Customer Reviews

Civil War Land in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If I could communicate, as clearly as possible, the embodiment of a 'glowing review,' I would do it here. These days it seems almost anyone can write a decent sentence. There are so many MFA programs out there now, that it seems like more people write short stories than read them. Yet, to come across a talent as huge as George Saunders (by education an Engineer, by pure gift of God, a writer) is still something to behold. With so many good writers writing good stories made of good sentences, its kind of tough to stand out and write with true excellence and originality. But George Saunders does this. Oh, does he do this. You don't know the meaning of the word pathetic until you step into the heads of some of these characters. Granted, you will get the sneaking feeling that the same protagonist is being transported from place to place and story to story, with few changes, but Saunder's heroes (if we can call them that) are so pathetic, so pitiable, so 'downtrodden,' that you can read of their ridiculous plights repeatedly and still be surprised at how good it makes you feel to do so. The main reason for this is Saunder's killer prose; it's almost an invented dialect of the post-modern mind. The very phrasing makes you feel like you're being tickled. And there's the voyeuristic aspect concomitant with today's TV culture. It's just great fun to watch bad things happen to normal people. And even if the main characters are very similar, the supporting cast is always a riot, complete with beautifully idiotic dialogue and deadpan narration. But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these ironic, self-mocking tales, is their undercurrent of sympathy and sensitivity. At the end of nearly every story, Saunders manages to change the tone faster than Jeff Gordon can go through the gearbox, and suddenly you find yourself disarmed by the recognition of your own cynicism and what it might prevent you from knowing.

After hearing George Saunders' name mentioned alonside those of Denis Johnson, Tim O'Brien and Donald Barthelme, modern masters of the short story, I was suprised to find that he only had one small collection in print. After reading that one collection I was shocked to discover that George Saunders has more inborn talent than perhaps any other writer in America today. That he chooses to use that talent in the way he does, crafting edgy, disturbing tales of cultural corruption and alienation, bodes very well for the future of American letters.

The collection draws its title from the first story in the book, probably the best story written by any American author in the last half of the 20th century. Describing the story with any brevity is an almost impossible task. Suffice it to say that it concerns a civil war style theme park director haunted by civil war era ghosts who hires a psychotic Vietnam veteran to rid the park of the gangs who keep invading the place and terrorizing the workers and visitors. This ludicrous story line is sharpened by Suanders' remarkable wit and spirals to a shocking and disturbing conclusion.

Unfortunately, none of the remaining stories in the book equal the brilliance of the first, but none of them really disappoint the reader either. "Isabelle" is strangely moving and "The 400 Pound CEO" is a tragicomedy whose ending is so innevitable that it is almost painful to read. George Saunders from whom there is much to expect and he has the undeniable talent to back up those expectations.

I initially discovered G. Saunders in the New Yorker via a short story entitled "The End of FIRPO in the World" -- taken from Pastoralia -- and became and instant fan. This is the first book of his short stories I bought, and shortly there after I also purchased Pastoralia, his second collection. Both are wonderfully written, dark and very funny without seeming repetitive or forced. His stories are some of the most original and fresh I've read by a contemporary author in a long while, and I've passed his books on to many friends.

Saunders is an exciting writer, one of the bona fide bright spots in contemporary fiction. I love his take on consumer society; it is the perfect antidote to the Wal-Mart-Land we McLive in. And apparently, given the subject matter of his latest collection, he has the critique-of-consumerism-via-unlikely-theme-park domain all to himself. Like Pynchon and Barthelme, Saunders is not a realist, but rather an absurdist with a biting sense of humor. There is, as one reviwer notes, a certain sameness to these stories, but the same could be said about Melville's novels, Stevens's poems, or Bruckner's symphonies. I can't recommend Saunders more enthusiastically, but those who prefer realism should beware.

George Saunders is an excellent new writer in the vein of Denis Johnson ... he is funnier than Johnson, and not quite as wordy in my opinion. That being said, if you like Johnson, you'll like Saunders.

