| Title | : | In Persuasion Nation |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 159448242X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781594482427 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 228 |
| Publication | : | First published April 20, 2006 |
| Awards | : | The Story Prize (2006) |
Saunders's work in the last six years has come to be recognized as one of the strongest—and most consoling—cries in the wilderness of the millennium's political and cultural malaise. In Persuasion Nation's sophistication and populism should establish Saunders once and for all as this generation's literary voice of wisdom and humor in a time when we need it most.
In Persuasion Nation Reviews
-
George Saunders is like The Onion for the literati. He's hilarious, to be sure, but also capable of parsing the 9/11 reaction by the U.S. in a brilliant five-page allegory.
-
George Saunders is known for his surrealism and In Persuasion Nation is him at his wackiest. He examines topics like consumerism and marketing, pushing them to their extremes. His stories often make me laugh at their ridiculousness but then I start to think that maybe our society is not so far removed from the crazy scenarios he dreams up.
I've always admired his wild imagination, but I must admit that some of these tales tested my patience. The title story is an extended riff on advertising that goes on for too long. Brad Carrigan, American is a satire of television and the desperation it can sink to in attracting viewers - it's another one that outstays its welcome in my opinion.
I preferred the collection's more grounded efforts. In Bohemians, a boy talks about two Eastern European women who survived the Holocaust to end up living in Chicago, and how his opinion of each of them changed over time. In CommComm a man struggles to handle a work crisis and comes home every day to talk to the spirits of his dead parents. It's a sad account of grief and not being able to let go of a loved one. But my favourite story was The Red Bow. It involves a small community where pets have turned rabid and it's narrated by a man whose young daughter has been killed by a neighbour's dog. He talks about his surprise at seeing his layabout brother taking charge of the situation and his gratitude at the deep respect shown to his family at the Village Meeting. What moved me most of all was his heartbreaking memory of carrying his child's lifeless body into the house, already regretting the things he never had the chance to tell her:"God there is so much I don't remember about that night but one thing I do remember is, as I brought her in, one of her little clogs thunked off onto the linoleum, and still holding her I bent down to--and she wasn't there anymore, she wasn't, you know, there, there inside her body. I had passed her thousands of times on the steps, in the kitchen, had heard her little voice from everywhere in the house and why, why had I not, every single time, rushed up to her and told her everything that I--but of course you can't do that, it would malform a child, and yet--"
So I think what I'm saying is, I can appreciate the stories of George Saunders better when there is something about them that moves me in some way. Shining a light on the absurdities of consumer culture doesn't always strike a chord with me but using ghosts of dead relatives to explore grief in a novel way - that's something that touches my heart and mind. I suppose that's why I loved
Lincoln in the Bardo so much, and I am eagerly awaiting his next book. -
Video Review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFxG_...
#14 in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWkw...
Featured in my Top 5 George Saunders Books:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bc7g...
An amazingly colorful short story collection on the dangers and absurdities of modern consumer society. Some stories are heartwarming and uplifting - like, tearjerking uplifting; some are mercilessly cruel; some are borderline disturbing; none is long or strong enough to mar the fun you have with this book.
Which is the kind of uncomfortable fun you get from a Family Guy episode - you know, one of the good ones.
One of the best contemporary collections I've read. -
Just through my love of Saunders, I noticed that I read this book again by periodically reading these stories during work breaks.
"The Red Bow" is particularly chilling, and during a dull meeting recently I thought about it and I was like 'Ohhh do you think it's a metaphor for AIDS? The red bow! That the only apparent way to eliminate the disease- during that time when the disease was idiopathic and only gay people seemed to have it- was to eliminate gay people themselves? And didn't that happen in a less active way than occurs in the story? But it's about all fearmongering- which, as Saunders points out, isn't necessarily performed because of flawed logic, but a rather extremist solution. Making a Murderer might be yet another recent example of this.
"Jon", as well, is like a hyperintelligent YA dystopia in its own right, and delivers a beautiful message: what a privilege it is to live an ordinary life, albeit by demonstrating how many forces profit from pretending that it isn't.
I have to stop reading Jonathan Franzen essays, because they're really convincing but I don't often agree with them- which you might argue is a good thing, but I just end up confused. The last I read, 'Perchance to Dream', suggested that readers weren't better people- just a peculiar breed with peculiar needs. I think he's changed his tune with his recent opposite message of 'We need new complex stories to inform us how to deal with one another.' Anyway, read this book and tell me it doesn't teach you things about human nature, whether or not you already knew them in some inarticulated visceral way? What a gift it is!
