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Book Review: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Random House, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-0812985405

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

Lincoln in the Bardo can be described as an American ghost story, but there is much more to it than ghosts in a graveyard. It’s not a book to zip through once and put down with the confidence that you have completely absorbed what it has to offer. Trying to describe it, and review it, has been difficult, but it is worth it. George Saunders won the Man Booker prize for literary fiction for this novel, but don’t let that influence whether you try it for yourself.

At the center of the story is the death of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Willie, and Lincoln’s grieving alone at night in the cemetery where Willie was laid to rest, although “laid to rest” isn’t really the best description for its residents. I didn’t know this, but a “bardo” is a Buddhist term for a kind of in-between or transitional state. The cemetery’s residents, who tell the majority of the story, are stuck in that transitional state, no longer alive but unable and unwilling to move on or even recognize that they are dead. When Willie arrives in the bardo, the other residents, based on their previous experience, expect that he will quickly move on, but when Lincoln returns to grieve, he promises to visit again, and Willie stays to make sure he is there when his father returns. Of course, as a ghost, he is unable to physically interact with his environment or with living people, and it isn’t as easy as it might seem for him to stay, especially without the help of the other ghosts of the cemetery. In fact, if he doesn’t move on, he may be taken by damned souls.

The narrative structure of the book is challenging. It alternates between sections that take place in the cemetery, with a variety of ghosts attempting to move the story forward, or include their own story, or push their way in, interrupting each other and editorializing on events and each other, and collections of multiple historical eyewitness accounts of the same events, mostly descriptions and opinions of the night Willie died and of Lincoln himself.

The parts in the cemetery can be very confusing, as the speakers (and there are many) are only named after they have spoken, so it’s not always clear who is telling the story. The reader certainly does get to see the democracy of death in America, though–  cemeteries include all kinds of people, from the repellent and hateful to decent and caring(and sometimes all of it in one person), but in this time, at the beginning of the Civil War, African-Americans are buried outside the fence and their ghosts have to rush the fence and fight off hateful racists to get in. Once they are in, many of them do speak up, and they remain some of the most powerful and lasting voices in the story.

The alternating sections of compiled contemporary eyewitness accounts are probably what was most fascinating to me. Many of them contradict each other: some are sympathetic, complimentary, or admiring, while others condemn him in the strongest terms. To see history, and Lincoln, through so many different eyes, is fascinating, and connects with Lincoln’s interior dialogue and terrible grief for both his own son, and for all of the sons he will be sending onto bloody battlefields, as imagined by Saunders. Even if the cemetery story is too much for you, I recommend at least looking through the book to see these accounts. About two-thirds of the way through you will find absolutely scathing comments and letters as bad as anything you can find about our president on the Internet.

While Lincoln in the Bardo can be read as a novel of historical fiction, or a portrait of grief, it can be funny, foul, and sometimes gross (I was not expecting a poop joke four pages in). There are many moments of tenderness, and, despite the grief, horror, denial, and anger that emerge in the cemetery, it is also hopeful for those in the bardo, and for freedom in America.

If you like your narratives to be straightforward, this is probably not the book for you. But if you are willing to try out this unusual narrative structure, and do some rereading for better understanding, this is a ghost story you won’t soon forget.

Contains: racial slurs, suicide, references to rape and child molestation.

Book Review: Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature edited by Jacob Weisman

Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature  edited by Jacob Weisman

Tachyon Publications, July 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1616962104

Available for pre-order: Paperback and Kindle edition

The title and cover art of Invaders are deceiving: this is not a collection of stories about alien invasions, although there are a number of stories of first contact. Instead, editor Jacob Weisman has chosen previously published stories by authors typically considered writers of literary fiction that “explore the essence of science fiction”, in an attempt to discover what literary authors do differently from science fiction authors (his answer seems to be that mainstream writers include more about sex and relationships, but I would argue that isn’t necessarily so). Authors represented include horror writer Brian Evenson, W.P. Kinsella, George Saunders, Junot Diaz, and Katherine Dunn.

So what is the essence of science fiction? James Gunn posits that it makes the assumption that the universe is knowable, and that humans, while products of their environment, are still evolving and adapting to change. Mainstream fiction, he says, is more focused on relationships between individuals. If we accept that, the question is whether these stories represent a science fictional point of view. Of the varied stories that appear in this volume, the majority do seem to do that, some with more of a focus on the science fictional world view than others. Some of the stories were truly fantastic, or playing on tropes, while others depended heavily on science fictional world-building. Most followed a traditional narrative structure, but some stories used a disruptive narrative style. A weakness of the anthology is that very few of the stories focus on outward exploration or interest in the natural world, or in conflict or politics. Aliens come to Earth, but humans have little interest in the stars. Instead, the majority of the stories are focused on humans’ exploitation and manipulation of themselves and each other, and the consequences of that behavior, both positive and negative.

Probably the most outstanding and memorable story is Ben Loory’s “The Squid Who Fell In Love With The Sun”, with its extraordinarily optimistic and unselfish main character, who evolves and learns through sheer will. Another favorite of mine was Max Apple’s entertaining story “The Yogurt of Vasirin Kefirovsky”; the main character’s obsession with yogurt and reminisces about an earlier time hit very close to home. “LIMBs”by Julia Elliott is a powerful story that will leave anyone who has ever dealt with dementia with hope: in it, an elderly woman’s memories return when she receives electrical stimulation for a new, artificial limb. “Lambing Season” by Molly Gloss is a gentle tale of first contact set against a shepherd’s long months in the mountains of the Southwest United States that wakes her sense of wonder. “The Region of Unlikeness” is a rambling tale with unsympathetic characters that raises the question of whether we can escape our future by the choices we make in the present. “We Are The Olfanauts” by Deji Bryce Olukotun and “Escape From Spiderhead” by George Saunders address complex characters being forced to make difficult ethical choices in settings that emphasize the banality of horrific behavior in a technological, corporate world. Jonathan Lethem’s “Five Fucks”and Brian Evenson’s “Fugue State” were deliberately disorienting, making unexplained leaps through nonlinear narrative, and using unreliable narrators. These stories, while memorable, weren’t necessarily enjoyable, and they required careful reading (in Evenson’s case an ironclad stomach is also helpful). One story I found frustrating was Junot Diaz’s “Monstro”. Diaz does a great job of developing his protagonist and portrays the Dominican Republic so vividly I could almost see it, but the end is dissatisfying. As a survivor of “the end of the world”, what happened? I felt that the story cut off before it was over.

If you are looking for a straightforward collection of stories about first contact and alien invasions, this anthology will not be your cup of tea. If you are hoping to find science fiction/horror hybrids, you will find a few– “Escape From Spiderhead” and “Fugue State” are both pretty terrifying, and “Monstro” has some frightening moments. The best audience for this collection, though, is the curious reader interested in seeing what “literary” writers produce as science fiction. It might not convince dedicated science fiction readers to join the literary mainstream, but it could be that readers of some of these more mainstream, contemporary authors, might be convinced to stick a toe into the deep waters of science fiction. For that reason, large public libraries will want to consider it, and shelve it in the regular fiction collection. Recommended.

Contains: adult situations, sex, murder, violence, suicide, drug use