Reviews - A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

1.51k reviews for:

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

I love Saunders and I love short stories and I love discussing stories - but I had some doubts about whether he could pull something like this off - essentially a class on Russian short stories in book form - without it feeling dry and tedious. He did - wonderfully. Feels more like reading short stories with a wise, gentle friend. Already hoping he writes another book like this. I will pre-order it.

roam_'s review against another edition

3.0

The "Swim in a Pond in the Rain" took place in Anton Chekov's "Gooseberries" - a great short story about how easy it is for those who live content, full lives to dismiss, forget, fail to see those who are less well-off, suffering, oppressed. And about how hard it is to know what to do about human suffering, about how to judge good and evil when needed and how not to be judgey. And the "swim in the pond in the rain" was a joyful moment in "Gooseberries" about how wonderful the world can be, as joyful as swimming in a beautiful pond, laying on your back with your face open to the rain.

And George Saunders ran this whole gamut in talking about writing fiction and analyzing the other six stories in the collection.