First review:
Not necessarily because every story is perfect, but that some achieve an incisive perfection in their astute deconstruction of American culture (we can enjoy the deconstruction of a culture we're not part of.)
Laughter, gasps and extended oooohhhhhhs.
The great thing about these stories, as Saunders himself has professed, is that he learned to love all his characters, else there is no story. In this way, he is able to sympathise with everyone almost until there is no villain, which is great because his message can evolve from an easy, simple "America is corporate evil!" to "What a mess this is. How did we all get here?"
One thing I will say is that it's kinda sad how limited Saunders' form is- the only other book of his I read is
Tenth of December, which also contained oddly-named patented pharmaceuticals/ drug trials and stories written in the form of e-mails/ formal business letters. If I'd read Tenth of December afterwards, I might have thought that he'd somehow subtracted from the power of these stories by introducing a 'Yeah yeah, here he goes again with this' element to his portfolio.
But whatever. This book is great! -
I'm sure this has been said before, but Madison Avenue suffered a grave loss when this guy decided to go into fiction.
I really enjoyed all the stories in the first, ad-themed section, but it's sort of been on a gentle downhill from there. Some of these -- like "The Red Ribbon," the only one I'd read before -- got too message-y for me. Still, I'm liking it. I've been embarrassed in public when it's been revealed that I'm the only one of my friends who has never read George Saunders. I guess this oversight is because somehow, despite being an unoriginal cliche of a bourgie coastal-dweller with a liberal arts education that ill-prepared me for my job but which saddled me with inescapable intellectual pretensions, I only got around to subscribing to The New Yorker a few months ago. Apparently George Saunders publishes a lot in The New Yorker, as demonstrated by the fact that when I got home tonight after a day traveling around reading him, I found that he'd written the story in this week's issue. Apparently it's raining George Saunders! There are worse things. -
some books, i don't really know what to say, except that i know genius when i read it.
this book of short stories gives a person more to think about life than a rack full of self-help books. Saunders is telling us crucial things about contemporary life in some funny, bitter, outrageous, out-there ways that (at least to my limited skill) defy description.
i guess the most accurate thing i can say about his work is that each story is like a zen koan--just when you think you've got a grip on it, it morphs into something deeper, and you find yourself at square one, rethinking the whole experience.
if you're looking for some Raymond Carver-esque read, in which there is probably one identifiable epiphany per story and you can put a finger on it, this is not the book for you. Saunders is more squirrelly than that, and definitely weirder. but if you're after an experience that will stick with you for years, Saunders is your man. (one story in this book, "Jon," has been pestering me since 2003).
he's a master. at what, exactly, i don't think i can say. but i defy you to walk away from his work unaffected, failing to see our world in a new and often deeply unnerving light. -
Last week I found myself in a bit of a pickle. I was supposed to have spent my summer tracking down supplementary readings for a unit on media manipulation, but as of two days before my due date I hadn't found one single thing. Honestly, I hadn't even bothered to try. In short, I was screwed. Fortunately, a friend came to my rescue by suggesting In Persuasion Nation, a collection of short stories by George Saunders, and it proved perfect for my needs. (And thank God I can read a book in a day. Way to cut things close, me.) I wasn't planning on reviewing this book since I read it for work, however I really enjoyed it, and so what the heck - we're mixing work with pleasure over here today.
The cover of In Persuasion Nation depicts a man leaning over to sniff the solitary flower standing in the center of a wasteland - an appropriate image for a collection of stories whose protagonists are often searching for something real, pure and true in a plastic world that values consumerism over humanity. Often humorous, rather quirky and usually disturbing, Saunders' stories serve as a sort of protest of our corporate culture, warning what we very well may one day become if we choose to continue on our current path. The heroes in these stories are the misfits of this modern world. There's Brad, whose life is a sitcom which he is in danger of being written off of once he finds he can no longer continue smiling along with the laugh track, ignoring the world's ills. In the title story, an army of frustrated characters from smug television commercials rise up and refuse to continue being humiliated while hawking Ding-Dongs, Mac and Cheese and Doritos. And, in what I thought was the best story of the lot, there's Jon, an orphan who's spent nearly his entire life as a member of a product focus group, knowing no other way of communicating his feelings but through advertisements.
