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jacobsw's review against another edition
5.0
Beautifully written, very funny, and very very very dark. I actually had to stop reading this before bedtime because it was giving me nightmares. But well worth reading in daytime.
rocketiza's review against another edition
5.0
I read the book originally years ago, but this second time round liked it quite a bit more than I remember. Though there's a lot similarities from story to story, they all still feel very original and the man has a lovely dark sense of humor, and a great ability to make you feel volumes for the often kind-hearted but down trodden hero of the story.
ctomchek's review against another edition
5.0
supremely funny, twisted, anticapitalist and heartfelt
philibin's review against another edition
4.0
(3.75 Stars)
This was a fun collection of Short Stories. There are a lot of comparisons of Saunders to [a:Edgar Allen Poe|22676442|Edgar Allen Poe|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], but I find more similarities to [a:Donald Barthelme|24425|Donald Barthelme|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1437379717p2/24425.jpg], which from me, is high praise.
What is also interesting is the chapter about the Author and his journey to write this book. Possibly this is even more interesting to me because we live(d) in a lot of the same places.
You should enjoy this book if you like short fiction, absurdist writing, satirical works, or general fiction.
This was a fun collection of Short Stories. There are a lot of comparisons of Saunders to [a:Edgar Allen Poe|22676442|Edgar Allen Poe|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], but I find more similarities to [a:Donald Barthelme|24425|Donald Barthelme|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1437379717p2/24425.jpg], which from me, is high praise.
What is also interesting is the chapter about the Author and his journey to write this book. Possibly this is even more interesting to me because we live(d) in a lot of the same places.
You should enjoy this book if you like short fiction, absurdist writing, satirical works, or general fiction.
tasharobinson's review against another edition
2.0
This is the most depressing anthology I've ever read. In an afterward, George Saunders talks about its unintended, unanticipated theme about wondering why everyone's so eager to kick someone when they're down — a theme that may have come from where he was in life when he started writing these stories. But that theme is so pronounced here that any one given story is a misery, and reading a series of them all at once feels like reading the same dark joke over and over and over.
All the themes that define Saunders' more recent (and at least slightly more hopeful) work have their early origins here: dystopias, theme parks, dystopian theme parks, underclasses and overclasses with little dividing them, massive wealth disparity, hapless protagonists who often don't realize how horrible and unfair their lives are, and just roll numbly with blow after blow after blow. In these stories, though, it's hard to see how anyone has time for basics like eating, sleeping, or working, given how much time they devote to abusing the protagonists, who literally just stagger from one violent, abusive, degrading moment to the next.
Here's a 400-pound raccoon-disposal guy whose entire office spends all day, every day loudly mocking his weight and setting him up for humiliation. Here's a 90-something museum worker whose superiors and co-workers are all out to get her, and she has no recourse because she's old. Here's a broken-down VR specialist who hates himself because the last thing he said to his wife before she died was shitty. Here's a mutant in a polluted, post-apocalyptic world where mutants can be bought and sold. They all deal with the same pompous, speech-making bosses, with societies that sneer at them and loved ones who abuse or neglect them. Saunders' later short stories at least offer some pyrrhic victories or chances for noble self-sacrifice, but most of these stories end by petering out hopelessly, with protagonists being murdered, attempting suicide, or in one case winding up in jail, being raped daily.
There's a surprising amount of casual rape in these stories: gang rape, prison rape, marital rape, rape of a teenager with a vegetable that gives her a venereal infection. Over and over, there are women who willingly degrade themselves in sexually abusive relationships, mostly so male protagonists can feel even more downtrodden because the objects of their affection are giving themselves away to the wrong men. It's treated lightly most of the time, almost as a punchline — Saunders' grim sense of humor is in full swing here. It which reminds me more than anything of Candide, and the way its characters sail naïvely through an endless series of abuses.
I've never had this reaction to Saunders' work before, even though the modern stuff is also dark and dystopic — maybe because his style became so much more exploratory and playful, maybe because his endings veered in the direction of victims at least trying to change broken systems instead of bucking them and failing them. Clearly some people here found this book delightful. Personally, I just feel like I dragged myself through a gauntlet of cynical miserabilism with a sticker that says "a testament to the resilience of the human spirit!" hastily slapped on it. I'm glad Saunders found ways to lighten up and vary this exact same kind of story, but after this one, I'm going to need a long break from his work.
All the themes that define Saunders' more recent (and at least slightly more hopeful) work have their early origins here: dystopias, theme parks, dystopian theme parks, underclasses and overclasses with little dividing them, massive wealth disparity, hapless protagonists who often don't realize how horrible and unfair their lives are, and just roll numbly with blow after blow after blow. In these stories, though, it's hard to see how anyone has time for basics like eating, sleeping, or working, given how much time they devote to abusing the protagonists, who literally just stagger from one violent, abusive, degrading moment to the next.
Here's a 400-pound raccoon-disposal guy whose entire office spends all day, every day loudly mocking his weight and setting him up for humiliation. Here's a 90-something museum worker whose superiors and co-workers are all out to get her, and she has no recourse because she's old. Here's a broken-down VR specialist who hates himself because the last thing he said to his wife before she died was shitty. Here's a mutant in a polluted, post-apocalyptic world where mutants can be bought and sold. They all deal with the same pompous, speech-making bosses, with societies that sneer at them and loved ones who abuse or neglect them. Saunders' later short stories at least offer some pyrrhic victories or chances for noble self-sacrifice, but most of these stories end by petering out hopelessly, with protagonists being murdered, attempting suicide, or in one case winding up in jail, being raped daily.
There's a surprising amount of casual rape in these stories: gang rape, prison rape, marital rape, rape of a teenager with a vegetable that gives her a venereal infection. Over and over, there are women who willingly degrade themselves in sexually abusive relationships, mostly so male protagonists can feel even more downtrodden because the objects of their affection are giving themselves away to the wrong men. It's treated lightly most of the time, almost as a punchline — Saunders' grim sense of humor is in full swing here. It which reminds me more than anything of Candide, and the way its characters sail naïvely through an endless series of abuses.
I've never had this reaction to Saunders' work before, even though the modern stuff is also dark and dystopic — maybe because his style became so much more exploratory and playful, maybe because his endings veered in the direction of victims at least trying to change broken systems instead of bucking them and failing them. Clearly some people here found this book delightful. Personally, I just feel like I dragged myself through a gauntlet of cynical miserabilism with a sticker that says "a testament to the resilience of the human spirit!" hastily slapped on it. I'm glad Saunders found ways to lighten up and vary this exact same kind of story, but after this one, I'm going to need a long break from his work.
liberrydude's review against another edition
4.0
Dark and absolutely hilarious at times. A recurring theme in several stories is a character working in an absurdly themed museum or entertainment park. The novella in this book, "Bounty," is like Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" meets the X Men. Going to have to read all his short stories as the NYT just gave him kudos for his brand new book and he was just on Colbert marketing the book.
iguessthisisme's review against another edition
5.0
Ends with the greatest Author’s Note I’ve ever read.