The title story is probably the best in this collection, though I think the "400 Pound CEO" is a close second. Both of these stories have a cruel sense of irony, likeable characters who can't seem to get much right, and a wicked ending. There is a pattern to Saunders' work, but I've never found it monotonous because of the variety of events and turns of plot.

If you're interested in very different fiction, then pick up this slim volume. Be prepared to laugh and be prepared to be more than a little disturbed.

George Saunders seems able to write only about near-future corporate hell and decaying theme parks. And, he writes the same types of characters into each story. The main characters cannot act out their desires, because their desires place them outside the system. This makes them somewhat pitiful. The ones who can act out their desires within the system are objectionable because they are tailoring their desire to the system itself. Saunders has staked out for himself this part of the torture of modern life.

In the hands of a less talented writer, this narrow focus of setting and character would be a drawback. The decayed settings and amoral characters of Donald Antrim's writings are similar, for example, but after a few Antrim stories, you see that there is no more depth than the surface chaos.

Saunders seems able to find new depth in the souls of his characters every time he looks into them. In his work, each main character finds his own way out of the rat race. Oh, it also doesn't hurt that Saunders' writing is hilarious and highly readable.

As with any collection of short stories, some are better than others. Its a very dark collection, with crushing failure and abandonment of hope being the typical ending. With the exception of "Bounty" which is almost Sisyphean in its narrative, the stories are tight and enmesh the reader. Overall, the collection starts off strong with the first two stories an tapers off. To me its seems the later stories overly stress the theme of grinding down the main character and skimp on the little details that make the earlier stories more tangible.

Because of the unrelenting negativity thats present throughout this book, I agree with reviewer who advises it would be better to read only a story at a time and put the book down for a later date.

I think a dosage label should come with all of Saunder's books. It should read

"Read one story per month."

What was your first Saunders? "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz" was mine. It was in the first issue of The New Yorker with Tina Brown at the helm. I remember this well, because I wrote a review of the "new" New Yorker for my college paper at the time and was super-impressed with Offloading, especially juxtaposed against the boring John Updike short that was also featured in the issue.

In the last 4-5 months, I've read a number of Saunders stories in the New Yorker: "Sea Oak," "The Barber's Unhappiness," and "Pastoralia," all of which are probably featured in his second collection of shorts. I read these stories 2-3 months apart, and I must say, that's the right pace for Saunders.

That brings me to CivilWarLand. Excellent stories, no doubt about it, but when I end up reading one story after next, a rather boring pattern forms:

Royally Screwed Protagonist does Something Stupid and ends up Getting Even More Screwed.

The whole corporate-speak thing gets old fast. It's Orwellian, sure, but when you dip into the well that often, well, you might as well just jump in. (Maybe Murakami will save you, who knows.)

The best stories are the ones with a heart. There's only one of those, and that's Offloading. What a sweet, spectacular ending! It's probably worth the book just for that story alone.

The worst story is the novella, "Bounty." It just doesn't work. Boring.

Still though, Saunders makes me laugh. Writing humor is a tough thing to do, so I have to tip my beenie to Saunders. I don't think there's a funnier writer out there right now.

4 stars

After completing all of the stories in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, it has never been clearer what an original, thrilling voice George Saunders is. In story after story, the humor is bitter and incisive, finding the cruelest and cleverest method to deliver a punchline, which would be remarkable even without the staggering, sometimes debilitating pathos the humor comes from - take this section-concluding line from the first story I read in the collection, "The 400 lb. CEO" - "The sun sinks, the moon rises, round and pale as my stupid face." It's a line of scabrous humor, of fluid rhythm, and of profound sadness. Yet as each story rang with the same degree of acid-laced angusih, I began to get a little wary of Saunders one-note style. He excels at it, but each story is a present-tense first-person tragicomedy of occasionally liberating, occasionally deadening trauma. It makes a remarkable read, but one that doesn't demand a straight read - any guess about the type of story you're about to begin would probably be correct, so, it'd only be tiresome to read the book cover to cover. The novella in this collection, "Bounty," is the most apocalyptic of all of Saunders' creations, but even as it becomes a savage, even visionary work, it begins to fall into a tautological loop - one quixotic character after another shows up only to have his/her impish belief systems ridiculed for a few pages, becoming a fairly redundant cycle of humanity reaffirmed and rejected. You'll read through it in no time, but it'll make you wish Saunders had a few more tricks up his sleeve.