While some of these stories succeed better than others, the overall collection proves timely, affecting, inventive and highly entertaining. Like the best satirists, Saunders is thought-provoking, but with heart. Fans of Vonnegut and Pynchon should approve. -
There should be a special place in Hades for whoever approved the tiny font in this book.
Nonetheless, I really enjoyed most of these stories. Many of them could be published as Science Fiction. But since Saunders is a "MacArthur Genius" he can publish in more high-brow places like New Yorker. The combination of experimental style with cynicism about our consumer society gets me right where I live. -
He has cute ideas, but he drags them on to the point where they simply become annoying and boring. Reading him is like choosing one food to eat on a deserted island for the rest of your life. Good luck. Is he a cutting social satirist? I would look elsewhere.
-
Immer wieder liest man, dass der Autor von
Lincoln im Bardo eigentlich doch eher Meister der kurzen Form sei. Deshalb legte ich mir diesen Band mit Geschichten zu, von dessen sehr schwankender Qualität ich irritiert bin.
Die Geschichten werden in vier Abschnitte unterteilt, denen jeweils ein Zitat aus einem fiktiven(?) Werk mit dem Titel „Aufgabenkatalog für die Neue Nation“ vorangestellt sind. Der erste dieser Abschnitte gefiel mir recht gut, darunter die Titelgeschichte. Das hat was von schöner neuer Welt, zeigt eine verblödete Gesellschaft, die sich mit den unwahrscheinlichsten Produkten umgibt und einer durch und durch mit Werbung verseuchten Umgebung nicht mehr entkommen kann.
Insgesamt zwei Geschichten werden in Briefform erzählt und diese Form liegt Saunders scheinbar besonders. Die grotesken Gedanken dieser beiden Briefeschreiber sind sehr lesbar und sehr amüsant.
Aber dann wird es immer öder. In der Mitte des Buches sind die Geschichten etwas weniger unrealistisch, um dann im dritten Abschnitt komplett ins Unmögliche zu kippen. Hier, wo es zum Beispiel einen sprechenden Hund gibt, der sich als Butterstange verkleidet, ist das Erzählte nur in Form brutaler Comicfilmchen vorstellbar. Vielleicht würde man sich auf diese Experimente noch einlassen wollen, wenn die Geschichten nicht gerade hier immer länger würden. Noch länger sind dann die beiden Geschichten des letzten Abschnitts – und dann wieder überraschend unspektakulär.
Alles in allem lässt sich schon sehr klar erkennen, wie breit das Spektrum von Genres, Erzählweisen, Motiven von Saunders ist. Doch wenn ich die Geschichten einzeln bewerten müsste, wäre zwischen zwei und fünf Sternen alles dabei.
Insgesamt kann ich also nicht mehr als drei Sterne vergeben, wobei meine Neugier auf weitere/andere Geschichten des Autors noch nicht erloschen ist. -
hypothetically, george saunders is an author i should like. he is unabashedly progressive, very experimental, and witty. also, i loved pretty much everything in "pastoralia." two years ago when i was in graduate school, i held him in the highest esteem, seeing him as something of a descendant of one of my favorites, donald barthelme (yes i am a snobby snob snob snob).
anyhow. this book thoroughly disappointed me. the great stories in it, less than half, were great stories. the rest were all failed experiments, hitting you over the head with their premise and politics. i wouldn't even call some of them stories, they were more like experiments that just play out without any change really happening.
good stories include "the red bow," "christmas," and "adams." and this handful, part ii of the collection are great great stories, with characters you can really feel and the humor never overwhelming the plot. also, "bohemians," which is at the end of the book. decent stories are "commcomm" and "my flamboyant grandson," which was really cute despite its overly done spam pop-up window walking down the street concept.
everything else i struggled to get through or didn't get through at all. believe me i tried. but it just pissed me off. i hate being disappointed by a writer i really like. -
‘The truth is, this stupid system causes suffering wherever you look.’
A small minority of readers won’t be able to stand reading these stories. Because they are the very same people who perpetuated/participated in the culture that Saunders’ so incisively critiques here. It’s only ‘the shallow’ that can’t stand to see their shallowness laid bare.
And everybody else could sigh deeply. They feel seen in a world that turns a blind eye to them. These are the stories of everyday people written by an artist that comes along once in a generation. I don’t say that without consideration. I said it before, but it bears repeating: George Saunders is the greatest living short story writer. He very clearly diagnoses our cultural malignancy and presents in exaggerated form. In the only way such exaggerated malignancy can be experienced without crippling us, by the way of absurdist humour.
