What do you think?
Rate this book
The Brain-Dead Megaphone
From the New York Times bestselling author of Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction, and the novel Lincoln in the Bardo. The breakout book from "the funniest writer in America"--not to mention an official "Genius"--his first nonfiction collection ever. George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel essays based on his trips to seek out the mysteries of the "Buddha Boy" of Nepal; to attempt to indulge in the extravagant pleasures of Dubai; and to join the exploits of the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the reader across the rocky political landscape of modern America. Emblazoned with his trademark wit and singular vision, Saunders's endeavor into the art of the essay is testament to his exceptional range and ability as a writer and thinker.
257 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2007
285 people are currently reading
5651 people want to read
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...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 629 reviews
January 14, 2008
There is a nice confluence between this book and DFW's Consider the Lobster-- in particular the last of Wallace's essays, which is on American talk radio, segues seamlessly into the Saunders' first essay, "The Braindead Megaphone", which is as good an essay on the dumbing influence of mainstream media as I've ever read. Oh, and it's fucking hilarious, which when you think about it, why shouldn't it be?
So I had never read GS before, neither his fiction nor non-fiction, and DFW is a hard act to follow, let me tell you. But they write with a similar style, both tending to write about writing what you are now reading and often openly discussing the difficulties of being lucid, which (paradoxically?) makes for more lucid writing.
Saunders is less "brainy", if you want to call it that. Whereas DFW is nervous in the high-strung neurotic sense and is constantly worried about seeming pretentious, which itself is a kind of pretension, GS is more comfortable in his skin, his open-mindedness, pacifism, and general wonder in the world.
The gems for me were: the title essay, the essays on writing---namely "Thank You, Esther Forbes", "Mr. Vonnegut in Sumatra", and to a lesser extent (gem-wise, not writing-subject-wise) "The Perfect Gerbil" and his introduction to Huck Finn (that's got to stroke the ego, eh?), which he more or less steals (pays hommage, whatever) to Vonnegut's Slaugherhouse Five by opening with his own difficulties undertaking the---understably---daunting task of writing an intro (which you are at this moment reading) to what might be the greatest American novel ever written (if you believe Hemingway, for example). Some of the other essays---more overtly satirical---I liked, but is just Not My Cup of Tea and reads more like Jack Handey's stuff in Shouts & Murmurs of the New Yorker. What's left are his travel essays for GQ, which frankly I wouldn't have been heart-broken to miss. Again though, I should say it was good and as far as typical travel writing goes its really good; just NMCoT.
In short, what you'd really like is not more GS books, but more people like GS inahbiting the world---or at least the US. He approaches writing with humor, humility, doubt, and an appreciation for how difficult it is to get through the things that really suck in life. Until everyone swallows the reflective-thoughtful-nice-funny-person pill, let's be grateful at least we can read GS' books.
So I had never read GS before, neither his fiction nor non-fiction, and DFW is a hard act to follow, let me tell you. But they write with a similar style, both tending to write about writing what you are now reading and often openly discussing the difficulties of being lucid, which (paradoxically?) makes for more lucid writing.
Saunders is less "brainy", if you want to call it that. Whereas DFW is nervous in the high-strung neurotic sense and is constantly worried about seeming pretentious, which itself is a kind of pretension, GS is more comfortable in his skin, his open-mindedness, pacifism, and general wonder in the world.
The gems for me were: the title essay, the essays on writing---namely "Thank You, Esther Forbes", "Mr. Vonnegut in Sumatra", and to a lesser extent (gem-wise, not writing-subject-wise) "The Perfect Gerbil" and his introduction to Huck Finn (that's got to stroke the ego, eh?), which he more or less steals (pays hommage, whatever) to Vonnegut's Slaugherhouse Five by opening with his own difficulties undertaking the---understably---daunting task of writing an intro (which you are at this moment reading) to what might be the greatest American novel ever written (if you believe Hemingway, for example). Some of the other essays---more overtly satirical---I liked, but is just Not My Cup of Tea and reads more like Jack Handey's stuff in Shouts & Murmurs of the New Yorker. What's left are his travel essays for GQ, which frankly I wouldn't have been heart-broken to miss. Again though, I should say it was good and as far as typical travel writing goes its really good; just NMCoT.
In short, what you'd really like is not more GS books, but more people like GS inahbiting the world---or at least the US. He approaches writing with humor, humility, doubt, and an appreciation for how difficult it is to get through the things that really suck in life. Until everyone swallows the reflective-thoughtful-nice-funny-person pill, let's be grateful at least we can read GS' books.
January 22, 2008
Based on this collection, George Saunders joins David Foster Wallace on the bench of terrifically smart writers I admire tremendously and who seem like wonderful, funny, mensch-like people.... this sentence needs a but, so here it is:
BUT, whose very cleverness can sometimes sabotage their writing. Ultimately, an excess of cleverness marred 'In Persuasion Nation' for me, and the same is true of this collection.
There are some terrific pieces - the title essay, in particular, is a tour de force. I loved his analysis of the Barthelme story and the essay on Twain. The piece on Dubai and 'Thought Experiment' were great, but I think both have been anthologized previously, as I'd read each already. Although 'Buddha Boy' was well-written, the subject matter didn't interest me all that much.
'A Survey of the Literature', 'Ask the Optimist' and 'Manifesto' were considerably less successful, each bogging down in its own cleverness long before reaching a merciful end.
So, this collection stacks up pretty much like every David Foster Wallace collection I've ever bought (and I've bought them all) - two or three essays so brilliant they leave me breathless, three or four more that are good, but not great, and some that are just headache-inducing.
Except that generally Wallace's brilliance can land him a fourth star. Not the case for Saunders.
BUT, whose very cleverness can sometimes sabotage their writing. Ultimately, an excess of cleverness marred 'In Persuasion Nation' for me, and the same is true of this collection.
There are some terrific pieces - the title essay, in particular, is a tour de force. I loved his analysis of the Barthelme story and the essay on Twain. The piece on Dubai and 'Thought Experiment' were great, but I think both have been anthologized previously, as I'd read each already. Although 'Buddha Boy' was well-written, the subject matter didn't interest me all that much.
'A Survey of the Literature', 'Ask the Optimist' and 'Manifesto' were considerably less successful, each bogging down in its own cleverness long before reaching a merciful end.
So, this collection stacks up pretty much like every David Foster Wallace collection I've ever bought (and I've bought them all) - two or three essays so brilliant they leave me breathless, three or four more that are good, but not great, and some that are just headache-inducing.
Except that generally Wallace's brilliance can land him a fourth star. Not the case for Saunders.
May 28, 2018
Uomini Col Megafono.
Immaginate una festa. Gli ospiti di tutti i ceti sociali, non persone qualsiasi. Conoscono il mondo, hanno vissuto, sofferto, possiedono delle attività, vantano solide competenze. Stanno affrontando argomenti che li interessano, scambiandosi sottili correzioni. Vengono a galla certe preoccupazioni nascoste che – oh, meno male, che bello! – vengono confermate, condivise, alleviate da chi ci è già passato.
A un certo punto entra un uomo col megafono. Non è l’ospite più intelligente della festa, né il più navigato, e nemmeno quello che si esprime meglio.
Però ha il megafono.
Mettiamo che inizi a parlare di quanto ami le mattine di primavera. Cosa succederà?
Beh, gli altri si gireranno ad ascoltare. Sarebbe difficile evitarlo, anche per un fatto di educazione. E poco dopo gli ospiti, divisi in gruppetti, potrebbero trovarsi a parlare delle mattine di primavera. O meglio, della validità delle sue idee sulle mattine di primavera.
Alcuni gli daranno ragione, altri torto, ma siccome l’Uomo Col Megafono fa un gran baccano, cominceranno a reagire ai suoi stimoli, cambieranno argomento con lui, se userà continuamente l’espressione “in fin dei conti” cominceranno a usarla anche loro, se butterà che il lato ovest della sala è meglio del lato est comincerà una lenta migrazione.
Queste reazioni non dipendono dalla sua intelligenza, o straordinaria preveggenza, o della sua padronanza della lingua, ma dal volume e dall’onnipresenza della sua voce narrante
La sua caratteristica principale è il “predominio”: l’Uomo Col Megafono sovrasta tutte le altre voci e la sua retorica diventa retorica di riferimento.
Dopo un po’ la festa si guasterà: gli ospiti diverranno passivi, senza accorgersi che stanno parlando nel suo stile, pensando alla sua maniera.
Abbiamo detto che l’Uomo Col Megafono non è il più intelligente, né il più bravo. E se fosse peggio di così? Mettiamo che non abbia valutato attentamente ciò che sta dicendo. In sostanza apre bocca e dà fiato.
Mi fermo qui, in questi mesi di campagna elettorale senza fine, in queste giornate dove Uomini col Megafono urlano soluzioni semplicistiche a temi complessi, scrivono hastag buttati lì senza concedersi, a loro e a noi, il tempo della riflessione.
Saunders scrive articoli sui quotidiani statunitensi, e questa raccolta è un insieme di riflessioni sulla comunicazione, ma anche sulla scrittura, sulle divisioni che attanagliano la società degli Stati Uniti ( e che hanno prodotto il risultato elettorale che ora vediamo), perfino sulla spiritualità e la sicumera della società occidentale, alle prese con dei media che ci stanno turlupinando sui fatti e il mondo reale per propinarci verità confezionate ad uso del potere dominante. So che qualcuno è perplesso sulla sua scrittura, qui potrà trovarci un filo conduttore del suo ragionare sullo scrivere, oltre che su dove sta andando la società americana (e non solo, purtroppo). Benché scritto nel 2003 e pubblicato da noi nel 2009 l’ho trovato di una attualità sconcertante. Chissà cosa pensa ora di Trump (Tanto per non voler guardare per una volta in casa nostra!)
