of suffering but, most leave the reader yearing for resolution, for closure, for a win in this wicked world. By the time you're half of the way through Bounty, you're on hands and knees groveling for a reprieve and yet it never comes close to anything resembling torture porn. I don't imagine I'll forget the ending to this one any times soon.
Left off a star because I feel like 2-3 of the six short stories come off a slightly weak (Isabelle, The Wavemaker Falters, and Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror). Also, every cover for this book available gets a thumbs down from me. It's a very ugly book. And I love it dearly.