Zadie Smith wasn’t lying when she said that he’s the greatest American satirist since Twain. These stories are not depressing though. More accurately, they don’t leave us depressed. It may be that we can’t stand to read such utter loneliness, plastic love, apathy of the state, desperation and everything under the sun that ails our little lives. But we don’t come off depressed because there is also hope, there always is. Hope in its most primitive form- a seedling or a root left deep inside after the tree is felled. Hope is so ingrained in these stories that it evocates a feeling that maybe hope is innate in human nature. And it isn’t a sappy ‘and everything was happy ever after’ kind of hope. It’s hope that's been beaten, killed and resurrected a million times. Our heroes and heroines just want a little give. They don’t want their lives to be miraculous better than everyone else’s. They just want little of something they lack: the sensation of real love, belonging, compassion, meaning. The stories politely argue that goodness is a core element of human nature and it is the larger world, the way society is ordered that pervert our natural way of life. Is there a message more important than that for this moment in human history? I don’t think so.
I’ve never seen Saunders’ name come up in the list of ‘socialist writers. Maybe he’s more ‘working class’ than socialist, but his critique of capitalist society can very well be used in tandem in the fight against late-stage capitalism. Fortunately for readers, he’s not
Yevgeny Zamyatin writing
We or
Jack London writing
The Iron Heel. Saunders is more on par with
John Steinbeck writing
The Grapes of Wrath. We don’t have to deal with revolutionary automatons who move unfeelingly towards a single goal. Instead, we get to read about real people going through real emotions, only set in a rather absurdist world. The most alarming thing is that they resonate with us. They live absurdist, sometimes non-sensical worlds, yet many of us can identify with them. We have- parents who want nothing but the best for their children; a grandfather who wants help in the self-expression of his grandson; teenage lovers in a plastic world fighting for more than plastic love; a construction worker trying to hold down his marriage which is falling apart because of financial reasons; an empathic, homely man who wants to help others but has to live in a TV show in which charity is alien; the side characters in commercials taking revenge against the extremely abusive main characters. All these people/animated objects are good and some of them may be bad, but they had good intentions. They don’t want to change the world like revolutionaries do. They just want to help themselves and those around them. But this goes against the capitalist order which dictates that you must only work for the invisible hand. These characters feel that’s not fair. Not that it’s right or wrong; they aren’t intellectuals. They just feel that it’s not fair and these are their stories. -
“What America is, to me, is a guy doesn’t want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy has a crazy notion different from your crazy notion, you pat him on the back and say, Hey pal, nice crazy notion, let’s go have a beer. America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.” (From the story "My Flamboyant Grandson")
Brilliant and weird and funny and meticulously executed. This is such a delightful collection. Not as beloved, in my mind, as The Tenth of December, but here we have all of the characteristic blend of quasi-sci-fi American-life criticism, poignant family dramas shown from odd angles, and that biting and somehow wise wit.
Favorite stories:
"My Flamboyant Grandson"
"Jon"
"Christmas"
"Adams"
"The Red Bow" -
Loved this one, although there were a couple of stories I didn’t vibe with (near the back end). But with Saunders, rereads are most welcome, so perhaps they will emerge as new faves in the (hopefully) near future. I adore Saunders’ brand of surrealism because there is so much humanity (and empathy) under all of the weirdness and absurdity. The stories “Jon” and “CommComm” are masterful and truly moved me. Beautiful tales. Aah, this now completes my third Saunders and I’m itching for more.
My fave stories (in this order): Jon, CommComm, The Red Bow, Adams, My Amendment -
(This) is a story about a young man (teenager?) inside a facility where he and other young people are implanted with microchips and are given the task to rate and review certain products in exchange for a lavish lifestyle. He gets a girl pregnant, the girl wanted to get out of the facility, and Jon is torn between following the love of his life to an uncertain world and remaining in the luxury of his comfort zone.
What immediately caught my attention was George Saunders’ prose. His was the kind of narrative and tone that quickly engaged me the moment I started reading notwithstanding the fact that I didn’t have any clue what he was talking about at first.The humor was something I was not prepared for but truly enjoyed, although of course, what happened in the story was more than funny. The setting reminded me of Somni’s futuristic world in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, although Jon is not a clone but a human designed for a consumerist society. Jon is a sympathetic character who, despite living in a controlled environment and having an implant on his nape, is still a human susceptible to the consequences of love and loving. Reading Jon made me all the more curious about George Saunders and I can’t wait to read more of his other works.
