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katebol's review against another edition
3.0
He makes your despair for paragraphs and pages, then says something so weird, funny, moving that you have no choice but to continue. I was glad to read in the author's note that he agrees that maybe this book is a little more cruel than necessary.
I like the concept of having a collection of stories featuring different horrible, dystopian theme parks.
I like the concept of having a collection of stories featuring different horrible, dystopian theme parks.
smalefowles's review against another edition
5.0
I can never neatly encapsulate my feelings about George Saunders' stories, but this version of the text is particularly delightful since it contains an honestly inspiring afterword by the author about penning it during six or so years of uninspiring corporate life.
fxdpts's review against another edition
5.0
It’s really striking to read something that clicks instantly. I was not at all surprised by the author’s note that he became alienated from overly descriptive language. This is writing that carries the tone of the story in the simplicity of its sentences, and the despair of its characters in the flat descriptions of the settings. Everything’s been hollowed out and corporatized, so why bother bloviating?
I loved all of the stories. They’re really rich; here are just some short thoughts on each.
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Plastic experiences are dull. When you peel off the veneer, you’ll be in pain. The experiences you’ll face are visceral and real, but god is real life bloody and painful.
Isabelle
In spite of all the pain, you can find a nice honest moral niche.
The Wavemaker Falters
The end reminds me of The Trial.
The 400-Pound CEO
Mostly just made me sad.
Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz
Ode to all the fuck-ups of the world. There’s a morality to guide your path but you’re going to stumble, and often split your head before getting back up.
Downtrodden Mary’s Failed Campaign of Terror
When I first read “see-through cow,” I thought they figured out how to make a translucent cow, in the ghost/spectre sense. The reveal of what was really going on was a *gut* punch.
Bounty
Everything goes wrong, everyone is awful, everyone’s too afraid to change anything.
I loved all of the stories. They’re really rich; here are just some short thoughts on each.
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Plastic experiences are dull. When you peel off the veneer, you’ll be in pain. The experiences you’ll face are visceral and real, but god is real life bloody and painful.
Isabelle
In spite of all the pain, you can find a nice honest moral niche.
The Wavemaker Falters
The end reminds me of The Trial.
The 400-Pound CEO
Mostly just made me sad.
Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz
Ode to all the fuck-ups of the world. There’s a morality to guide your path but you’re going to stumble, and often split your head before getting back up.
Downtrodden Mary’s Failed Campaign of Terror
When I first read “see-through cow,” I thought they figured out how to make a translucent cow, in the ghost/spectre sense. The reveal of what was really going on was a *gut* punch.
Bounty
Everything goes wrong, everyone is awful, everyone’s too afraid to change anything.
jonwash's review against another edition
4.0
This Saunders guy sure doesn’t like living history museums.
samwasnthere77's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.25
mariab3's review against another edition
The stories are well written but they’re just not for me. They all (at least the first handful) had a similar vibe and I felt like I got the point and didn’t need to read the rest.
ipb1's review against another edition
4.0
I seem inadvertently to have read Saunders in reverse, and maybe that is why I enjoyed this slightly less than the later works (his subsequent stories, and Lincoln in the Bardo). You can see all of the preoccupations and themes of the later work, but somehow this is a more uniform collection than the more startling variation of more recent books. You could almost go so far as to say this is one joke in multiple forms, although to be fair it is a very good joke and largely stands up to the repetition.
jbmorgan86's review against another edition
4.0
”What a degraded cosmos.”
That’s the running theme of this collection. In these six satirical short stories and one novella, Saunders paints a bleak world in which the Haves make life hell for the Have Nots. Each story is told from the perspective of some kind of worker going through some kind of misery at the hands of his/her boss. It’s an attack on capitalism. There’s murder, suicide, mutilation, sexual abuse, etc. It’s darkly funny at points but overall pretty grim. One has to remind oneself, “This is satire, this is satire, this is satire.”
I’ve read Lincoln in the Bardo and parts of The Twelfth of December and A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. I enjoyed all of those. I keep coming across intellectuals who call Saunders the best living American writer (most recently, Jason Isbell and Chuck Klosterman). Therefore, I’m reading through his published works. This is #1 on that journey.
That’s the running theme of this collection. In these six satirical short stories and one novella, Saunders paints a bleak world in which the Haves make life hell for the Have Nots. Each story is told from the perspective of some kind of worker going through some kind of misery at the hands of his/her boss. It’s an attack on capitalism. There’s murder, suicide, mutilation, sexual abuse, etc. It’s darkly funny at points but overall pretty grim. One has to remind oneself, “This is satire, this is satire, this is satire.”
I’ve read Lincoln in the Bardo and parts of The Twelfth of December and A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. I enjoyed all of those. I keep coming across intellectuals who call Saunders the best living American writer (most recently, Jason Isbell and Chuck Klosterman). Therefore, I’m reading through his published works. This is #1 on that journey.
brettpet's review against another edition
5.0
Unlike the fully realized Lincoln in the Bardo (my first Saunders book), CivilWarLand is about a multitude of things. Tribalism, indentured servitude, consumerism, etc, but the main through line for me was the theme of artificiality. The American sense of community is not what it was when this book was published in 1996—wealth inequalities have skyrocketed, sense of togetherness has been further fractured by a global pandemic and increasing suburban sprawl, and political identities have become more radicalized. There's a joke on Twitter that Americans only understand things in fast food terms—41 years ago is not a time before the Reagan era would forever change the course of history, it was when the McRib was released. On the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II, one user joked "for Americans, this is like if the burger died". In CivilWarLand story "Bounty", a fast food restaurant becomes a hangout for religious zealots, committed to burning themselves in a deep fryer as an act of penance.
Artificiality is a subject that authors rarely show this much attention to, despite how much the concept invades our daily life. We furnish our homes with fake plants because we're scared to take care of real ones, we keep our lawns neat and tidy to try to emulate a vision of a French monarchy trend that was co-opted in the post-World War era, and we fill our bodies with microplastics because we're too lazy to do something about it. For most of the characters in CivilWarLand, artificial communities are the only protection from the terrors of the outside world—roving gangs, unemployment, or slavery. Do we live artificial lifestyles because we perceive them to be safer than the alternative? Do we work in tiny gray boxes instead of doing something more fulfilling because we fear losing office culture would be the final death blow to American life? Do we ache to experience spectacle in every free moment because we will lose these things in the collapse?
This book is hilarious, prophetic (unfortunately), and reminiscent of prime Vonnegut.
Artificiality is a subject that authors rarely show this much attention to, despite how much the concept invades our daily life. We furnish our homes with fake plants because we're scared to take care of real ones, we keep our lawns neat and tidy to try to emulate a vision of a French monarchy trend that was co-opted in the post-World War era, and we fill our bodies with microplastics because we're too lazy to do something about it. For most of the characters in CivilWarLand, artificial communities are the only protection from the terrors of the outside world—roving gangs, unemployment, or slavery. Do we live artificial lifestyles because we perceive them to be safer than the alternative? Do we work in tiny gray boxes instead of doing something more fulfilling because we fear losing office culture would be the final death blow to American life? Do we ache to experience spectacle in every free moment because we will lose these things in the collapse?
This book is hilarious, prophetic (unfortunately), and reminiscent of prime Vonnegut.