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Красный бантик, Дома, Десятого декабря
Рассказы. Переводы журналов Esquire и Иностранная Литература.
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About the author
George Saunders
102 books10.3k followersGeorge Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysics crew, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, a roofer in Chicago, a convenience store clerk, a guitarist in a Texas country-and-western band, and a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
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September 20, 2025
Puppy by George Saunders comes from the Tenth of December one of The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s according to TIME Magazine https://time.com/5719966/best-fiction...
“The person who doesn't read lives only one life…The reader lives 5,000…Reading is immortality backwards.” ― Umberto Eco
10 out of 10
Instead of reading this note on Puppy, which in fact is more about what this idiosyncratic reader has experienced while reading, or even better said, while trying to think back at the emotions felt the day before yesterday – which feels on some levels as ages ago, to quote Einstein ‘Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour…Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute’- you might do (much) better to access this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpz7K...
We could learn about the rift between classes, the rich versus the poor, or even the middle classes in The Semplica Girls Diary, and Puppy is one of the narratives where we have a needy, nearly destitute family on the one hand, Callie sends an offer about a puppy – she would try to sell it, but then she might just settle for it to be taken away, considering the alternative, the need to dispense with it…we are told about what happens to sick or extra animals on a farm and I could vouch for the veracity of the statement, since we lived in the middle of this country for some years, in a small town called Rosenau, on the edge of the forest, and this is where locals would dump what they had not needed, when they would not drown them, this is how we ended up with Ndugu and Basil, female and tomcat respectively
Marie is the rich, anyway relative to Callie, mother of two, who is driving in her Lexus – which is already a status symbol, when participants in tests have been set behind a Lexus, Audi, BMW at traffic lights, they would not push their owners to clear the way at green, as much as they would do to more modest brands, in a sign of Respect for Authority, explained in the marvelous Influence by Robert Cialdini http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/i... - to potentially get the puppy…
One important lesson (out of many) we get from the Tenth of December would be ‘not to say like’, which has become indeed so annoying and as an effect of another Principle from the aforementioned magic fundamental opus magnum by a Magister Ludi, we need Social Proof and start using the same technique, ‘like allow me to use Rooskies from now on’, 'We appear to be the happy operators of a menagerie ' makes me think of us, for we have two macaws that sometimes act as a real, howling circus, and we had had iguana, ‘like’ one hundred borzoi, chameleons and too many kittens in the yard…the latter have just been born by their mother somewhere and brought here, nothing to do with invitation, ownership and if you want any of them, they are about four now, you are welcome, ‘like’ in the short story, to come and pick him or her up…
Bo is Callie’s son, and because he darts between cars, he is now tied to a tree near the house, and when Marie sees him, the game is over, she will not pay for a puppy or anything anymore(oops, that was a spoiler maybe, but then when I commit such a crime, I remember that I had once a complaint along these lines, but other than that, it does not long ‘like’ the massive readership which enjoys these notes is bothered that much) but if this child abuse, then we get to hear more about the subject, as it had happened in other times, when mother would lock the girl in the closet for two hours, leave her to freeze when she had to be taken and there was a blizzard out, and the options would be to die waiting or maybe die while trying to walk towards home and drop to the other side…
Callie loves Bo and Jammie, the latter seems to be ultimately responsible for the state of the animals, family – there are turds in a paper on the…counter – the boy has a dog bowel to drink water from, chained to a tree as he is- but it is an invitation to think what love means – my favorite reference point comes from Thomas Mann http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/t... who has a character in a short story attract the attention to the way we say ‘my love is beyond words’ when in fact this word means so much, we do not really get to see love in real life, so Callie loves her family…maybe
Turning the tables around, she is so impoverished that her actions have different meanings, she really has to make efforts for Jammie and Bo, when she tries to sell the puppy, she is aware of the somber, tragic end for the animal, if it does not find a refuge, and when there is no money offer, she wants the visitors to take the puppy for free, only the now enraged Marie is ready to refuse anything her host might offer and suddenly, we may see the rich woman as the culprit, though this being such a sophisticated, if short tale, there are layers to set aside, because Marie had had a nightmare of a childhood and looks at Bo and sees the mother that had been vicious to her, having sex with strangers, exposing her child to all kinds of evil, so that now, the hardened woman is ready to inflict pain
Which is what she is doing right, for we can now see her as an accessory to the extermination of the poor animal, with which she had had nothing to do with, she was not the irresponsible owner, but it looks like she now takes her rage, vengeful sorrow on the pauper and even worse, on the puppy that will die in the corn – ‘starved to death or drowned would be the same thing’ Callie thinks…which makes me think of the time when there was this disabled kitten, somebody, or maybe a dog had broken its back and was in pain, so even if this is so awful, I had to drown it to end its misery…in another, previous incident, there had been the other mistake, perhaps, when we took a young dog from the forest, where he had been crawling on the front legs, to the vet, who would euthanize it, saying it is the only humane thing, but to this day, here and now, I am wondering if the animal would not have had more merry days, were we to leave it in the woods…well, not the wild reservation, a quite populated area, Baneasa
‘Love was liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better...like killing, so that he does not have to...’ this is what Callie says to herself, as she – spoiler alert – takes the innocent animal to the corn, where he is left to starve, which sounds so cruel, unless of course, maybe he finds a way out, and then survives…
“The person who doesn't read lives only one life…The reader lives 5,000…Reading is immortality backwards.” ― Umberto Eco
10 out of 10
Instead of reading this note on Puppy, which in fact is more about what this idiosyncratic reader has experienced while reading, or even better said, while trying to think back at the emotions felt the day before yesterday – which feels on some levels as ages ago, to quote Einstein ‘Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour…Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute’- you might do (much) better to access this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpz7K...