Also posted in
It's A Wonderful Bookworld. -
Kitaba üç yıldız vermem, onun kötü bir kitap olduğunu göstermez kesinlikle. "İç savaş diyarı düşüşte" kitabı kadar eğlenceli olmasa da özellikle iki alıntıyı burada paylaşmaya mecbur hissediyorum. İlk alıntı "Benim Frapan Torunum" adlı öyküden olacak. Burada bir dede tarafından torunu hakkında yazılan "samimi ve hoş " bir değerlendirme var. İkinci alıntı ise pandemi yaşadığımız bu önemli günlerde alınan önlemlerin dönüştürdüğü hayatlarımız hakkında sert bir uyarı gibi geldi bana nedense. Sizin de okumanız yararlı olur:
"... Sevgili Tanrım, bu çocuk neyse o. Ne olursa olsun onu sevmeme izin ver. Eğer eşcinsel bir çocuksa, Tanrı onu kutsasın; eğer eşcinsel değilse ve yalnızca ninesinin peruğunu takıp, köpeğe “Edelweiss” şarkısını söylemekten hoşlanıyorsa, öyle olsun; ama her durumda, ne olur, onu sevdiğimi ve kabul ettiğimi her hareketimle anlatabileyim ona. Çünkü bir çocuk koşulsuz sevgiyi dedesinde bulamayacaksa, kimde bulacak? Zor bir hayatı oldu. Annesi Nevada’da, babasının ise kim olduğu belli değil. Anneannesi ve dedesi tarafından büyütülüyor, mahallede ondan başka çocuk yok ve mezarlık duvarına bakan minik bir bahçede tek başına oynuyor... "
==========
"... Duygusal hayatlarımızın dokusuna işlemeye çalışacaklar, sevdiklerimiz ile rakiplerimiz, dost ile düşman, komşu ile yabancı arasındaki ayrımı yok etmemizi talep edecekler. Eşitlik bahanesi altında kritik ahlaki ayrımlar yapma hakkımızı inkâr edecekler. Barış diye haykırarak, sevdiklerimizi en uygun yöntemle savunma hakkımızı inkâr edecekler. Tarafsızlık maskesi altında her tür gelenek, aile, dostluk, kabile, hatta ulus fikrinden vazgeçmemizi talep edecekler. Ama biz hayatın zengin çeşitliliğine boş boş bakmaya zorlanan, ahlaki ayrımlar yapma ayrıcalığından vazgeçmiş, sevgiye ölü, bunu şuna tercih etmesi yasaklanmış hayvanlar mıyız? Bernard “Ed” Alton, Yeni Ulus İçin Çalışma Kitabı 3. Bölüm. “Biz Biz Değil Miyiz? Onlar Onlar Değil mi?”... " -
George Saunders seems to have made a pretty solid career for himself by skewering the massively weird and distant ways we consume goods (and by goods here I mean history and information as well as pre-packed food dreck). After reading his last few books I admit I was a little worried for George--it seemed like he had found a good basic situation in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia, mostly the struggle to remain authentically human in a themepark simulation of the real world. These are great stories and I'm glad somebody wrote them, but with his obvious talent for incisive cultural observation, it seemed a little disappointing to watch him reiterate a particular plotline.
So, In Persuasion Nation is a new iteration of similar ideas, which is great. Saunders is a realist in the hyper- sense: as much as these stories may read as farce/science fiction, they're uncomfortably true to the climate of now. (Sometimes the hyper-real voices, likes and ums and weird grammar all together, begin to grate across a few stories. It's a small complaint but worth noting.) And anyway, I can only read so many stories about quiet, mid-life, midwestern desperation.
By the way, if you're interested in hyper-real fiction, you may want to check the Believer for an article a few months back on Doctorow's oscillating ideas about what level of representation constitutes "the real" in fiction. -
"Bütün gün o bakışlar, o nefret dolu bakışlar aklımdan çıkmadı. Şöyle düşündüm: Eğer onun yerinde ben olsaydım, o kadar nefret dolu olsaydım, ne yapardım? Eh, yapacağım bir şey onu içimde tutup biriktirmek ve bir gece taşmasına izin vermekti. O zaman gizlice düşmanımın evine girerdim, sonra onu ve ailesini uykularında bıçaklardım. Ya da vururdum. Yapardım bunu. Yapmak zorundasınız. İnsan doğası. Ben kimseyi suçlamıyorum."