C’è un antidoto agli Uomini col Megafono?
Immaginate che il Megafono abbia due manopole: una regola l’Intelligenza della sua retorica e l’altra il Volume. In teoria l’intelligenza andrebbe su Alto, e il Volume su Basso, per poter trasmettere e far ascoltare voci diverse e contrapposte. Ma nel momento in cui l’Intelligenza è su Stupido, e il Volume su Soffoca Tutti gli Altri, rasentiamo la propaganda e abbiamo un problema che nuoce direttamente la salute della nostra democrazia.
L’antidoto è semplicemente la consapevolezza e messa in discussione della tendenza Megafonica. Ogni ponderata confutazione del dogma, ogni barlume di Logica Intelligente, ogni riduzione ad assurdo della prepotenza è l’antidoto.
… e guardiamoci dagli Uomini Col Megafono…
Immaginate una festa. Gli ospiti di tutti i ceti sociali, non persone qualsiasi. Conoscono il mondo, hanno vissuto, sofferto, possiedono delle attività, vantano solide competenze. Stanno affrontando argomenti che li interessano, scambiandosi sottili correzioni. Vengono a galla certe preoccupazioni nascoste che – oh, meno male, che bello! – vengono confermate, condivise, alleviate da chi ci è già passato.
A un certo punto entra un uomo col megafono. Non è l’ospite più intelligente della festa, né il più navigato, e nemmeno quello che si esprime meglio.
Però ha il megafono.
Mettiamo che inizi a parlare di quanto ami le mattine di primavera. Cosa succederà?
Beh, gli altri si gireranno ad ascoltare. Sarebbe difficile evitarlo, anche per un fatto di educazione. E poco dopo gli ospiti, divisi in gruppetti, potrebbero trovarsi a parlare delle mattine di primavera. O meglio, della validità delle sue idee sulle mattine di primavera.
Alcuni gli daranno ragione, altri torto, ma siccome l’Uomo Col Megafono fa un gran baccano, cominceranno a reagire ai suoi stimoli, cambieranno argomento con lui, se userà continuamente l’espressione “in fin dei conti” cominceranno a usarla anche loro, se butterà che il lato ovest della sala è meglio del lato est comincerà una lenta migrazione.
Queste reazioni non dipendono dalla sua intelligenza, o straordinaria preveggenza, o della sua padronanza della lingua, ma dal volume e dall’onnipresenza della sua voce narrante
La sua caratteristica principale è il “predominio”: l’Uomo Col Megafono sovrasta tutte le altre voci e la sua retorica diventa retorica di riferimento.
Dopo un po’ la festa si guasterà: gli ospiti diverranno passivi, senza accorgersi che stanno parlando nel suo stile, pensando alla sua maniera.
Abbiamo detto che l’Uomo Col Megafono non è il più intelligente, né il più bravo. E se fosse peggio di così? Mettiamo che non abbia valutato attentamente ciò che sta dicendo. In sostanza apre bocca e dà fiato.
Mi fermo qui, in questi mesi di campagna elettorale senza fine, in queste giornate dove Uomini col Megafono urlano soluzioni semplicistiche a temi complessi, scrivono hastag buttati lì senza concedersi, a loro e a noi, il tempo della riflessione.
Saunders scrive articoli sui quotidiani statunitensi, e questa raccolta è un insieme di riflessioni sulla comunicazione, ma anche sulla scrittura, sulle divisioni che attanagliano la società degli Stati Uniti ( e che hanno prodotto il risultato elettorale che ora vediamo), perfino sulla spiritualità e la sicumera della società occidentale, alle prese con dei media che ci stanno turlupinando sui fatti e il mondo reale per propinarci verità confezionate ad uso del potere dominante. So che qualcuno è perplesso sulla sua scrittura, qui potrà trovarci un filo conduttore del suo ragionare sullo scrivere, oltre che su dove sta andando la società americana (e non solo, purtroppo). Benché scritto nel 2003 e pubblicato da noi nel 2009 l’ho trovato di una attualità sconcertante. Chissà cosa pensa ora di Trump (Tanto per non voler guardare per una volta in casa nostra!)
C’è un antidoto agli Uomini col Megafono?
Immaginate che il Megafono abbia due manopole: una regola l’Intelligenza della sua retorica e l’altra il Volume. In teoria l’intelligenza andrebbe su Alto, e il Volume su Basso, per poter trasmettere e far ascoltare voci diverse e contrapposte. Ma nel momento in cui l’Intelligenza è su Stupido, e il Volume su Soffoca Tutti gli Altri, rasentiamo la propaganda e abbiamo un problema che nuoce direttamente la salute della nostra democrazia.
L’antidoto è semplicemente la consapevolezza e messa in discussione della tendenza Megafonica. Ogni ponderata confutazione del dogma, ogni barlume di Logica Intelligente, ogni riduzione ad assurdo della prepotenza è l’antidoto.
… e guardiamoci dagli Uomini Col Megafono…
June 1, 2020
This essay collection was a mixed bag for me. Many of the essays are dated at this point and a lot are infused with his goofy, Midwestern humor that doesn’t resonate with me, even though I’m from the Midwest. Amidst that humor, however, are profound insights into our culture and life in general. Where Saunders really shines, though, is when he writes about writing. I just wished there had been more of those essays in the collection.
November 16, 2021
[3.5] After reading the wonderful A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, I craved more George Saunders. My craving was only partially satisfied with this collection. The essays range from silly (too silly) to serious. My favorites were those that focused on literature - particularly his brilliant essay on Huckleberry Finn.
November 6, 2021
The essays on literature are invariably extremely good, but the others are a bit less good
October 16, 2007
[Truth be told, I’d like to give the book 4.65 stars]... but oh my Jesus, George has done it again! (And by 'done it' I mean 'been funny' not 'compiled his previously published non-fiction into one book' cause then 'again' would have to read 'for the first time,’ and that's not what I wanted to say. No matter. Still so funny, is my point.) If read in one go the humor might, on occasion, seem overbearing (essays like ‘Ask the Optimist!’ or ‘Woof,’ I thought, were somewhat stale or, dare I say it, trite). But when he turns his perceptively comedic eye on the real world (Dubai, Brownsville Texas, crappy American culture) his signature absurdist voice resonates clearly and with tremendous feeling. Smart, sharp, compassionate and sly, George Saunders is not to be missed.
The book also includes a handful of essays on writers/writing (Barthelme, Vonnegut, Twain, et. al) that are astute and useful to anyone interested in the nuances of storytelling.
The book also includes a handful of essays on writers/writing (Barthelme, Vonnegut, Twain, et. al) that are astute and useful to anyone interested in the nuances of storytelling.
March 14, 2008
I'd be giving this book 3 stars if not for an essay on forming sentences. In "Thank you, Esther Forbes" Saunders recalls his emerging love for sentences formed with deliberation and the effects of honest brevity.
Wow! and wow! because if I ever find a guy that can recall the moment he fell in love with the structure of a sentence, I 'll do anything and everything within my means to make him love me. and if he doesn't love me, I'll just kidnap him and tie him to a chair and make him read aloud to me every night (wait - did Steven king already write that story line)?
Possibly the ugliest book cover ever created!
Wow! and wow! because if I ever find a guy that can recall the moment he fell in love with the structure of a sentence, I 'll do anything and everything within my means to make him love me. and if he doesn't love me, I'll just kidnap him and tie him to a chair and make him read aloud to me every night (wait - did Steven king already write that story line)?
Possibly the ugliest book cover ever created!
April 7, 2008
This book is like a summary of how I feel about George Saunders: sometimes hilarious, insightful, moving, surprising, and sometimes just gimmicky and self-indulgent and annoying. A few of the essays (the Dubai one, the dog one) are pretty great. A lot of them are okay. A few are awful, especially the ones that are supposed to be about some idea or issue but are really just all about how clever the author is. Overall, a disappointment, but worth reading if you're willing to skip around. I still love George but now I have even more exceptions to my love.
January 1, 2008
This collection of essays from George Saunders covers a wide range of territory, discussing everything from the author’s experiences visiting the Buddha Boy of Nepal to an analysis of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Saunders sharp eye and even sharper wit come across in most all of these essays, though I think his talent is best displayed in the longer travel pieces. His humor is balanced with a good deal of heartfelt emotion when he writes about watching Arab children see snow for the first time in the surreal fairy tale of modern Dubai, and his travels along the US-Mexico border in search of greater understanding of the immigration issue reveal a world far too complex to be explained in a sound bite. The title essay, about the decline of intelligent content in mass media, is particularly spot on. Overall, a very worthwhile and entertaining read.
November 19, 2025
A very good collection, with some spectacular pieces, and others that were less impressive from my perspective. My favorite pieces were those where Saunders created a sense of place -- in this case Dubai, Nepal, and the Texas Border. (The New Mecca, Buddha Boy, and The Great Divider, respectively.) Those were all 5+ stars. The only place of the three I have spent considerable time in is Kathmandu, and I can attest that his description of that place is perfect. I also like the pieces where he talked about books, especially The United States of Huck and Mr. Vonnegut in Sumatra. The pieces that pleased me less were those that shared more, in terms of voice, with his fiction. That is weird, because I love his fiction, but somehow that quippiness bugged me in nonfiction. That said, for the most part, the pieces that bugged me were still pretty good, but IMO not great. Overall, a very worthwhile collection.
May 12, 2018
One of those mixed-bag books you get when you're a hot commodity :P "Can we pull together enough assorted stuff you wrote to make a spine thick enough to print your name on it?! Great!! $$$ chaching chaching"
The essays on writing were interesting. Great to get more insight into Saunders' style and his teaching method.