Some people will not like this book. Some people will be turned off by the title, the first sentence, the typeset. And that's okay.

William Butler Yeats predicts in his poem, "The Second Coming," that "things fall apart; the center cannot hold" when the apocalypse occurs. As a writer, George Saunders proves that these now post-apocalyptic and dystopic fragments of what life once was are closer than our society likes to imagine. His gluing together of the chaotic remains of America into his stories is both hysterical and chilling. Saunders pays particular attention to the casual nuances of everyday life, yet manages to bring universal flaws of mankind to the table. In Civilwarland in Bad Decline, he explores the defecating depths of human travesty by highlighting society's biggest travesties as well as man's most trivial imperfections.

Saunders is obviously fascinated by American society, and portrays its dystopic cousin in such a way that he embellishes our culture's flaws while transporting the reader to a near-future or alternate present. Though not completely cohesive throughout all of the stories in Civilwarland in Bad Decline, Saunders' version of America is grossly distorted. In the novella "Bounty," he fashions a country ripped apart its seams by mutant slavery, overtaken by corporate America, and devoid of any compassion. Yet, amidst this abnormal alternative universe, Saunders incorporates pop culture references such as Dr. Pepper, Playboy, and even a McDonald's, though it has since been occupied by a religious cult.

Saunders seems to enjoy writing characters with heavily flawed personalities, but he especially excels at describing their physical defects, allowing the reader to pick up on the satire without the aid of blunt accusations. In the story "Bounty," he creates a mutant race of imperfect people known as the Flaweds. Each Flawed has his or her own special defect, such as "Mollie, a hag whose Flaw is a colossal turkeyneck," or "Buddy who was born with no teeth and Mike who has twice as many as he needs." Saunders expresses the irony man's cyclical discrimination, this time focusing on physical differences, rather than religious, sexual or intellectual differences. This can be attributed to a society obsessed with outer beauty, striving to obtain beauty over brains.

Saunders is not the type of writer who wants to detail every shred of nightfall over the course of two pages. In fact, in "The 400-Pound CEO," he does it in two sentences: "Big clouds roll in. Birds light on the Dumpster and feed on substances caked on the lid." His images are often vulgar, jarring and imaginative. Saunders uses the English language like one would use a sports car around a mountain, working with the bumps and sharp turns along the way.

Saunders' dystopias are usually tarnished and overtaken completely by corporations and businesses that are meant to sustain themselves, not their employees. After a crazed worker shoots a boy in "Civilwarland", the narrator rationalizes why he "decided to leave the police out of it because of the possible bad PR . . . and that's that." Even sex is commercialized, and due to its institutionalization, "a safeOrgy fills you with longing and repulses you at the same time."

Saunders is a master of the failed, pathetic Everyman, as one narrates each story in Civilwarland in Bad Decline. Saunders' characters are difficult to like, but easier to relate to than most would feel comfortable admitting. Uncovering the honesty and universal wishes in these miserable characters make them particularly moving. It is unsettling to realize that one shares the same ultimate desires as the heavily flawed characters in alternate universe of such disarray.

"Is this the life I envisioned for myself? My God no," one character admits. Obviously, dystopias are not meant for everyone. While Saunders' writing is fresh and quirky, his stories should not be taken lightly: They are the post-apocalyptic fragments of today's society, just waiting to cave in when the center finally gives.