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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
George Saunders
4.52 AVERAGE
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
George Saunders
4.52 AVERAGE
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
this book changed everything for me. Saunders is an inspiration, he makes writing feel attainable. and makes reading some of the worlds greats also attainable to me, an average reader. i cannot wait to read everything by this man.
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Six stars. This book is the conversation with George Saunders that I have always desperately wanted to have. His students are the luckiest people on earth.
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
some specific kinds of neurotic and hopelessly lost writers will LOVE this book. it’s me. i’m the lost one. FANTASTIC crash course in writing short fiction (according to George, as he instructed us to say).
Saunders takes the back off the clock that is fiction and shows us its cogs and springs. He uses seven 19th century Russian short stories as exemplars - why do they move us? why do we want to know what happens? why do they *work*? He weaves in insights from his own (dazzling) career as a writer of fiction. It reads as a guidebook for the budding author but was equally interesting for someone just into fiction.
Saunders has a knack of coming across as pretty damn likeable. Self-effacing but genuine, very funny without being smarmy, and super passionate about his craft. The final chapter 'We end' is about as good a defence of fiction as I've read (all the more so because it was not pretentious) - fiction shakes us out of our certainties, situates us on the spectrum of human experience in an increasingly individualised world, takes us places we'd never go left to our own mental devices. But he also demurs from treating literature as a kind of 'salvation', and the troublesome expectations this can entail.
My small reservation is that he's a touch reductive at times ('that's all poetry/writing is!') and there's a bit of a lack of appreciation of the breadth of good literature (i.e. how writing can defy his advice but be brilliant nonetheless). He also goes the whole 400 pages without quoting a word of Russian. This is definitely intentional and intentioned well, but as someone interested in translation in general and Russian in particular, this left me a little cold.
Undeniably a brilliant book. Recommend to any readers who want to learn why they read.
Saunders has a knack of coming across as pretty damn likeable. Self-effacing but genuine, very funny without being smarmy, and super passionate about his craft. The final chapter 'We end' is about as good a defence of fiction as I've read (all the more so because it was not pretentious) - fiction shakes us out of our certainties, situates us on the spectrum of human experience in an increasingly individualised world, takes us places we'd never go left to our own mental devices. But he also demurs from treating literature as a kind of 'salvation', and the troublesome expectations this can entail.
My small reservation is that he's a touch reductive at times ('that's all poetry/writing is!') and there's a bit of a lack of appreciation of the breadth of good literature (i.e. how writing can defy his advice but be brilliant nonetheless). He also goes the whole 400 pages without quoting a word of Russian. This is definitely intentional and intentioned well, but as someone interested in translation in general and Russian in particular, this left me a little cold.
Undeniably a brilliant book. Recommend to any readers who want to learn why they read.
I always felt reading Russian literature was like washing my hair: necessary, but lost, time. Saunders’s teaching style is fun and funny and insightful. I took many notes in the margins. Writing and reading remain important pastimes and in Saunders‘s view, wholly individual. And then to be reminded these idealists flourished before their world fell apart under Stalin — arresting and important.
Reading this, I get this feeling of having gotten away with something; I was able to read 7 fabulous short stories from noted Russian authors AND have professor Saunders coach me through a way of understanding and conceptualizing ways of creating, writing, and understanding these and other stories. Such insight, sprinkled with personal revelations and humor! That’s special. Easily 5 ⭐️.
Great for Writers to and readers to learn about writing. A great way to understand some great Russian short stories too
Fabulous! Like taking a master class in short story writing (and reading). Didn’t want it to end!