İkna Ulusu'ndan beni dehşete düşüren onlarca satırdan sadece biri paylaştığım alıntı. Okunmayı ve yazdıkları üzerinde düşünülmeyi hak eden bir yazar.
George Saunders, İkna Ulusu öyküsünde insan doğasına o kadar güzel değiniyor ki dehşete düşürüyor okuyucu neredeyse her satırda.
Tüketim toplumunun görünen yüzündeki masumiyetinin aslında arkasında ne kadar kokuşmuşluk barındırdığına deniyor her öyküsünde.
Uyarmadan geçmeyeyim ama aman. Sarsıcı gerçekleri kara mizah ile aktaran ve sözünü sakınmayan bir yazar George Saunders.
Fakat biraz farklı bir şeyler okumak istiyorsanız mutlaka şans verin diyeceğim öykülerden. Okuyup biraz üzerine düşünmek en iyisi.
Ne yönde ilerliyoruz? Neydik, ne olduk? Kendimizi özgürleştirdikçe aslında ne kadar da başka insanların özgürlüklerini sömürüyoruz. Ne kadar da oyuncak olmuşuz aslında farkında bile değiliz... -
İlk kısmı sarsıcı ve inanılmaz zekice, ikinci kısım dinleme turu, üçüncü kısım yeniden yükseliş ve dördüncü bölüm kapanış.
George Saunders'ı Phil'in Dehşet Verici Kısa Saltanatı ile tanımıştım. Bu kitabındaki kimi öyküleri Phil'den daha çok sevdiğimi rahatlıkla söyleyebilirim. Yine kara mizahı zaman zaman absürd mizaha kaydırarak yapacağını yapıyor, sözünü sakınmıyor Saunders.
Bu bir öykü kitabı, ama sanmayın ki öyküler birbirinden bağımsız. Aksine, hepsin tüketim toplumunun ve popüler kültürün çirkin yüzü etrafında toplanmış kara birer komedya. Bazı öykülerinde Ballard tadı almak da ayrı hoştu.
Özgün fikirlere açsanız mutlaka şans verin. Öykü okumak istiyorsanız buradan buyurun. Ballard seviyorsanız Saunders'ı tanımadan geçmeyin. Yazarı daha önce okuduysanız bu kitabını da edinin. -
İkna Ulusu tüketim toplumunu yeren distopik öykülerden oluşan bir kitap. Özellikle kitabın ilk bölümündeki öyküler karşısında büyülendim. Kitap ilerledikçe öykülerin benim damak tadıma göre biraz fazla absürt kaçtığını belirtmek zorunda olsam da altlarındaki mesajlar bakımından etkileyiciliğini yitirmedi.
Niran Elçi'nin çevirisi her zamanki akıcılığında, gözümü tırmayalayan birkaç yer olsa da okuma keyfini kaçırmıyor. Aynı şey editörlük için de geçerli, tertemiz bir kitap olmasa da keyifle okunabiliyor. -
İyi ki varsın George Saunders.
-
originally posted on
The Short Story Station
“What America is, to me, is a guy doesn’t want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy has a crazy notion different from your crazy notion, you pat him on the back and say, Hey pal, nice crazy notion, let’s go have a beer. America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.” – Leonard Petrillo, ‘My Flamboyant Grandson’
There are certain storytellers who craft stories set in places or times that are unfamiliar yet eerily close to our own surroundings. There are just one or two distinct and important differences that separates the real from the fiction. Such worlds provide us with insight on what can happen and terrifies us with its possibility. Imagine a world where you can be erased from existence just because you are inconsequential to the world at large just like in Steven Millhauser’s ‘Vanishing Acts'; a world where a thirty-five year old man can pass for a toddler and no one will suspect a thing just like in Donald Barthelme’s ‘Me and Miss Mandible'; or a world where clones are both a source of slave labor and something else entirely sinister just like the Somni-451 chapters in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.