It seems to me that Saunders' style is but one way of approaching writing. Whenever someone seems so singularly brilliant, in any field, I forget they're just one person who doesn't possess all the answers. You can perfect the Barthelme/Vonnegut/Saunders writing mode, for example, but it would just be one writing mode. Personally, when I read the stories of these guys, I picture everyone as something like a tiny cartoon character. They don't feel like real people. Whereas something like David Foster Wallace/even Bret Easton Ellis-style maximalism makes everything seem hyperreal, more detailed than the world itself.
JOKE ALERT JOKE ALERT. REVIEWER IS KIDDING. But you know, at the end of the day, the straighter, whiter and Americaner the writer, the more I'm on board. Bonus points if they're dead! JOKE HAS CEASED. HOWEVER, AUTHOR RESERVES RIGHT TO CLAIM A MINIMUM OF HUMOROUS TONE IN ANY OTHER SENTENCE IN THIS REVIEW, INCLUDING THIS ONE.
I guess it depends on your mood.
The other journalism stuff was mostly great and sometimes okay.
Yes, give this one a go, why not :)
The essays on writing were interesting. Great to get more insight into Saunders' style and his teaching method.
It seems to me that Saunders' style is but one way of approaching writing. Whenever someone seems so singularly brilliant, in any field, I forget they're just one person who doesn't possess all the answers. You can perfect the Barthelme/Vonnegut/Saunders writing mode, for example, but it would just be one writing mode. Personally, when I read the stories of these guys, I picture everyone as something like a tiny cartoon character. They don't feel like real people. Whereas something like David Foster Wallace/even Bret Easton Ellis-style maximalism makes everything seem hyperreal, more detailed than the world itself.
JOKE ALERT JOKE ALERT. REVIEWER IS KIDDING. But you know, at the end of the day, the straighter, whiter and Americaner the writer, the more I'm on board. Bonus points if they're dead! JOKE HAS CEASED. HOWEVER, AUTHOR RESERVES RIGHT TO CLAIM A MINIMUM OF HUMOROUS TONE IN ANY OTHER SENTENCE IN THIS REVIEW, INCLUDING THIS ONE.
I guess it depends on your mood.
The other journalism stuff was mostly great and sometimes okay.
Yes, give this one a go, why not :)
April 8, 2011
This is, hands down, the worst book of essays that I have ever read. The discussion was so perfunctory and the style such poorly adapted Vonnegut that I felt insulted that I was even expected to finish it (which I did, assuming that, surely, it had to get better).
What's doubly frustrating is that I dove into this one with high hopes. I mean, c'mon, Saunders is often mentioned in the same breath as David Foster Wallace (who I'd comfortably assert is one of the best essayists of his generation). As it turns out, these comparisons are a crime. Let's do a simple compare and contrast. Seriously, super simple - two sentences from each. One sentence from Saunders' title essay on television ("The Braindead Megaphone" - really, that's your title?, you're not even trying dude) and one from Wallace's '93 expose on TV, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" (which I hold as fairly instrumental to contextualizing whatever you want to call the modern post post-modern fiction movement).
Saunders: "But I think we're in an hour of special danger, if only because our technology has become so loud, slick, and seductive, it's powers of self-critique so insufficient and glacial. The era of the jackboot is over: the forces that come for our decency, humor, and freedom will be extolling, in beautiful voices, the virtue of decency, humor, and freedom." (okay, two sentences)
So, it's been over 70 years since Brave New World, 40 since The Medium is the Massage, and over 20 since Amusing Ourselves to Death and Saunders, seeking to advance our understanding of the effects of television, has showed up to suggest that TV just might be deceptive, addictive, and mind numbing (which is essentially his thesis - with some stuff about George W. Bush thrown in for good measure). Not exactly novel suggestions.
Now, Wallace: "And to the extent that it can train viewers to laugh at characters' unending put-downs of one another, to view ridicule as both the mode of social intercourse and the ultimate art-form, television can reinforce its own queer ontology of appearance: the most frightening prospect, for the well-conditioned viewer, becomes leaving oneself open to others' ridicule by betraying passé expressions of value, emotion, or vulnerability. Other people become judges; the crime is naïveté."
Granted, these are only snippets from each work and do little to inform the uninitiated reader of the overall sensibilities of each piece. However, I will say this: the Saunders quote sounds like the kind of reductive silliness that I used to spout off after watching Fight Club too many times during my junior year of high school. The Wallace quote, on the other hand, sounds like part of an intriguing discussion on modern identity under the complicated social forces created by TV.
I'm not sure what makes me angrier - how lousy Saunders' book is or his greatly inflated reputation. I do know that if I were John and Catherine, I would ask for a refund.
---
To be fair, I have not read any of Saunders' fiction and, while I'm not optimistic, I hope that I will be pleasantly surprised. Maybe nonfiction just isn't his thing.
What's doubly frustrating is that I dove into this one with high hopes. I mean, c'mon, Saunders is often mentioned in the same breath as David Foster Wallace (who I'd comfortably assert is one of the best essayists of his generation). As it turns out, these comparisons are a crime. Let's do a simple compare and contrast. Seriously, super simple - two sentences from each. One sentence from Saunders' title essay on television ("The Braindead Megaphone" - really, that's your title?, you're not even trying dude) and one from Wallace's '93 expose on TV, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" (which I hold as fairly instrumental to contextualizing whatever you want to call the modern post post-modern fiction movement).
Saunders: "But I think we're in an hour of special danger, if only because our technology has become so loud, slick, and seductive, it's powers of self-critique so insufficient and glacial. The era of the jackboot is over: the forces that come for our decency, humor, and freedom will be extolling, in beautiful voices, the virtue of decency, humor, and freedom." (okay, two sentences)
So, it's been over 70 years since Brave New World, 40 since The Medium is the Massage, and over 20 since Amusing Ourselves to Death and Saunders, seeking to advance our understanding of the effects of television, has showed up to suggest that TV just might be deceptive, addictive, and mind numbing (which is essentially his thesis - with some stuff about George W. Bush thrown in for good measure). Not exactly novel suggestions.
Now, Wallace: "And to the extent that it can train viewers to laugh at characters' unending put-downs of one another, to view ridicule as both the mode of social intercourse and the ultimate art-form, television can reinforce its own queer ontology of appearance: the most frightening prospect, for the well-conditioned viewer, becomes leaving oneself open to others' ridicule by betraying passé expressions of value, emotion, or vulnerability. Other people become judges; the crime is naïveté."
Granted, these are only snippets from each work and do little to inform the uninitiated reader of the overall sensibilities of each piece. However, I will say this: the Saunders quote sounds like the kind of reductive silliness that I used to spout off after watching Fight Club too many times during my junior year of high school. The Wallace quote, on the other hand, sounds like part of an intriguing discussion on modern identity under the complicated social forces created by TV.
I'm not sure what makes me angrier - how lousy Saunders' book is or his greatly inflated reputation. I do know that if I were John and Catherine, I would ask for a refund.
---
To be fair, I have not read any of Saunders' fiction and, while I'm not optimistic, I hope that I will be pleasantly surprised. Maybe nonfiction just isn't his thing.
November 15, 2008
I thought this collection was going to kick so much ass, because the first story was so witty and in-your-face. The rest, however... not so great.
The author, ironically, didn't seem to acknowledge his privilege and Western bias that he seemed to be so aware of, initially. Basically, he was saying, the "braindead megaphone" means that whoever has the loudest voice, is most interesting/able to get people to listen to them, gets heard the most. A fairly simple sentiment; but the implications of which I believe have important and troubling political and social effects.
However, completely oblivious, he goes on to talk about how GQ paid him to like stay in (seriously) this fucking mansion-hotel in the Middle East, which exists solely, apparently, to be lavish and over-the-top and to cater towards the rich. That story was just him describing all the awesome hings in the hotel and talking about some of the poor/not ridiculously rich people who'd come by and look at it in awe but weren't able to afford to stay there, obviously. And then he complained a lot b/c there was some problem with the payment thing for his stay (as I said, he was having it all paid for him, so he could write this report about it, I guess) and he just came across as a whiny, ungrateful little twat.
There is an account about the boy in India who sat for months upon end, meditating, with no food or water, that was interesting. This happened several years ago, and I vaguely remember it being reported in the media. I think I liked this one, though, because the subject itself is interesting, his reflection upon visiting the boy was not particularly interesting/insightful, and a major part of it consisted about him whining about how COLD he was the ONE night he spent sleeping outside in India. (Whiiine).
Basically, it just read like a lot of lazy psuedo-journalism. Strangely, this kind of writing is the style that I could see myself writing in (I don't mean shitty psuedo-journalism, I mean kind of op-ed reflections on events and such things), were I ever to publish some kind of book (theoretically- and this is largely b/c I can't write fiction for shit).
SO: There are a few amusing things throughout though.. there was one story that was geniunely hilarious. Forgot what it was called. I'd recommend that if you get this book... just read the first story.. the really funny one (It's the one that's in letter/answer format, it'd kind of a parody/thing) and.. maybe the one about the India kid. Skip the rest, you won't miss anything.
The author, ironically, didn't seem to acknowledge his privilege and Western bias that he seemed to be so aware of, initially. Basically, he was saying, the "braindead megaphone" means that whoever has the loudest voice, is most interesting/able to get people to listen to them, gets heard the most. A fairly simple sentiment; but the implications of which I believe have important and troubling political and social effects.
However, completely oblivious, he goes on to talk about how GQ paid him to like stay in (seriously) this fucking mansion-hotel in the Middle East, which exists solely, apparently, to be lavish and over-the-top and to cater towards the rich. That story was just him describing all the awesome hings in the hotel and talking about some of the poor/not ridiculously rich people who'd come by and look at it in awe but weren't able to afford to stay there, obviously. And then he complained a lot b/c there was some problem with the payment thing for his stay (as I said, he was having it all paid for him, so he could write this report about it, I guess) and he just came across as a whiny, ungrateful little twat.
