CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (Paperback)

~ (Author) "WHENEVER A POTENTIAL big investor comes for the tour the first thing I do is take him out to the transplanted Erie Canal Lock..." (more)
Key Phrases: pancake guy, Split Lip, Ken Schwartz, Table Boy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

George Saunders, a geophysicist, maps out magical realism with this short story collection. He puts an American spin on that sensibility in the sensationally good title tale, where things in a "Westworld"-like amusement park go extraordinarily wrong, but in ways in that make perfect sense to any denizen--or reader--in the modern world. CivilWarLand is hilarious, yet ultimately sad and moving--and isn't that life in a nutshell? And how can you resist any writer who cooks up titles as good as "Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror"?

From Publishers Weekly

In this debut collection of seven dystopian fantasies, some of which have appeared in the New Yorker and Harper's, America in the near future is a toxic wasteland overrun by vicious thugs and venal opportunists who prey on the weak and misshapen. Saunders's feverish imagination conjures up images as horrific as any from a Hieronymus Bosch painting: a field full of braying mules toppled over from bone marrow disease; a tourist attraction featuring pickled stillborn babies; and cows with Plexiglas windows in their sides. The black humor and vision of American enterprise and evangelism gone haywire are reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's early works. In the novella "Bounty," for example, the clawed-foot narrator, who flees slavery under the "Normals" to find his sister, sees a McDonald's that is the headquarters of the Church of Appropriate Humility, aka "the Guilters." "In Guilter epistemology," he observes, "the arches represent the twin human frailties of arrogance and mediocrity." Despite the richness of the vision and the occasionally heart-melting prose, however, there is little difference in voice to distinguish one story from another. Read in one sitting, they blur into a bleak and unsettling vision of the world to come.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade; 1st Riverhead trade paperback edition (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573225797
• ISBN-13: 978-1573225793
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,285 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AmericanFictionLand In Bad Decline, April 7, 2000

By	dams (Altoona, PA) - See all my reviews

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.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One-trick Pony... but it's a good trick., May 25, 2000

By	R. Armstrong (New York City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent collection of stories, September 8, 2001

By	"attackkat" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

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.