Terrifying, isn’t it, if the stories of such writers are actually prophetic. Woe to us if they’re not only imaginative but also clairvoyant. George Saunders is one such writer. His stories are always set in the near future where capitalism and vanity is the guiding principle everywhere and who you are in a society is either based on how you look or how much money you have in your possession. Here’s a review of Saunders’ Tenth of December from The Rumpus’ Kevin Thomas:
Indeed, woe unto us if and when his world becomes ours. Such is the case with every short story collection written by George Saunders. Case in point is In Persuasion Nation, the book that I will be reviewing, published last 2006 and contains 12 short stories about a world gone mad with capitalism and a world where fascistic persecution is not only acceptable but also a requirement of everyday life. It is a terrifying world where there is an obvious evil lingering above the lives of the people. Most of the stories are set in the near future while the rest are set in the present but accompanied by absurd details that is almost whimsical if not for its frightening ramifications.
Of the 12 stories in the collection, five stood out (although all were excellent pieces of literature). These are: ‘Jon’, ‘The Red Bow’, ‘Brad Carrigan, American’, ‘In Persuasion Nation’, and ‘CommComm’. It comes as no surprise then that the reason that they are favorites is because all of them except ‘The Red Bow’ have protagonists that goes against the tyrants who oppress them in their stories. In ‘Jon’, the protagonist rejects a life of celebrity and affluence to pursue a great love; In ‘Brad Carrigan, American’, the protagonist sacrifices himself in order to fight for what he thinks is right; in ‘In Persuasion Nation’, a group of characters who live a repetitive cycle of TV commercials goes against the script and their programming to go against a culture of violence and greed; while ‘CommComm’ features the most heartwarming ending in all of the stories that I have read that is written by George Saunders. ‘The Red Bow’, on the other hand, lacks a kind-hearted and empathetic character but is one of my favorites because of how horrible and close to reality it is. Yes, ‘The Red Bow’ is also funny, as all of Saunders’ story are, but this one just felt real.
In Persuasion Nation is a book with insight into the world. Yes, it’s a terrifying world that is swiftly becoming closer to ours with each passing day. But there’s always a bright side and that there will always be people who will go against the grain in order to rebel against tyranny and make sure that the world is not a truly horrible place to live in. This, I believe, is one of the driving factors behind Saunders’ genius. That his world becomes more terrifying with every collection that he releases but it also becomes more clear in its call for compassion.
George Saunders is a writer who gets better with every book that he writes. Clearly, I should prepare myself for the assured beauty that is Tenth of December. But, since I don’t have a copy yet of Saunders’ latest, I am content in reliving the joy in reading this achievement of a collection and in glimpsing the truth that it wishes to convey. -
George Saunders'la ilk olarak bu kitap sayesinde tanıştım, iyi ki de tanışmışım. Zira son derece ince bir üslûp ve sade bir dille birinci sınıf kalite hicvi her yazar sunamıyor okura.
Dört bölüm, toplamda on iki öykü, hepsi birbiriyle öyle veya böyle ilintili.
Kitaba adını veren İkna Ulusu adlı öykü çok eğlenceli, bir o kadar da katmanlı.
Aynı şekilde KONUŞABİLİYORUM!™, okuru eğlendirirken inceden ürpertiyor.
Benim Değişimim de çok ilgimi çekti, hele hele "gender" olayının bokunun çıktığı bu günlerde.
Kırmızı Kurdele, siyasetle ilgili bölümlerde ders olarak okutulması gereken bir öykü; zira gücü kendi bünyesinde barındırmak ülküsüyle hareket eden kişilerin/kurumların izlediği yolları ve uyguladığı metodları mükemmel bir kurguyla, son derece rafine bir şekilde anlatıyor.
Noel'in yeri ayrı bu kitapta, çünkü gerek bireysel, gerekse toplumsal bazda muazzam bir kapitalizm eleştirisi, hele hele o son cümle diyorum ve daha fazla uzatmıyorum.
Adams da "Alegori 101" olarak ders kitaplarında yerini alabilir. 9/11 ve Irak'ın İşgâli ancak bu kadar iyi bir şekilde aktarılabilirdi okura.
93990 yürek burkan öykülerden, Saunders'ın şahsî bir anısından esinlenerek yazdığı bir öykü, gerçeklik kurgudan daha fazla. Üzücü olan kısmı da zaten bu.
Değerlendirmediğim öyküler mevcut, lâkin hepsini değerlendirmeme gerek de yok. Hatırladığım kadarıyla kısa kısa yazmaya çalıştım, umarım yardımcı olmuştur okumak isteyenlere.