There is an account about the boy in India who sat for months upon end, meditating, with no food or water, that was interesting. This happened several years ago, and I vaguely remember it being reported in the media. I think I liked this one, though, because the subject itself is interesting, his reflection upon visiting the boy was not particularly interesting/insightful, and a major part of it consisted about him whining about how COLD he was the ONE night he spent sleeping outside in India. (Whiiine).
Basically, it just read like a lot of lazy psuedo-journalism. Strangely, this kind of writing is the style that I could see myself writing in (I don't mean shitty psuedo-journalism, I mean kind of op-ed reflections on events and such things), were I ever to publish some kind of book (theoretically- and this is largely b/c I can't write fiction for shit).
SO: There are a few amusing things throughout though.. there was one story that was geniunely hilarious. Forgot what it was called. I'd recommend that if you get this book... just read the first story.. the really funny one (It's the one that's in letter/answer format, it'd kind of a parody/thing) and.. maybe the one about the India kid. Skip the rest, you won't miss anything.
December 7, 2022
The political/cultural essays are great and feel ahead of their time; the travelogues are rich and strange and wonderful; the pieces about literature hint at why Saunders is clearly a good teacher. Meanwhile, the satirical writing is cringey and awful. (It's official: I don't like David Sedaris doing overly obvious and cynical fiction, and I don't like George Saunders' subtle-as-an-anvil "nonfiction" satire.) So: skip those or hurry through them, and this is a really strong collection.
October 21, 2007
When I think "book of essays," what comes to mind is a series of ruminations on how-I-felt-when-I-was-here and what-I-think-about-all-of-this. With his first collection of essays, George Saunders manages to totally screw up my mental model by pairing these personal-political essays with old-fashioned, honest-to-God satire.
If you've read any of his short stories, it probably won't surprise you to find that Saunders writes satirical pieces in the best possible way--angrily, and with hope, and with a refusal to believe that the worst in us is all we can offer one another. Some of these mean fables really work; some are maybe slightly less successful because, you know, there is nothing easy about satire. Harnessing indignation and making it funny, showing a world turned on its head and suggesting that instead of all of us standing on our heads to make sense of it, we should flip the world over...it's a wonder that the genre even exists and that writers like Saunders (or Twain, or Vonnegut) have attempted it at all.
As an essayist, Saunders is engaging and conversational, and not afraid to interrogate his own assumptions (for example, when meeting the border-patrolling Minutemen in "The Great Divider," or when observing Ram Bahadur Bomjon in "Buddha Boy"). Taken as a whole, the collection exhorts us all to reflect more and to challenge the forces that would keep us fragmented and fearful--not a bad message, I'd say.
Also, fans of Donald Barthelme, writers, would-be writers, and, really, everyone else: check out "The Perfect Gerbil," a short appreciation/why-it-works-and-is-awesome dissection of Barthelme's story "The School."
If you've read any of his short stories, it probably won't surprise you to find that Saunders writes satirical pieces in the best possible way--angrily, and with hope, and with a refusal to believe that the worst in us is all we can offer one another. Some of these mean fables really work; some are maybe slightly less successful because, you know, there is nothing easy about satire. Harnessing indignation and making it funny, showing a world turned on its head and suggesting that instead of all of us standing on our heads to make sense of it, we should flip the world over...it's a wonder that the genre even exists and that writers like Saunders (or Twain, or Vonnegut) have attempted it at all.
As an essayist, Saunders is engaging and conversational, and not afraid to interrogate his own assumptions (for example, when meeting the border-patrolling Minutemen in "The Great Divider," or when observing Ram Bahadur Bomjon in "Buddha Boy"). Taken as a whole, the collection exhorts us all to reflect more and to challenge the forces that would keep us fragmented and fearful--not a bad message, I'd say.
Also, fans of Donald Barthelme, writers, would-be writers, and, really, everyone else: check out "The Perfect Gerbil," a short appreciation/why-it-works-and-is-awesome dissection of Barthelme's story "The School."
May 28, 2013
4.5 stars
Saunders is definitely an acquired taste, but I say that with every good intention. Allow his playfulness to wash over your disbelief and he'll enamor you with his words.
His essay on a Donald Barthelme short-story = gold & compels me further down the Short Story Master baton-passing rabbit hole. To me Barthelme is still king of the castle, but have you seen what Saunders has done to the moat?
Buddha Boy is very interesting topic, and the essay presents as good of a case at documenting a possible miracle as a person can, I think. If you are new to Saunders, I'd say definitely start with his short stories, but once you've given those a chance, this book is worth the read.
Saunders is definitely an acquired taste, but I say that with every good intention. Allow his playfulness to wash over your disbelief and he'll enamor you with his words.
His essay on a Donald Barthelme short-story = gold & compels me further down the Short Story Master baton-passing rabbit hole. To me Barthelme is still king of the castle, but have you seen what Saunders has done to the moat?
Buddha Boy is very interesting topic, and the essay presents as good of a case at documenting a possible miracle as a person can, I think. If you are new to Saunders, I'd say definitely start with his short stories, but once you've given those a chance, this book is worth the read.
March 31, 2017
I can now say that I am a proud member of the PRKA--I always suspected as much, no matter how angry I get with what I imperfectly assess to be " the state of things", those things themselves somewhat of an abstraction.
The state of things is
almost always
what you make of things...
...yet death is ever
present,
meteoric in its
relentless intensity,
its trajectory:
"look who's coming
to dinner" now you're
post-historic flambe:
"the fossil fuel
of tomorrow"
The state of things is
almost always
what you make of things...
...yet death is ever
present,
meteoric in its
relentless intensity,
its trajectory:
"look who's coming
to dinner" now you're
post-historic flambe:
"the fossil fuel
of tomorrow"
January 23, 2023
Until recently this was Saunders' only work of non-fiction. The essays collected here - on Kurt Vonnegut, the American Far-Right, Dubai, and Anglophilia among other subjects - are worth anyone's time.
My favourite is a fond, wise essay about a Nun that introduced the young Saunders to Johnny Tremain and the lessons he drew from that book.
My favourite is a fond, wise essay about a Nun that introduced the young Saunders to Johnny Tremain and the lessons he drew from that book.
January 16, 2013
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I had the pleasure of getting to talk with legendary author George Saunders for CCLaP's podcast last week, a rare treat given how in demand he is on this latest tour even among the major media; but that meant I had to do some serious cramming in the few weeks leading up to our talk, in that (I guiltily confess) I only became aware of his existence a month ago, because of a passionate recommendation from my friend and Chicago science-fiction author Mark R. Brand, with Saunders' new book, tour, and interview opportunity being merely a fortuitous coincidence. And that's because the vast majority of Saunders' output has been short stories, while regulars know that my own reading habits veer almost 100 percent to full novels, which means he's simply and unfortunately been off my radar this whole time; but of course I'm happy to make room in my life for exquisite short-fiction writers once I learn about them (see for example my revelation after reading John Cheever for the first time a few years ago), which means that I tore through all seven books now of his career in just a few weeks recently, so I thought I'd get one large essay posted here about all of them at once, instead of doing a separate small review for each book.
And indeed, as I mentioned during the podcast as well, like Cheever I think Saunders' work is going to be at its most powerful once his career is over, and all the stories collected into one giant volume that a person reads all at once, instead of debating the merits of one individual collection over another. And in fact this is something else I said in the podcast, that I find it fun to think of Saunders' stories as essentially interchangeable tales in one big comic-book-style shared universe, albeit the most f-cked-up shared universe you'll ever spend time in: a possibly post-apocalyptic America, although whether through slow erosion or one big doomsday event is hard to determine, where the only businesses that still thrive are outlandish theme parks designed for the amusement of the now "natural betters" of our new Mad Max society, and staffed by the permanent class of have-nots which now includes a large population of genetically modified freaks, a place where ghosts are real and magic exists and the new normal is extreme cruelty at all times for all other humans left in the wreckage of a crumbled United States. And so if you look at the four story collections that Saunders has now put out -- 1996's CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, 2000's Pastoralia, 2006's In Persuasion Nation and this year's Tenth of December -- you'll see that the vast majority of all these pieces fit at least somewhat into the general paradigm just described, although with others that are much more realistic in tone but still with the same unbelievable cruelty and darkness, many of them set among racially tense situations in eroding post-industrial cities.
Yeah, sounds like a big barrel of laughs, right? And in fact this was the biggest surprise for me as well when first reading them, that Saunders is not just on the stranger side of the bizarro* subgenre, but is one of the most wrist-slashingly depressing authors you will ever find, yet this Guggenheim and MacArthur grant winner is regularly on the bestseller lists, has appeared on David Letterman and The Daily Show, gets published on a steady basis in such hugely mainstream magazines as The New Yorker and GQ, and is adored by literally millions of fans out there, many of whom would never open the cover of a book from Eraserhead Press to save their life. And that's because Saunders never talks about these things specifically to be depressing, but rather as a way of highlighting how important simple humanity is to our lives, the simple act of being humane and optimistic about the world, which he does not by writing about the humane acts themselves but what a world without them would look like. And that's a clever and admirable thing to do, because it means he sneaks in sideways to the points he wants to make, not beating us over the head but forcing us to really stop and think about what he's truly trying to say, to examine why we get so upset when this fundamental humanity is missing from the stories we're reading. Ultimately Saunders believes in celebrating life, in trying to be as helpful and open-minded to strangers as you can, in being as positive about the world at large as you can stand; but like the Existentialists of Mid-Century Modernism, he examines this subject by looking at worst-case scenarios, and by showing us what exactly we miss out of in life when this positivity and love is gone.
