Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 03:09:30 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders [split topic]

Started by sevendaughters, March 04, 2020, 03:37:53 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

sevendaughters

I bought Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders from an Oxfam on a weekend break in Belfast. I see from a quick search was met with mixed reaction here. Not from me though. I absolutely demolished it. I was hungry for it. I think it is a really inspired bit of work and found the experimental chapter style (two kinds, not quite alternating: one written as if excerpts from historical texts; the other as a fragmentary play in the afterlife) exhilarating. I had the same all-of-a-rush feeling as I did after Catch-22, 17776 by Jon Bois, or when I cracked Gerald Manley Hopkins.

Mister Six

Well I love Catch-22, so that's three books I now want to read!

selectivememory

Quote from: sevendaughters on March 04, 2020, 03:37:53 PM
I bought Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders from an Oxfam on a weekend break in Belfast. I see from a quick search was met with mixed reaction here. Not from me though. I absolutely demolished it. I was hungry for it. I think it is a really inspired bit of work and found the experimental chapter style (two kinds, not quite alternating: one written as if excerpts from historical texts; the other as a fragmentary play in the afterlife) exhilarating. I had the same all-of-a-rush feeling as I did after Catch-22, 17776 by Jon Bois, or when I cracked Gerald Manley Hopkins.

I loved that book. I find his short stories very hit and miss (Tenth of December is probably his strongest collection), but yeah, I thought Lincoln in the Bardo was a very beautiful, sad and funny book.

Artie Fufkin

Yep. I loved Lincoln also.
I'm currently reading David Sheppard's Brian Eno biography; On Some Faraway Beach. Which is brilliant! So well written. Though the dictionary function on my kindle is taking a proper pounding.
He was somewhat of a perv in his pomp, was old Brian. Which came as a surprise.

studpuppet

Apologies for taking people away from reading it, but the audiobook is apparently quite a special thing too:

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/george-saunders-bardo-white-house-audiobook/

mrpupkin

I gave up on this book because the descriptions of the ghosts were too wacky for me to imagine what they would look like. Were they ghosts? Can't really remember it now. But isn't it all like, this ghost has 40 eyes coming out of its back and they're all liquid, or something?

selectivememory

Quote from: mrpupkin on March 09, 2020, 10:43:45 AM
I gave up on this book because the descriptions of the ghosts were too wacky for me to imagine what they would look like. Were they ghosts? Can't really remember it now. But isn't it all like, this ghost has 40 eyes coming out of its back and they're all liquid, or something?

There is an explanation for all that which becomes clear as it goes on. They're all unaware (or in deep denial) that they're dead, and their deformities reflect something about their preoccupations or their self-delusions (I can't quite remember, it has been a while). It's not just wacky for the sake of wacky though.

mrpupkin

Yeah I realise that but I just couldn't physically picture them which kept me at arms length a bit too much.

mrpupkin

This one is wearing loads of different hats but they keep spinning round and his mouth is all stones

mr. logic

Quote from: mrpupkin on March 09, 2020, 11:22:50 AM
Yeah I realise that but I just couldn't physically picture them which kept me at arms length a bit too much.

Not for the same reasons as you, but I found this book boarderline unreadable. Basically down to my own stupidity, I just couldn't get into its rhythms and structure. Have a similar problem with his short stories, though I do enjoy his essays.

Think his fiction is in my 'want to enjoy more than I actually do' pile.