Diğer eserlerine pek kısa zamanda kafalama dalış yapmak isteyeceğim bir yazar George Saunders. Ve İkna Ulusu, yazara başlangıç yapmak isteyenler için iyi bir tercih. -
After a long recess, I’m currently getting back into some fiction... George Saunders is all over lately with his first novel having just come out. Although I happily concede that there is no coherent argument for genre fiction having any lesser stature vs. the 'literary' kind, I just don't like the bulk of it, and seeing the term 'science fiction' bandied about in reviews of Mr Saunders' work had at first kept me away. But his style is more like science-augmented reality, or plain old surrealism. These stories are about the real world, until a point - where a comically exaggerated extrapolation of our world bulges out. They are odd, leading us into a familiar room, then pointing out that the mat beneath our feet is a talking robot.
Saunders' characters are unmistakably American, and his love for his countrymen with all their foibles is as evident here as it was in his reporting for the New Yorker from “Trump country”. The stories generally follow simple-minded, struggling characters, whose bumbling leads to circumstances first comic, then tragic. (This formula obtains for basically the whole book, which very slightly diminishes the power of the collection.) His eye is gentle and forgiving, his protagonists loving fools who seek only to pursue their unique versions of happiness, but in that pursuit encounter credit card debt, confusing bureaucracy, and mandatory consumption of advertisements.
Advertising comes under Saunders’ klieg light the most. Behind the gimlet-eyed surreality, and a critique of passive reality TV culture that echoes David Foster Wallace, one finds here a somewhat Tolstoyan call for kindness as the supreme virtue - a sense that, though culture and country may have gone astray and bowed to the narcissistic irrationality, still, as long as we persist, there will be a way back. -
I like that every reviewer says this collection is uneven, and then everyone goes on to list different stories as the good ones. It is uneven. My two cents: the more 'experimental' the story in this collection is, the better it is. The whole "looks cynical and ironic... looks a little less cynical... turns out to have a real heart beneath the irony... oh my god I'm in tears" thing only works if you don't jump straight to the tears as we do in 'Christmas', and only works if you don't skip the real heart and tears as in 'My Amendment.'
According to these criteria, 'My Flamboyant Grandson,' 'Jon,' 'Brad Carrigan,' and 'In Persuasion Nation' are the better stories. Some of the others are solid. Some of them would never have been published if the author didn't have a reputation for doing the cynical-tears slide ('Bohemians' and 'Adams' both tell us that, shock!, things aren't always as they appear).
It's also interesting to see Saunders trying to expand the shtick a bit by sorting these stories into sections that supposedly have themes in common. To a certain extent they do; but not always. I'd really like to read a book of actually linked Saunders stories.
More remarkable still, I only just realized that Saunders publishes in the New Yorker all the time. That's like finding out that Ben Roethlisberger's real job is playing linebacker for the Ravens. Please, George, can't you find a different magazine? -
In Persuasion Nation's stories' main concern here, at least with most of the stories, seems to be the increasingly blurred line between advertising and regular life. One story's about a reality show that contains its own commercials; another is actually about the characters in commercials (specifically the schlemiels, the ones who always lose out). And most of it comes off as really absurd, especially when you add in other Saunders mainstays like ghosts and corpses. But mostly what I've been thinking about since finished is whether or not Saunders's unusual world is really all that absurd, after all.
I called Barnes and Noble the other day about a customer service issue, and I was made to listen to a 30 second Nook commercial before someone picked up the phone. Today I was informed by Facebook that my friend had read an interesting article, but I couldn't read that article unless I downloaded some little program that would advertise my reading preferences to my friends list. There's a pre-play video ad before every USAToday Crossword. The crossword puzzle! Advertising may not be as whimsically murderous here as it is in Persuasion Nation, but I'd argue it's nearly as pervasive. And in a few years...who can say? Advertisers don't lack the motivation; they just lack the technology. -
Favorite stories from this collection:
- "I CAN SPEAK!"
- "my flamboyant grandson"
- "93990"
- "bard carrigan, american"
Saunders makes you commiserate with even the worst boss/bad guy because even they are caught up in something grander, a bigger system to which we are all subjects in one form or another. This one comes up just a tad short behind
Tenth of December and
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (with the latter being my favorite so far). -
The first 4 stories in this book are delightfully, satirically funny! They are very clever commentary on our current American lifestyle.
The very last story (commcomm) has some absolutely hilarious, laugh-out-loud lines poking fun at ultra-religious people and govt. bureaucrat-speak.
The rest of the book (pages 73 through 195) is mostly a waste of time and just plain stupid. I read through them hoping to find more good ones, but they were terrible, especially "93990"!