*(For those who are new to CCLaP, "bizarro" is a hard-to-define term but one we reference here a lot; also sometimes known as "gonzo" fiction, sometimes as "The New Weird," a lot of it comes from either the wackier or more prurient edges of such existing genres as science-fiction, horror and erotica, while some of it is more like Hunter S. Thompson or William S. Burroughs, a conceptual cloud of strangeness that has a huge cult following in the world of basement presses and genre conventions, as well as such literary social networks as Goodreads.com. If you want to think of famous examples, think of people like Kathy Acker, Mark Leyner, Will Self, Chuck Palahniuk, Blake Butler, China Mieville…and, uh, George Saunders!)
Now, of course, in all honesty, there are also a few clunkers scattered here and there in these collections as well, which is simply to be expected in a career that now spans twenty years; and when it comes to the small number of other books he's put out besides story collections, I have to confess that I found those to be a much iffier proposition. For example, there's the 2000 children's book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, cute enough but as inessential to an adult as any children's book is; then there's his one collection of nonfiction essays, 2007's The Braindead Megaphone, an uneven compilation of random pieces which includes some real gems (one of the best being that GQ piece mentioned, where Saunders is sent George-Plimpton-style to Dubai, and instead of the usual decrying of the ultra-rich he is surprisingly charmed by all the vacationing middle-class families), but that has an equal amount of throwaway pieces done for highly specific commissions; and then there's the only stand-alone fiction book of his career so far, the 2005 novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, which I have to confess is the only thing of Saunders' career that I actively disliked -- written in the middle of the Bush atrocities, it's obviously an attempt to do an Animal Farm-style satire about those years, but is labored in its execution, too on the nose, and in general has too much of a "quirky for the sake of being quirky" vibe, the exact thing that can most quickly kill a piece of bizarro fiction. (But then again, we perhaps shouldn't blame Saunders for this; as I've talked about many times here in the past, it seems that no indignant artist was able to write satirically about Bush in the middle of the Bush Years without producing an overly obvious ranting screed, whether that's Saunders or George Clooney or Michael Moore or Robert Redford. No wonder no good books about Nazis came out until after World War Two; as we all learned in the early 2000s, it's nearly impossible to actually live under a fascist regime and also be subtle and clever in your critique of it.)
But those are all small quibbles, of course; Saunders' bread and butter is in his short fiction, and I'm convinced that he will eventually be known as one of the best short-fiction authors in history, joining a surprisingly small list that includes such luminaries as Cheever, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, GK Chesterton and more. Plus, as a fan of edgy and strange work, I'm thrilled that a guy like Saunders is out there, serving as a gateway of sorts between mainstream society and an entire rabbithole of basement-press bizarro titles that's just waiting for newly inspired fans to tumble down. If you're going to pick up your first Saunders book soon, go ahead and pick up the newest, Tenth of December, because it's just as good as all the others and particularly easy to find right now; but I also encourage you to dig deeper into this remarkable author's career, and to see just how far he'll pull you into the murky depths of ambiguous morality before coming bobbing back to the surface. It's been a true treat to become a fan of his work this year, and I urge you to become one as well.
Out of 10 (Tenth of December): 9.6
I had the pleasure of getting to talk with legendary author George Saunders for CCLaP's podcast last week, a rare treat given how in demand he is on this latest tour even among the major media; but that meant I had to do some serious cramming in the few weeks leading up to our talk, in that (I guiltily confess) I only became aware of his existence a month ago, because of a passionate recommendation from my friend and Chicago science-fiction author Mark R. Brand, with Saunders' new book, tour, and interview opportunity being merely a fortuitous coincidence. And that's because the vast majority of Saunders' output has been short stories, while regulars know that my own reading habits veer almost 100 percent to full novels, which means he's simply and unfortunately been off my radar this whole time; but of course I'm happy to make room in my life for exquisite short-fiction writers once I learn about them (see for example my revelation after reading John Cheever for the first time a few years ago), which means that I tore through all seven books now of his career in just a few weeks recently, so I thought I'd get one large essay posted here about all of them at once, instead of doing a separate small review for each book.
And indeed, as I mentioned during the podcast as well, like Cheever I think Saunders' work is going to be at its most powerful once his career is over, and all the stories collected into one giant volume that a person reads all at once, instead of debating the merits of one individual collection over another. And in fact this is something else I said in the podcast, that I find it fun to think of Saunders' stories as essentially interchangeable tales in one big comic-book-style shared universe, albeit the most f-cked-up shared universe you'll ever spend time in: a possibly post-apocalyptic America, although whether through slow erosion or one big doomsday event is hard to determine, where the only businesses that still thrive are outlandish theme parks designed for the amusement of the now "natural betters" of our new Mad Max society, and staffed by the permanent class of have-nots which now includes a large population of genetically modified freaks, a place where ghosts are real and magic exists and the new normal is extreme cruelty at all times for all other humans left in the wreckage of a crumbled United States. And so if you look at the four story collections that Saunders has now put out -- 1996's CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, 2000's Pastoralia, 2006's In Persuasion Nation and this year's Tenth of December -- you'll see that the vast majority of all these pieces fit at least somewhat into the general paradigm just described, although with others that are much more realistic in tone but still with the same unbelievable cruelty and darkness, many of them set among racially tense situations in eroding post-industrial cities.
Yeah, sounds like a big barrel of laughs, right? And in fact this was the biggest surprise for me as well when first reading them, that Saunders is not just on the stranger side of the bizarro* subgenre, but is one of the most wrist-slashingly depressing authors you will ever find, yet this Guggenheim and MacArthur grant winner is regularly on the bestseller lists, has appeared on David Letterman and The Daily Show, gets published on a steady basis in such hugely mainstream magazines as The New Yorker and GQ, and is adored by literally millions of fans out there, many of whom would never open the cover of a book from Eraserhead Press to save their life. And that's because Saunders never talks about these things specifically to be depressing, but rather as a way of highlighting how important simple humanity is to our lives, the simple act of being humane and optimistic about the world, which he does not by writing about the humane acts themselves but what a world without them would look like. And that's a clever and admirable thing to do, because it means he sneaks in sideways to the points he wants to make, not beating us over the head but forcing us to really stop and think about what he's truly trying to say, to examine why we get so upset when this fundamental humanity is missing from the stories we're reading. Ultimately Saunders believes in celebrating life, in trying to be as helpful and open-minded to strangers as you can, in being as positive about the world at large as you can stand; but like the Existentialists of Mid-Century Modernism, he examines this subject by looking at worst-case scenarios, and by showing us what exactly we miss out of in life when this positivity and love is gone.
*(For those who are new to CCLaP, "bizarro" is a hard-to-define term but one we reference here a lot; also sometimes known as "gonzo" fiction, sometimes as "The New Weird," a lot of it comes from either the wackier or more prurient edges of such existing genres as science-fiction, horror and erotica, while some of it is more like Hunter S. Thompson or William S. Burroughs, a conceptual cloud of strangeness that has a huge cult following in the world of basement presses and genre conventions, as well as such literary social networks as Goodreads.com. If you want to think of famous examples, think of people like Kathy Acker, Mark Leyner, Will Self, Chuck Palahniuk, Blake Butler, China Mieville…and, uh, George Saunders!)
Now, of course, in all honesty, there are also a few clunkers scattered here and there in these collections as well, which is simply to be expected in a career that now spans twenty years; and when it comes to the small number of other books he's put out besides story collections, I have to confess that I found those to be a much iffier proposition. For example, there's the 2000 children's book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, cute enough but as inessential to an adult as any children's book is; then there's his one collection of nonfiction essays, 2007's The Braindead Megaphone, an uneven compilation of random pieces which includes some real gems (one of the best being that GQ piece mentioned, where Saunders is sent George-Plimpton-style to Dubai, and instead of the usual decrying of the ultra-rich he is surprisingly charmed by all the vacationing middle-class families), but that has an equal amount of throwaway pieces done for highly specific commissions; and then there's the only stand-alone fiction book of his career so far, the 2005 novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, which I have to confess is the only thing of Saunders' career that I actively disliked -- written in the middle of the Bush atrocities, it's obviously an attempt to do an Animal Farm-style satire about those years, but is labored in its execution, too on the nose, and in general has too much of a "quirky for the sake of being quirky" vibe, the exact thing that can most quickly kill a piece of bizarro fiction. (But then again, we perhaps shouldn't blame Saunders for this; as I've talked about many times here in the past, it seems that no indignant artist was able to write satirically about Bush in the middle of the Bush Years without producing an overly obvious ranting screed, whether that's Saunders or George Clooney or Michael Moore or Robert Redford. No wonder no good books about Nazis came out until after World War Two; as we all learned in the early 2000s, it's nearly impossible to actually live under a fascist regime and also be subtle and clever in your critique of it.)
But those are all small quibbles, of course; Saunders' bread and butter is in his short fiction, and I'm convinced that he will eventually be known as one of the best short-fiction authors in history, joining a surprisingly small list that includes such luminaries as Cheever, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, GK Chesterton and more. Plus, as a fan of edgy and strange work, I'm thrilled that a guy like Saunders is out there, serving as a gateway of sorts between mainstream society and an entire rabbithole of basement-press bizarro titles that's just waiting for newly inspired fans to tumble down. If you're going to pick up your first Saunders book soon, go ahead and pick up the newest, Tenth of December, because it's just as good as all the others and particularly easy to find right now; but I also encourage you to dig deeper into this remarkable author's career, and to see just how far he'll pull you into the murky depths of ambiguous morality before coming bobbing back to the surface. It's been a true treat to become a fan of his work this year, and I urge you to become one as well.
Out of 10 (Tenth of December): 9.6
May 20, 2025
Sometimes feels less influenced by DFW than it does like it wants to be DFW. I like George Saunders. His fiction is a big influence. Sometimes I find his brand of humor a little grating. It’s as if to be too in tap with your inner child. The writing is very good!
August 10, 2020
DNF @ 60%.
