In a time of character restrictions for all types of newsrooms, (thanks to social networks, but also to their lazy readers in search of headlines and little else) the story points to literary possibility of the first magnitude. And one of the most interesting writers of stories and stories on the Yankee scene is George Saunders. Because, let's read briefly, let's do it to enjoy more sustenance.
Brief in content but also in publications, Saunders seems interested in publishing his work when he obtains that selection of stories worthy of being disseminated. And by faith he achieves it, given an unusual intensity for his small, great stories. In the meantime, Saunders also published some novels or essays. Although the most authentic Saunders unleashes his most accurate lashes in the development of the brief, his novels are also outstanding jewels among the allegorical, historical fiction or the style to which he freely indulges for the occasion.
Looking for references made in the USA, Saunders could be heir to Raymond Carver but without forgetting Poe, thus summarizing that mix between reality and fantasy capable of extending narrative landscapes beyond the horizon. It's too bad he's not a very prolific author. But even so, or perhaps precisely because of that, it is a real pleasure to savor these delicacies as if from reduced universes for a different menu.
Top 3 Recommended Books by George Saunders
Pastoralia
A cult book for readers of stories with the acid sense of our time. Everything has a place in the imagination of a Saunders unleashed and stringing together tales and stories like the ones in this volume.
In Pastoralia we find 6 samples of the Saunders style: 'The waterfall', 'The hairdresser's unhappiness', 'The end of FIRPO in the world', 'Roblemar', 'Winky' and 'Pastoralia', a fun and corrosive nouvelle that takes place in an amusement park that recreates prehistory. Understanding contemporary chaos can be fun and revealing.
Biting and funny, George Saunders' singular prose is also capable of moving us to the brink of tears. The themes could not be more contemporary: the decline of the company that leads to absurdity; labor and affective precariousness; the tedium of dreams that go through winning a lottery, and the helplessness of the impoverished middle class. Saunders portrays with caustic humor the worst in us and redeems us. Reading it is investing in quality of life.
Lincoln in the Bardo
The insurmountable losses, the unnatural events… He was just a 12-year-old boy, that lost son of Lincoln. If history was not the same, it would be partly because of him, because of his memory.
February 1862. In the midst of the bloody civil war dividing the country in two, President Lincoln's twelve-year-old son is seriously ill. In a matter of a few days, little Willie dies and his body is transferred to a cemetery in Georgetown. The newspapers of the time pick up a Lincoln undone by grief who visits the grave on several occasions to keep the body of his son.
From this historical fact, Saunders unfolds an unforgettable story about love and loss that goes into the territory of the supernatural, where there is room for everything from the terrifying to the hilarious. Willie Lincoln is in an intermediate state between life and death, the so-called Bardo according to the Tibetan tradition. In this limbo, where ghosts gather to commiserate and laugh at what they left behind, a fight of titanic dimensions arises from the depths of little Willie's soul.
Zorro 8
Metaphors and allegories serve to reach the understanding of all. Perhaps it is because of a connection with the childish self of the reader. The point is that messages made images can have more power than reality itself. Something much needed these days...
Fox 8 has always been known as the dreamer of the pack, who is sneered at by his fellow foxes and rolled their eyes at. He until he manages to develop a unique ability: he learns to speak "Umano" by hiding in front of a house window and listening to the stories that a mother tells her children before going to sleep.
The power of language will feed his growing curiosity about them, even after the construction of a "Commercial Center" in the vicinity of the den endangers the survival of the pack and sends him on a dangerous journey to save his own. Written with great tenderness, humor and a deep ethical conviction, and accompanied by the beautiful illustrations of Chelsea Cardinal, Zorro 8 is a love letter from an animal to humans and a wake-up call to take care of the environment.
Other recommended books by George Saunders
The day of liberation
Every day must be an exercise in liberation, a claim in substance and form filed before so many censors of thought and action disguised as orchestrators of the necessary morality...
A masterful collection of short stories in which we explore the ideas of power, ethics and justice, and get to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow human beings. In his signature prose, wickedly funny, unsentimental and perfectly pitched, Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: his tales encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, strange fantasy and brutal reality.
“Gul” is set in a hellish-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado, and follows the exploits of a lonely and morally complex character named Brian, who begins to question everything he takes for granted about his reality. In "Mother's Day," two women who loved the same man come to an existential decision in the middle of a hailstorm. And in "Elliott Spencer," our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist is brainwashed as part of a project in which poor and vulnerable people are reprogrammed and used as political protesters.
