Scan barcode
A review by jbmorgan86
Civilwarland in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders
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.