A review by jfaberrit
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

5.0

This is a beautiful book, kind of staggeringly brilliant in its way, clearly one of the best of the year, or any year. The audiobook, it is worth noting, may have a cast of 166 readers, but stands as the finest production I've ever heard largely because of two, Nick Offerman and David Sedaris, whose counterpoint approach is essentially perfect, as well as a handful of particularly good supporting roles -- Bill Hader and Megan Mullally's certainly the most memorable. As for the novel itself, what starts as a historical novel very quickly turns into one about history and loss, freedom and suffering, showing off the timelessness of its themes. Saunders can definitely turn a phrase -- "the bonechilling firesound of the matter-light blooming phenomenon" -- and the more Buddhist-oriented passages are basically poetry. To the extent there is a weakness, it is the one character who doesn't contribute in the first president, Abraham Lincoln himself. Saunders does a good job with his sadness, his description, and his place in history, but I'm not quite sure he ever really captures his voice. A final historical and faux-historical passage right before the nearly perfect closing is the only step that felt a bit false, as he slid from the mysteries of Lincoln towards those of life and death. Other than that, this was a nearly perfect story of the cycle of life.