We could learn about the rift between classes, the rich versus the poor, or even the middle classes in The Semplica Girls Diary, and Puppy is one of the narratives where we have a needy, nearly destitute family on the one hand, Callie sends an offer about a puppy – she would try to sell it, but then she might just settle for it to be taken away, considering the alternative, the need to dispense with it…we are told about what happens to sick or extra animals on a farm and I could vouch for the veracity of the statement, since we lived in the middle of this country for some years, in a small town called Rosenau, on the edge of the forest, and this is where locals would dump what they had not needed, when they would not drown them, this is how we ended up with Ndugu and Basil, female and tomcat respectively
Marie is the rich, anyway relative to Callie, mother of two, who is driving in her Lexus – which is already a status symbol, when participants in tests have been set behind a Lexus, Audi, BMW at traffic lights, they would not push their owners to clear the way at green, as much as they would do to more modest brands, in a sign of Respect for Authority, explained in the marvelous Influence by Robert Cialdini http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/i... - to potentially get the puppy…
One important lesson (out of many) we get from the Tenth of December would be ‘not to say like’, which has become indeed so annoying and as an effect of another Principle from the aforementioned magic fundamental opus magnum by a Magister Ludi, we need Social Proof and start using the same technique, ‘like allow me to use Rooskies from now on’, 'We appear to be the happy operators of a menagerie ' makes me think of us, for we have two macaws that sometimes act as a real, howling circus, and we had had iguana, ‘like’ one hundred borzoi, chameleons and too many kittens in the yard…the latter have just been born by their mother somewhere and brought here, nothing to do with invitation, ownership and if you want any of them, they are about four now, you are welcome, ‘like’ in the short story, to come and pick him or her up…
Bo is Callie’s son, and because he darts between cars, he is now tied to a tree near the house, and when Marie sees him, the game is over, she will not pay for a puppy or anything anymore(oops, that was a spoiler maybe, but then when I commit such a crime, I remember that I had once a complaint along these lines, but other than that, it does not long ‘like’ the massive readership which enjoys these notes is bothered that much) but if this child abuse, then we get to hear more about the subject, as it had happened in other times, when mother would lock the girl in the closet for two hours, leave her to freeze when she had to be taken and there was a blizzard out, and the options would be to die waiting or maybe die while trying to walk towards home and drop to the other side…
Callie loves Bo and Jammie, the latter seems to be ultimately responsible for the state of the animals, family – there are turds in a paper on the…counter – the boy has a dog bowel to drink water from, chained to a tree as he is- but it is an invitation to think what love means – my favorite reference point comes from Thomas Mann http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/t... who has a character in a short story attract the attention to the way we say ‘my love is beyond words’ when in fact this word means so much, we do not really get to see love in real life, so Callie loves her family…maybe
Turning the tables around, she is so impoverished that her actions have different meanings, she really has to make efforts for Jammie and Bo, when she tries to sell the puppy, she is aware of the somber, tragic end for the animal, if it does not find a refuge, and when there is no money offer, she wants the visitors to take the puppy for free, only the now enraged Marie is ready to refuse anything her host might offer and suddenly, we may see the rich woman as the culprit, though this being such a sophisticated, if short tale, there are layers to set aside, because Marie had had a nightmare of a childhood and looks at Bo and sees the mother that had been vicious to her, having sex with strangers, exposing her child to all kinds of evil, so that now, the hardened woman is ready to inflict pain
Which is what she is doing right, for we can now see her as an accessory to the extermination of the poor animal, with which she had had nothing to do with, she was not the irresponsible owner, but it looks like she now takes her rage, vengeful sorrow on the pauper and even worse, on the puppy that will die in the corn – ‘starved to death or drowned would be the same thing’ Callie thinks…which makes me think of the time when there was this disabled kitten, somebody, or maybe a dog had broken its back and was in pain, so even if this is so awful, I had to drown it to end its misery…in another, previous incident, there had been the other mistake, perhaps, when we took a young dog from the forest, where he had been crawling on the front legs, to the vet, who would euthanize it, saying it is the only humane thing, but to this day, here and now, I am wondering if the animal would not have had more merry days, were we to leave it in the woods…well, not the wild reservation, a quite populated area, Baneasa
‘Love was liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better...like killing, so that he does not have to...’ this is what Callie says to herself, as she – spoiler alert – takes the innocent animal to the corn, where he is left to starve, which sounds so cruel, unless of course, maybe he finds a way out, and then survives…
February 22, 2016
Не люблю короткие рассказы. «Десятое декабря» – исключение, это маленький рассказ с огромным и важным сообщением о жизни, точнее о её финальной стадии.
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