PDF CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Stories and a Novella George Saunders Joshua Ferris 9780812987683 Books
PDF CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Stories and a Novella George Saunders Joshua Ferris 9780812987683 Books
Download As PDF : CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Stories and a Novella George Saunders Joshua Ferris 9780812987683 Books
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’s debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world. With a new introduction by Joshua Ferris and a new author’s note by Saunders himself, this edition is essential reading for those seeking to discover or revisit a virtuosic, disturbingly prescient voice.
Praise for George Saunders and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
“It’s no exaggeration to say that short story master George Saunders helped change the trajectory of American fiction.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Saunders’s satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it’s also ferocious and very funny.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“George Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice. [CivilWarLand in Bad Decline] is scary, hilarious, and unforgettable.”—Tobias Wolff
“Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless.”—Jonathan Franzen
“Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.”—Zadie Smith
“An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.”—Thomas Pynchon
PDF CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Stories and a Novella George Saunders Joshua Ferris 9780812987683 Books
"(4.5 stars)
This being the first George Saunders collection I've read, while I've been aware he has received great critical praise, I had no idea he was so funny. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is his first published volume, containing six short stories and a novella. In many, a key setting is a rather dystopian and dysfunctional historical theme park--though it's unclear from story to story whether it's the same historical theme park. Each is something of an exploration of class, in that those who enjoy the park's amusements are rich, while those running it behind-the-scenes definitely are not. Saunders says in an afterward that the question that has motivated his writing is, "Why is the world so harsh to those who are losing?"
Within the collection, the two outliers are "Isabelle," a short story that is very different stylistically from the others--both in that it is neither funny/satirical, and it takes place in a recognizable "real world"--and "Bounty," which follows the style of the other stories, but is a novella. And these two outliers set the two ends of the spectrum for me of the entry I liked best and the one I liked least. "Isabelle," I felt, was a little masterpiece, a spare but touching story. "Bounty," on the other hand, took the whimsical approach of the other stories, but as a novella went on just too long. I understand Saunders will next be publishing a novel. I will look forward to seeing how he handles that long form.
As I will look forward to reading other Saunders stories. I'll recommend him to those who still have not heard of him. The praise he has gained is well-deserved."
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CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Stories and a Novella George Saunders Joshua Ferris 9780812987683 Books Reviews :
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Stories and a Novella George Saunders Joshua Ferris 9780812987683 Books Reviews
- (4.5 stars)
This being the first George Saunders collection I've read, while I've been aware he has received great critical praise, I had no idea he was so funny. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is his first published volume, containing six short stories and a novella. In many, a key setting is a rather dystopian and dysfunctional historical theme park--though it's unclear from story to story whether it's the same historical theme park. Each is something of an exploration of class, in that those who enjoy the park's amusements are rich, while those running it behind-the-scenes definitely are not. Saunders says in an afterward that the question that has motivated his writing is, "Why is the world so harsh to those who are losing?"
Within the collection, the two outliers are "Isabelle," a short story that is very different stylistically from the others--both in that it is neither funny/satirical, and it takes place in a recognizable "real world"--and "Bounty," which follows the style of the other stories, but is a novella. And these two outliers set the two ends of the spectrum for me of the entry I liked best and the one I liked least. "Isabelle," I felt, was a little masterpiece, a spare but touching story. "Bounty," on the other hand, took the whimsical approach of the other stories, but as a novella went on just too long. I understand Saunders will next be publishing a novel. I will look forward to seeing how he handles that long form.
As I will look forward to reading other Saunders stories. I'll recommend him to those who still have not heard of him. The praise he has gained is well-deserved. - A little over a year ago, I picked up Tenth of December, the much-acclaimed short story collection by George Saunders, and was blown away. What I expected was stories about "upper class white people problems"; what I got was a collection of funny, sharp, satirical looks at America, with stories ranging from Renaissance Fairs to futuristic nightmares to corporate torture memos. I was floored and thrilled; here, I thought, was a short story writer who got away from tales of ennui and angst, telling stories that had a point but entertained, made you laugh, and still worked as rich, well-written works.
I didn't realize when I chose CivilWarLand in Bad Decline as my follow-up that it was Saunders' earliest collection; I knew it was acclaimed, like most of his work, and had a lot of love, and had a pretty great title. What I didn't realize, though, is that it represented a point where Saunders was still finding his voice, to some degree. In the author's note that follows the book, Saunders comments that there's a reason that just about every story here revolves around amusement parks (even if they're all dystopian nightmare amusement parks) - it was a way to force himself out of emulating Hemingway and Carver, and into his own more unique voice.
The downside, then, with CivilWarLand is that it doesn't quite show as much range as the masterful Tenth of December. As mentioned, almost all of the stories revolve around bizarre Westworld-type amusement parks, and the few that don't still revolve around escapist entertainment, by and large. As a result, the stories blend together a little more; while each has its own unique story and plot (the title story features the Civil War park forced to recruit mercenaries from Vietnam World to help clear out a gang problem, with predictably nightmarish results), the settings tend to blur together a bit more than you'd hope.
And yet, even so, that doesn't keep the collection from being wildly successful, very funny, and even profoundly moving. Saunders has a taste for black comedy, and it pays off superbly here, with the tragicomedy "The 400-Pound CEO" being a real standout, as it tells the story of a morbidly obese man mocked by his co-workers who only wants to be loved. It's both painful and hysterically funny, as Saunders contrasts his passive, lonely hero with the absurd cruelty of his co-workers and the bizarre actions of his employer. Meanwhile, stories like "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz" show that Saunders is capable of profound emotion, as a man in control of virtual reality experiences searches for a way to escape his own painful life. And, of course, there's that title story, that mixes world-building, violence, and satire into a potent and effective combination.
Yes, in some ways, these stories blend together, and sometimes hit a bit too hard on the same themes and tropes. But even so, it's clearly the voice of an author that's finding himself, and the fact that he brings such variation, even in similar tales, speaks well of the author that Saunders would become. And even here, where he's taking his first steps, he's still writing stories unlike much else out there, and creating worlds, characters, and prose that really demand to be experienced. It's not as good as Tenth of December, but that doesn't mean it's not superb stuff indeed. - Saunders still carries a mighty impact with me, though I must admit that I felt I had more of a behind-the-curtain peek with this one and some of the technique that makes his magic work--some ghosts, and using a kind of theme-park setting to set up characters as freaks or outsiders, to name a couple. Saunders has a confident hand in painting characters who are stuck under an ocean of misery, inflicted on them from within and without, though the method made the stories in this collection feel a little too similar for me. This collection culminates into a novella of a US where the deformed have been tagged and may even be sold off into slavery, its narrator on a quest to save his sister, a kind of Huck Finn enmeshed in The Road, but ultimately felt a little too episodic for me, tempting me to downgrade the collection as a whole, but the stunners here, namely "Isabelle" and "The 400-Pound CEO," are so heartbreaking, and the title story so competent, that my overall impression remains a strong one.
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