This is a collection of the author's nonfiction pieces. I really liked the first one, but the ones that followed made me scratch my head. That the author is a good writer, and is thoughtful and intelligent is clear. There are nuggets of insight, but I found my mind wandering. I simply didn't care enough to continue.
This is a collection of the author's nonfiction pieces. I really liked the first one, but the ones that followed made me scratch my head. That the author is a good writer, and is thoughtful and intelligent is clear. There are nuggets of insight, but I found my mind wandering. I simply didn't care enough to continue.
February 7, 2024
Mixed reaction: Saunders is brilliant at writing about writing and writers, as proved by the swim in the rain book, here giving some love to Vonnegut and Twain. His travel articles are fun too, but his humorous pieces (one here on visiting Britain) do nothing for me.
November 16, 2021
I’m typing this just a few minutes after I’ve finished George Saunders first nonfiction collection, “The Braindead Megaphone.”
I’ll start by offering the most heartfelt, warm, pleading, petition for you to find a used copy of this book. Please continue reading for more information.
The key to Saunders, and something I find absent in many writers I admire, is how optimism-forward he is. He is not afraid to be openly gentle, openly kind, openly vulnerable, and furthermore, is an evangelist for these characteristics. It was Saunders who received backlash and questions for asserting on national television that we ought to be kinder to Donald Trump. I don’t have to explain the context to you—this was a radical statement, especially from a man who was also openly opposed to the values espoused by Donald Trump.
Saunders is just that: a radical. Not politically or religiously, but radical in his everyday posture that insists we all lose when we choose to remain guarded, cold, and sequestered.
Every essay in this collection had me believing it was the best of the bunch until I read the next one. This culminated into my reading of the final essay, “Manifesto. A Press Release from PRKA (People Reluctant to Kill for Abstraction),” which is a satirical press release sent out by, well, all of us. All of us who live ordinary lives, doing our best, taking no part in fostering the evil in the world amplified by The Braindead Megaphone. This essay is used to remind us all that the good folks have the numbers, they just don’t have the bullhorn.
It is not “cool” to be optimistic. We adore artistic stylings of coldness, distance, and soft-elitism. Saunders, eyes always open, always smiling, searching for the best in everything, makes optimism especially cool. Cooler than anything else.
I’ll start by offering the most heartfelt, warm, pleading, petition for you to find a used copy of this book. Please continue reading for more information.
The key to Saunders, and something I find absent in many writers I admire, is how optimism-forward he is. He is not afraid to be openly gentle, openly kind, openly vulnerable, and furthermore, is an evangelist for these characteristics. It was Saunders who received backlash and questions for asserting on national television that we ought to be kinder to Donald Trump. I don’t have to explain the context to you—this was a radical statement, especially from a man who was also openly opposed to the values espoused by Donald Trump.
Saunders is just that: a radical. Not politically or religiously, but radical in his everyday posture that insists we all lose when we choose to remain guarded, cold, and sequestered.
Every essay in this collection had me believing it was the best of the bunch until I read the next one. This culminated into my reading of the final essay, “Manifesto. A Press Release from PRKA (People Reluctant to Kill for Abstraction),” which is a satirical press release sent out by, well, all of us. All of us who live ordinary lives, doing our best, taking no part in fostering the evil in the world amplified by The Braindead Megaphone. This essay is used to remind us all that the good folks have the numbers, they just don’t have the bullhorn.
It is not “cool” to be optimistic. We adore artistic stylings of coldness, distance, and soft-elitism. Saunders, eyes always open, always smiling, searching for the best in everything, makes optimism especially cool. Cooler than anything else.
April 1, 2019
“The best stories proceed from a mysterious truth-seeking impulse that narrative has when revised extensively; they are complex and baffling and ambiguous; they tend to make us slower to act, rather than quicker. They make us more humble, cause us to empathize with people we don’t know, because they help us imagine these people, and when we imagine them—if the storytelling is good enough—we imagine them as being, essentially, like us. If the story is poor, or has an agenda, if it comes out of a paucity of imagination or is rushed, we imagine those other people as essentially unlike us: unknowable, inscrutable, inconvertible.”— “The Braindead Megaphone”
Worth reading for the title essay alone, in all of its chilling timeliness and prescience (written circa 2003, describes the media hell of 2019 perfectly), but everything in here is a delight.
September 26, 2013
While George Saunders can kill it with the short story, this collection from 2007 pulls together some of his non-fiction works. And no surprise here, Saunders occasionally nails it with pieces that make the whole worth reading. Other stories fade as quickly as they're read. Nothing terrible, just weak.
Naturally, what exactly is strong or weak differs for everyone. Not much of a polarizing review here I know. Saunders has a likeable, inclusionary style. He's not the delicious wonk that David Foster Wallace is, more an affable uncle with a winking delivery.
Naturally, what exactly is strong or weak differs for everyone. Not much of a polarizing review here I know. Saunders has a likeable, inclusionary style. He's not the delicious wonk that David Foster Wallace is, more an affable uncle with a winking delivery.
February 15, 2008
The first few essays are awesomely funny, then it fell off a bit for me, though I'd read some of them already in magazines etc. Totally worth it, but maybe best not to read it all at one time.
March 13, 2020
For someone that loves to read I rarely experience a visceral reaction; I can name one instance where a book made me cry, &, before I read George Saunders, made me want to chuckle or laugh. Loved the essays that touched on how writers write, and the moments where he was moved to tears by the people and the experiences he encountered. This is a book I’ll need to break out when I’m feeling down or want to read some writing that is very good at communicating a perspective, a thought, or a setting that trusts the reader to “fill in the rest.” (See ‘Thank you, Esther Forbes’)
October 18, 2023
I shared my thoughts on several of George Saunders' essays on my Substack. If you enjoy this kind of essayistic ramble, do give me a follow here: https://themindshatteredandrenewed.su...
Several words come to mind when I look to describe this first experience with George Saunders: rewarding, gratifying, even fertile. Saunders is a fine satirist and a better essayist, a man who, like David Foster Wallace, has his finger on the pulse of the American society. This is a fruitful comparison, though the two writers are very different. Foster Wallace's work is personally more rewarding, exhibits a level of engagement with the world of ideas that is often breath-taking in its scope. Saunders is more a comic; perhaps also more journalistic in a way that speaks to the influence of Hemingway.
The thematic overlap between the two invites yet further reflection: like Foster Wallace, Saunders engages with questions of an American population drowned out by thoughtless entertainment, more and more unwilling to critically engage with the world. Like Foster Wallace, Saunders pens travel essays that show the effects of fairy-tale luxury on the "thinking" person, the intellectual. To read Saunders' writing is to be invited to enter into dialogue with him; I found myself doing so with pleasure, caring little for the hours that went by.
I. The Braindead Megaphone.
George Saunders' titular essay opens with a look backwards, at the human beings of eight-hundred years ago, and the posing of a question: what differentiates us from them? Saunders formulates a chief difference thus: "a change in what human beings are asking their minds to do on a daily basis." Starting from this foundation, he proceeds to examine what ails our sensationalist media-saturated world and, finally, to offer an imprecise way of resisting the luridness of our time's journalism.
Saunders introduces the figure of Megaphone Guy after inviting the reader to imagine a dinner party. You’ll know the type - it’s full of people like you and I, speaking in respectful notes, sharing their experiences, expounding on their interests. Among them all, however, is a louder voice: The Megaphone Guy. This Megaphone Guy is characterised by his dominance and tendency to drown out his fellow party-goers and their conversations. They are forced instead to transform into passive reactionaries: "They may not even notice they’ve started speaking in his diction, that their thoughts are being limned by his. What’s important to him will come to seem important to them". His language will become their language - because the loudest voice is not only the most difficult to ignore. It is the one that lodges itself deepest in our minds, and since "thought also results from speech," at least some of the Megaphone Guy's words will inevitably leave a mark on those forced to listen to him.
Saunders discusses this figure in the context of contemporary news media, but it would take no great leap of imagination to repurpose his points to the discussion of social media. With the way Twitter was used during Trump’s rise to power and his time in the presidency; with the way Elon Musk has transformed the platform as of late, the Renaissance we’ve seen of alt-right and bot accounts over these last several months.
A short trek down memory lane leads Saunders to reflect on when the news media shifted its discourse towards the scaremongering and sensationalist tactics we know today, as best exemplified and practiced by such right-wing organizations as FOX. Saunders pegs the O. J. Simpson trial and the Monika Lewinsky scandal as key junctures to have made "something latent in our news media" into something far more "overt and catastrophic". Namely, this need for around-the-clock reportage demands the “making of an elephant out of a fly” - an idiom native to Bulgarian, which we might equivocate to “making a mountain of a molehill”. Make no mistake, however - the handbook has been in use by most large-scale news organizations for well over two decades now.
The United States may have been ahead of the curve, but this type of sensationalism and the resulting decline of media literacy has spread throughout the world - today, you don't even need to glance at privately owned news media organizations. Look instead to Russian and Chinese state media, Polish and Hungarian state media, Bulgarian and countless other state medias—including the BBC, most worryingly (as Matt Seaton argues on the pages of the New York Review of Books). You'll find most of them helplessly warped in the same fashion described in "The Braindead Megaphone". Whether pressured by economical, political, or ideological considerations, their coverage is slanted, aimed not at reporting facts but at presenting points of view, and dissecting others.
To illustrate the worst (at the date of writing) failure of the logic of this media machine, Saunders examines the USA (and others') war in Iraq:
There's truth to that: polarizing discourse demands that you see the other side as "Other," as "less than". And once you've made that leap, the way back is arduous indeed.
