George Saunders - Liberation Day (Bloomsbury, 2022) ***

"Liberation Day" is a collection of short stories, in which Saunders takes the fact of being human to the boundaries of ethics and technology, with a stylistic creativity that gives each story its own voice and level of mystery. 

The title story is about a number of humans who have been re-programmed to become Speakers or Singers for the privileged house owners where they are tied to the wall in the entertainment room. Even if fully programmed - including boundless docility and admiration for their owners - the narrator still manages to have some basic conscious reflections - including on the concept of sexual arousal. The story is weird, the context extreme, the reality a far-away possibility of shaping human behaviour to the need and desires of 'the few'. 

In another story - Elliott Spencer - the language is limited to words, simple thoughts and concept that gradually turn into more mature sentences as the subjects in the story get better educated. It requires effort - and sometimes patience - from the reader to understand what is happening, with the unusual language slowly becoming the idiom that programmes the reader as well. 

Not everything works, but that does not really matter. These are exercises in style, trying new linguistic forms to suit the stories' science-fiction like situations, but this futuristic vision has less to do with technology or science than with human nature, its absurd existence, its unpredictable and predictable actions. 

It doesn't come close in quality to "Lincoln In The Bardo", but readers who are in for something new, will certainly enjoy this. 

George Saunders - Vos 8 (De Geus, 2019) **

After the success of "Lincoln In The Bardo", I was treated to this short novella by George Saunders by one of my friends, also called George, about the encounter of some foxes with the world of humans, or 'yumans' in fox language. It's a kind of an allegory to comment on the world we live in from the perspective of the foxes. And Fox8, the narrator, is able to understand and speak the language of the humans, but the whole tale is written in a kind of phonetic English, with all words written down in the way they are pronounced, which makes it fun to read, even if not always easy.

The book ends with an address to humanity: "If you Yumans wud take one bit of advise from a meer Fox? By now I know that you Yumans like your Storys to end hapy? If you want your Storys to end happy, try being niser: I awate your answer”.

It's fifty pages long. It's creative in its approach, not pretentious, and a basis for reflection, even if not for long.

George Saunders - Lincoln In The Bardo (Random House, 2017) ****

Winner of last year's Man Booker Prize, and rightfully so. The book tells the story of the death of Abraham Lincoln's son Willy, who died of a fever at the age of twelve, during a banquet with two hundred guests the president and his wife were organising. Did they neglect their child? Should they have canceled the party? Why did he have to die alone in his room when his family was having fun?

The story is probably well known to Americans, less so to non-Americans, I assume, but it's nevertheless tragic. Saunders uses the story for a fantasy novel that is partly a collection of quotes from existing publications about the tragic event, and partly narrated by the ghosts that live in the cemetery where little Willy is buried in the family tomb. You get dozens and dozens of narrators, who never actually tell anything of any length, excepts small quotes, sometimes offered as parts of dialogues, sometimes as somewhat longer monologues. All ghosts have their own character, their own story, their own time where they came from. They are waiting to be allowed to enter the next realm or not. They are as ignorant of their fate as people who are alive, and as fearful of the next stage they will move to.

The reading experience is totally unique, and by itself that makes it worth to read the novel. At the same time, Saunders is stylistically sufficiently masterful to make all these voices come to life with their own tone and vocabulary, their own character, full of flaws and unintended wisdom and stupidity. It's like a Greek tragedy without actual actors, but in which the choir is the only one speaking.

They weep and are in turmoil as they witness how the president returns to his son's grave at night, only to take him out of his coffin again, and to hold the corpse in his arms, lamenting his predicament, and he does this not only once, but several nights in succession, as if he cannot depart from his son, as if he cannot depart from his guilt.

Saunders manages to turn this tragedy into a long lament on life and death, in a very moving way, using the fantasy aspect to great effect: it is as horrifying as it is captivating and inviting to reflect about our own human existence.

A majestic performance.