What inspires this polarizing discourse is, as Saunders notes, a fixation on profit to the detriment of all else: "Now, profit is fine; economic viability is wonderful. But if these trump every other consideration, we will be rendered perma-children, having denied ourselves use of our higher faculties". I don't know about you, but anytime I find myself glued to a TV screen (despite my best efforts) and watching some chance news programme, I become all too aware of that motive. It doesn't sit well with me and I can't imagine it should sit well with you, either. Saunders drives the point home:
This is one of the lingering questions I invite you to ask yourself: What trust can anyone place in a news media that must account for profit before truth?
Saunders also captures the self-reflexive capacity of media to repurpose critique into itself, and in its increased collaboration with authority, to be particularly underhanded:
Doesn't that sound all too familiar to you? Think of the ever more repulsive world of politics we see, in Russia, but also across the Global South and the West (or shall we use that term, “Global North”?) alike. You're certain to come up with examples all your own.
Before I let off, I'll share one last quote. Saunders captures those elements that make an excellent story, juxtaposing them against the kind of rushed, limited storytelling venture that Megaphone Guy makes use of. I found this quote strikes at the heart of storytelling:
II. The Travel Writing of George Saunders
1. The New Mecca
I have always seen the subject of this piece, Dubai, as *obscene*. A metropolis in the middle of one of the hottest deserts on the face of the Earth, Dubai is emblematic not only of the hypercapitalist mentality of our present but also of an old and persistent metanarrative: that which sees man as master and conqueror of the Earth. The notion of human beings' capacity to enforce their will over nature is still ubiquitous, despite the multitude of natural catastrophes that we all continue to witness at ever more alarming frequencies. Dubai, in all its glitz and glitter, has always struck me as the personification of this viewpoint.
Did reading Saunders' piece, "The New Mecca," change my opinion?
Not particularly.
What it has done is illustrate that there are worse places. Places of yet greater inequality, yet worse conditions for those . I already knew that. What I drew from the essay - what will remain with me the longest - is the vivid portrayal of those citizens of the United Arab Emirates as driven by that same desire to provide a future and delight their children. In some aspects, then, "The New Mecca" is a delightfully humanizing piece. And for a whole (Arab) world that, especially in the USA, is often dehumanised, placed under the lowest common denominator of "terrorists".
Saunders is honest about the seductive effect Dubai has on him at first: "In the belly of [the Madinat Jumeirah superresort], my first response was to want to stay forever, bring my family over, set up shop in my hut-evoking villa, and never go home again". Few would react differently - the magic of Dubai, its syren call, is the seduction of excess. To find yourself in the lap of luxury and see through it at once demands a level of self-control few possess.
This luxury has a price tag. The moment you're unable to pay it--that's the moment where the magical bubble bursts. The obeisance and luxury gain a decidedly sinister edge when Saunders' credit card hits its limit for the day and our intrepid writer is unable to pay in full his night's stay in the second of three hotels he spends time in, the Burj.
Twenty-four-karat luxury can gain a decidedly Kafkaesque gleam, can't it? Saunders says it best:
The horror eventually comes to an end, and all is right again when Saunders marches "the twenty-five hundred dirhams [he] owed proudly upstairs," and he is a "citizen of the affluent world again". Living it up comes with a steep price tag, indeed. The moment you begin to struggle with paying it...that's where blissful illusion fractures.
Nor is this the only price tag we may speak of. Saunders rightfully notes that "Dubai is, in essence, capitalism on steroids: a small, insanely wealthy group of capital-controlling Haves supported by a huge group of overworked and underpaid Have-Nots, with, in Dubai’ s case, the gap between Haves and Have-Nots so wide as to indicate different species." The obscenity I see every time I think of Dubai is encapsulated across that gap more than any other.
There is much else that Saunders offers in the essay, including some facts about the dating life of Saudi Arabian teens I never would've imagined. Perhaps the most aged aspect of this essay is contained in the following:
That potential Saunders writes of in the last sentence has been realised many times since "The New Mecca" was first published eighteen years ago. It's a different world we live in, one in which the USA's influence has waned.
2. The Great Divider
I will be more circumspect in sharing my thoughts about the following two essays. The subject of this essay is US-Mexico border relations, and the ever-uglier rhetoric that targets those who choose to enter the States illegally.
Saunders places a personal face to migrant and minuteman alike. The former he presents as acting out of desperation - the poor looking for work, stability, a better life. Hopeful, in a word (despite the, or perhaps in spite of, the danger). Saunders relates stories he's told by either migrants or those who aid them, and they are heart-aching tales of human suffering. The kind of monstrous tales of misfortune that shatter the fiction we cocoon ourselves in order to get some sleep at night.
To illustrate the way the current system of illegality creates secrecy and chaos, which in turn brings down worlds of shit, mostly on the poor, he tells me the following story: .
Do you see what I mean? Read something like this, and whatever fictions we tell ourselves about the world are blown away like so much dust.
Saunders doesn't get stingy on describing the American minutemen. These heavily armed self-appointed border defenders are, he finds, made up of a likeable cast of characters most of whom don't even reach that level of "skeevy" you expect them to.
For all that they may be reasonable and strangely unwilling to confront a political adversary like Saunders, the Minutemen are intractable about the big question around which their whole fraternity is established: namely, that "illegals" are a danger to the uniquely American way of life.
Aaaand...I have no more characters left, so I'll have to leave this off here. If you want to read the rest - the link to my Substack is above.
Several words come to mind when I look to describe this first experience with George Saunders: rewarding, gratifying, even fertile. Saunders is a fine satirist and a better essayist, a man who, like David Foster Wallace, has his finger on the pulse of the American society. This is a fruitful comparison, though the two writers are very different. Foster Wallace's work is personally more rewarding, exhibits a level of engagement with the world of ideas that is often breath-taking in its scope. Saunders is more a comic; perhaps also more journalistic in a way that speaks to the influence of Hemingway.
The thematic overlap between the two invites yet further reflection: like Foster Wallace, Saunders engages with questions of an American population drowned out by thoughtless entertainment, more and more unwilling to critically engage with the world. Like Foster Wallace, Saunders pens travel essays that show the effects of fairy-tale luxury on the "thinking" person, the intellectual. To read Saunders' writing is to be invited to enter into dialogue with him; I found myself doing so with pleasure, caring little for the hours that went by.
I. The Braindead Megaphone.
George Saunders' titular essay opens with a look backwards, at the human beings of eight-hundred years ago, and the posing of a question: what differentiates us from them? Saunders formulates a chief difference thus: "a change in what human beings are asking their minds to do on a daily basis." Starting from this foundation, he proceeds to examine what ails our sensationalist media-saturated world and, finally, to offer an imprecise way of resisting the luridness of our time's journalism.
Saunders introduces the figure of Megaphone Guy after inviting the reader to imagine a dinner party. You’ll know the type - it’s full of people like you and I, speaking in respectful notes, sharing their experiences, expounding on their interests. Among them all, however, is a louder voice: The Megaphone Guy. This Megaphone Guy is characterised by his dominance and tendency to drown out his fellow party-goers and their conversations. They are forced instead to transform into passive reactionaries: "They may not even notice they’ve started speaking in his diction, that their thoughts are being limned by his. What’s important to him will come to seem important to them". His language will become their language - because the loudest voice is not only the most difficult to ignore. It is the one that lodges itself deepest in our minds, and since "thought also results from speech," at least some of the Megaphone Guy's words will inevitably leave a mark on those forced to listen to him.
Saunders discusses this figure in the context of contemporary news media, but it would take no great leap of imagination to repurpose his points to the discussion of social media. With the way Twitter was used during Trump’s rise to power and his time in the presidency; with the way Elon Musk has transformed the platform as of late, the Renaissance we’ve seen of alt-right and bot accounts over these last several months.
A short trek down memory lane leads Saunders to reflect on when the news media shifted its discourse towards the scaremongering and sensationalist tactics we know today, as best exemplified and practiced by such right-wing organizations as FOX. Saunders pegs the O. J. Simpson trial and the Monika Lewinsky scandal as key junctures to have made "something latent in our news media" into something far more "overt and catastrophic". Namely, this need for around-the-clock reportage demands the “making of an elephant out of a fly” - an idiom native to Bulgarian, which we might equivocate to “making a mountain of a molehill”. Make no mistake, however - the handbook has been in use by most large-scale news organizations for well over two decades now.
The United States may have been ahead of the curve, but this type of sensationalism and the resulting decline of media literacy has spread throughout the world - today, you don't even need to glance at privately owned news media organizations. Look instead to Russian and Chinese state media, Polish and Hungarian state media, Bulgarian and countless other state medias—including the BBC, most worryingly (as Matt Seaton argues on the pages of the New York Review of Books). You'll find most of them helplessly warped in the same fashion described in "The Braindead Megaphone". Whether pressured by economical, political, or ideological considerations, their coverage is slanted, aimed not at reporting facts but at presenting points of view, and dissecting others.
To illustrate the worst (at the date of writing) failure of the logic of this media machine, Saunders examines the USA (and others') war in Iraq:
Our venture in Iraq was a literary failure, by which I mean a failure of imagination. A culture better at imagining richly , three- dimensionally , would have had a greater respect for war than we did, more awareness of the law of unintended consequences, more familiarity with the world’ s tendency to throw aggressive energy back at the aggressor in ways he did not expect. A culture capable of imagining complexly is a humble culture. It acts, when it has to act, as late in the game as possible, and as cautiously, because it knows its own girth and the tight confines of the china shop it’s blundering into. And it knows that no matter how well-prepared it is—no matter how ruthlessly it has held its projections up to intelligent scrutiny—the place it is headed for is going to be very different from the place it imagined.
There's truth to that: polarizing discourse demands that you see the other side as "Other," as "less than". And once you've made that leap, the way back is arduous indeed.
What inspires this polarizing discourse is, as Saunders notes, a fixation on profit to the detriment of all else: "Now, profit is fine; economic viability is wonderful. But if these trump every other consideration, we will be rendered perma-children, having denied ourselves use of our higher faculties". I don't know about you, but anytime I find myself glued to a TV screen (despite my best efforts) and watching some chance news programme, I become all too aware of that motive. It doesn't sit well with me and I can't imagine it should sit well with you, either. Saunders drives the point home:
In surrendering our mass storytelling function to entities whose first priority is profit, we make a dangerous concession: “Tell us,” we say in effect, “as much truth as you can, while still making money .” This is not the same as asking: “Tell us the truth.”
This is one of the lingering questions I invite you to ask yourself: What trust can anyone place in a news media that must account for profit before truth?
Saunders also captures the self-reflexive capacity of media to repurpose critique into itself, and in its increased collaboration with authority, to be particularly underhanded:
The era of the jackboot is over: the forces that come for our decency, humor, and freedom will be extolling, in beautiful smooth voices, the virtue of decency, humor, and freedom.
Doesn't that sound all too familiar to you? Think of the ever more repulsive world of politics we see, in Russia, but also across the Global South and the West (or shall we use that term, “Global North”?) alike. You're certain to come up with examples all your own.
Before I let off, I'll share one last quote. Saunders captures those elements that make an excellent story, juxtaposing them against the kind of rushed, limited storytelling venture that Megaphone Guy makes use of. I found this quote strikes at the heart of storytelling:
The best stories proceed from a mysterious truth-seeking impulse that narrative has when revised extensively; they are complex and baffling and ambiguous; they tend to make us slower to act, rather than quicker. They make us more humble, cause us to empathize with people we don’t know, because they help us imagine these people, and when we imagine them—if the storytelling is good enough—we imagine them as being, essentially, like us. If the story is poor, or has an agenda, if it comes out of a paucity of imagination or is rushed, we imagine those other people as essentially unlike us: unknowable, inscrutable, inconvertible.
II. The Travel Writing of George Saunders
1. The New Mecca
I have always seen the subject of this piece, Dubai, as *obscene*. A metropolis in the middle of one of the hottest deserts on the face of the Earth, Dubai is emblematic not only of the hypercapitalist mentality of our present but also of an old and persistent metanarrative: that which sees man as master and conqueror of the Earth. The notion of human beings' capacity to enforce their will over nature is still ubiquitous, despite the multitude of natural catastrophes that we all continue to witness at ever more alarming frequencies. Dubai, in all its glitz and glitter, has always struck me as the personification of this viewpoint.
Did reading Saunders' piece, "The New Mecca," change my opinion?
Not particularly.
What it has done is illustrate that there are worse places. Places of yet greater inequality, yet worse conditions for those . I already knew that. What I drew from the essay - what will remain with me the longest - is the vivid portrayal of those citizens of the United Arab Emirates as driven by that same desire to provide a future and delight their children. In some aspects, then, "The New Mecca" is a delightfully humanizing piece. And for a whole (Arab) world that, especially in the USA, is often dehumanised, placed under the lowest common denominator of "terrorists".
Saunders is honest about the seductive effect Dubai has on him at first: "In the belly of [the Madinat Jumeirah superresort], my first response was to want to stay forever, bring my family over, set up shop in my hut-evoking villa, and never go home again". Few would react differently - the magic of Dubai, its syren call, is the seduction of excess. To find yourself in the lap of luxury and see through it at once demands a level of self-control few possess.
This luxury has a price tag. The moment you're unable to pay it--that's the moment where the magical bubble bursts. The obeisance and luxury gain a decidedly sinister edge when Saunders' credit card hits its limit for the day and our intrepid writer is unable to pay in full his night's stay in the second of three hotels he spends time in, the Burj.
over the next few hours, my bliss diminished. I was approached by the Lebanese Floor Butler , by several Mysterious Callers from Guest Services, all of whom, politely but edgily, informed me that it would be much appreciated if the balance of the payment could be made by me pronto. I kept explaining my situation (that darn bank!), they kept accepting my explanation, and then someone else would call, or come by, once again encouraging me to pay the remaining cash, if I didn’t mind terribly, right away, as was proper.
Twenty-four-karat luxury can gain a decidedly Kafkaesque gleam, can't it? Saunders says it best:
It’s true what the Buddhists say: Mind can convert Heaven into Hell. This was happening to me. A headline in one of the nine complimentary newspapers read, actually read: “American Jailed for Nonpayment of Hotel Bill.” Perhaps someone had put acid in the complimentary Evian?
The horror eventually comes to an end, and all is right again when Saunders marches "the twenty-five hundred dirhams [he] owed proudly upstairs," and he is a "citizen of the affluent world again". Living it up comes with a steep price tag, indeed. The moment you begin to struggle with paying it...that's where blissful illusion fractures.
Nor is this the only price tag we may speak of. Saunders rightfully notes that "Dubai is, in essence, capitalism on steroids: a small, insanely wealthy group of capital-controlling Haves supported by a huge group of overworked and underpaid Have-Nots, with, in Dubai’ s case, the gap between Haves and Have-Nots so wide as to indicate different species." The obscenity I see every time I think of Dubai is encapsulated across that gap more than any other.
And yet, I was surprised to learn that the leaders of Dubai (back in 2005, at least) "seem to be universally respected, even loved, because, unlike the Saudi rulers, they are perceived to put the interests of the people first." With the Saudis practicing what may candidly be described as indentured servitude, Dubai is a flower by comparison. And yet, and yet...that gap remains, and it speaks louder than any comparison might.
There is much else that Saunders offers in the essay, including some facts about the dating life of Saudi Arabian teens I never would've imagined. Perhaps the most aged aspect of this essay is contained in the following:
My experience has been that the poor , simple people of the world admire us, are enamored of our boldness, are hopeful that the insanely positive values we espouse can be actualized in the world. They are, in other words, rooting for us. Which means that when we disappoint them—when we come in too big, kill innocents, when our powers of discernment are diminished by our frenzied, self- protective, fearful post-9/11 energy—we have the potential to disappoint them bitterly and drive them away.
That potential Saunders writes of in the last sentence has been realised many times since "The New Mecca" was first published eighteen years ago. It's a different world we live in, one in which the USA's influence has waned.
2. The Great Divider
I will be more circumspect in sharing my thoughts about the following two essays. The subject of this essay is US-Mexico border relations, and the ever-uglier rhetoric that targets those who choose to enter the States illegally.
The national media seized on the story and, as always, screwed it up: reduced it to pithy sound bites, politicized it, and injected it with faux urgency, until, lo, the nation was confused.
Saunders places a personal face to migrant and minuteman alike. The former he presents as acting out of desperation - the poor looking for work, stability, a better life. Hopeful, in a word (despite the, or perhaps in spite of, the danger). Saunders relates stories he's told by either migrants or those who aid them, and they are heart-aching tales of human suffering. The kind of monstrous tales of misfortune that shatter the fiction we cocoon ourselves in order to get some sleep at night.
To illustrate the way the current system of illegality creates secrecy and chaos, which in turn brings down worlds of shit, mostly on the poor, he tells me the following story: .
Once upon a time, a young couple left Mexico and came north. Trying to avoid the Border Patrol, they crossed the river in a remote area, where they were set upon by “border bandits” who stole their shoes and money and raped the woman in front of the man. She became pregnant. Having become Christians, and after much soul- searching, the couple decided to keep the baby. But the woman’s water broke at five months, and the baby died ten minutes after its birth. The couple couldn’t afford a coffin, so Lupe called in a favor from a funeral director; the funeral home allowed a brief (twenty- minute) ceremony and donated a small cardboard box for the burial. The Mennonites acquired a small plot from the county and drove out in their own cars to bury the baby. At the grave, Lupe had to pry the dead baby out of the grieving mother’s arms. The woman was a mess but, being undocumented, was too afraid to seek psychological help. In her heart, she blamed the man for not defending her, blamed herself for not being able to carry the baby to full-term, blamed God for not helping them. The man, for his part, couldn’t make peace with the way he’d failed to protect her. In the end, the pain proved too much, and the couple separated.
Do you see what I mean? Read something like this, and whatever fictions we tell ourselves about the world are blown away like so much dust.
Saunders doesn't get stingy on describing the American minutemen. These heavily armed self-appointed border defenders are, he finds, made up of a likeable cast of characters most of whom don't even reach that level of "skeevy" you expect them to.
Minutepeople are fun. You can’t insult them. They’re willing to entertain any point of view . They like to debate. They look stern at first, do a lot of scowling, but behind their eyes, once you get them talking, there’ s a hurt, docile quality , possibly related to past wrongs done them, a quality I associate with the thunked-as-kids: Long ago the world turned on them in some unexpected and unpleasant way , and they are, not unreasonably , expecting that it could happen again at any moment. The Barney-Fifish quality of their bluster recedes immediately upon challenge, and they go soft, and you somehow magically become Dad.
I announce myself as an Eastern Liberal, and am thereafter treated like a minicelebrity or lab specimen, a living example of a rare species they’ve heretofore only heard about on Fox. Paradoxically , my opinions seem to matter to them. They’re oddly deferential. They listen. When I argue that, despite our gun laws, Manhattan is safer than Houston, or assert that, yes, there are working-class people in New York City , they take me on faith, adjust their arguments accordingly , and seem happy for the correction, because it means I was taking their argument seriously in the first place.
For all that they may be reasonable and strangely unwilling to confront a political adversary like Saunders, the Minutemen are intractable about the big question around which their whole fraternity is established: namely, that "illegals" are a danger to the uniquely American way of life.
Aaaand...I have no more characters left, so I'll have to leave this off here. If you want to read the rest - the link to my Substack is above.
October 19, 2024
This is not my favorite George Sanders book but it was worth reading for the essay about the Buddha boy (which does happen to be the second to last essay in this book)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 629 reviews