Author Spotlight
George Saunders and his enormous, throbbing heart: a homily
Is George Saunders the most radical fiction writer writing in the mainstream today? Or to put it a possibly better way, is Saunders the most mainstream of today’s radical fiction writers? I don’t mean “radical” in terms of style or form–though Saunders has certainly done his share of innovating–but I invoke the term rather in its classic political connotation. I’ve read most of Saunders’s books, and worked with him when I edited Come Back, Donald Barthelme, but something clicked for me yesterday when I read “Al Roosten,” his new story in the current issue of The New Yorker, and after the jump I’m going to talk about it for about 3000 words, and at some point there will be some spoilers, and it’s not really a “spoiler alert” kind of story, but anyway maybe you want to read the story before you read this.
Beneath–or if you prefer, beyond, or better still, simply “alongside, thoroughly integrated with”–the “wacky” premises and screwy funhouse-mirror-held-up-to-the-world comedy, there is something else happening in Saunders’s work. It struck me first when reading the following description of the main character’s sister and home life in “Al Roosten:”
You saw her frustration at being the only divorced woman in her extremely strict church, her embarrassment at having had to move in with her brother, her worry that, if he lost the shop (as it now appeared almost certain he would), she’d have to quit school and get a third job. Last night, he’d found her at the kitchen table after her shift at Costco, fast asleep across her community-college nursing text. A nurse at forty-five. That was a laugh. He found that laughable. Although he didn’t find it laughable. He found it admirable.
The passage is so fluid, and so well-integrated into a larger (and just as fluid) joke-laced interior monologue, it’s almost hard to see these words for what they are: an unflinching, concise look into a life of quiet despair lived out under relentless pressure exerted by large heartless forces of culture and economy. Note the short shrift given to health care work; note the big-box store name-drop; note the strictness of the supposedly solace-and-inspiration-providing church.
Considering that the quoted passage appears immediately after a meditation on whether the sister is homely or merely “handsome” and is almost immediately followed by the words “mansion shmansion,” it seems to me nothing short of miraculous that it succeeds– and more to the point, that he bothered to include it in the story at all. I think if you look, you’ll see this sort of compassion all throughout Saunders’ work. I remember reading “Sea Oak” in Pastoralia and feeling just totally gut-wrenched by what those people were suffering through. Ditto the title story of Civilwarland in Bad Decline.
I think it’s pretty well-established at this point–and if it isn’t, let this be the moment when it is–that Saunders’s work is devoted in large part to a critique of corporate crony capitalism, and our own frequent willingness to conspire with the forces of rapaciousness, accepting the worst from our leaders as well as ourselves. It is far too easy to write this off as “mere” satire (who says satire is “mere” anyway?) but if we take his critiques (1) at face value, and (2) completely seriously, one is simply forced to ask: Well, George, what’s the alternative?
Reading “Al Roosten,” I began to wonder whether the answer to the question of “what’s the alternative?”–or some gesture toward an answer–isn’t already contained within his work itself.
Basically, “Al Roosten” is about a small man living a small life, itself held together mostly with spit and glue. It isn’t a work of strict “social realism,” but it takes place in a world whose social-cultural-political structure is one we all recognize: not as a caricature of our world, but as the very thing itself. Apropos Saunders, I’m frequently given to think of something Elizabeth Bishop wrote about Flannery O’Connor: “Critics who accuse her of exaggeration are quite wrong, I think. I lived in Florida for several years next to a flourishing ‘Church of God’ (both white and black congregation), where every Wednesday night Sister Mary and her husband ‘spoke in tongues.’ After those Wednesday nights, nothing Flannery O’Connor ever wrote could seem at all exaggerated to me.”
Alternate History Theme Park in Virginia, at which it is posited that dinosaurs played a role in the Civil War.
Like O’Connor, Saunders’s work seems to be informed by his spirituality, though his Buddhism does not seem to ever itself become the topic of his work, as her Christianity frequently did, and neither does Saunders match her severity (well, who could?). I don’t want to theologico-psychologize Saunders too much, because I don’t really know what his beliefs are (or much about his belief system, even assuming it is the one I think it is) but I do want to point out that compassion is one of the primary Buddhist values. Speaking more generally–and in strictly worldly terms–it is also perhaps the most powerful and pure ethical position a person can take. It is furthermore one of the most difficult states to achieve, to say nothing of sustaining it, because it requires a double understanding of your own position relative to another person’s, and hers/his relative to yours–the comprehension of a relationship, in other ways, as seen not from within but from without–AND for this understanding not to be polluted by an excess of pity, for yourself or the other, because pity all too often is just contempt playing dress-up.
I feel like the primary conception of Saunders is as a practitioner of the “lovable schmuck gets into a scrape” school of fiction, and certainly Al Roosten is a schmuck in a scrape–but there’s a missed emphasis on that first word: lovable. Saunders’s schmucks are not easy people to love, and they tend to be surrounded by people who seem like they’d have a hard time loving anyone, much less somebody who doesn’t make it easy. And yet, the world which Saunders depicts is not one where compassion and love are impossible, or forgotten about, or even necessarily failed forever–however often they are failed in the instance. Rather, love and compassion are central, and importantly, they tend to be depicted each as a figuration of the other. (Consider that in the King James Bible in 1 Corinthians 13:13, the three great virtues are identified as faith, hope and charity; later versions replace “charity” with “love,” but all editions of the passage end with a clause explaining that of the three, the greatest one is the last one.)
Let’s take a look at “Al Roosten.” At the story’s beginning, he is nervously awaiting his turn on the catwalk, because he has volunteered to be auctioned off as a “local celebrity” to help raise money for an anti-drug charity called LaffKidsOffCrack. The whole scene is incredibly low-rent: Roosten, owner of a failing local business, knows that he barely qualifies as a celebrity, even by community standards; he’s worried he looks like a goober up there (he does); the anti-drug people are exactly the kind of hopelessly lame Just Say No zombies that no kid ever has taken seriously for even a heartbeat. But here’s the thing–none of this knowledge has kept him from being there. The charity is really raising the money–i.e. doing their hopeless best–and Roosten is right there with them giving his.
Roosten, standing on the stage with the other auctioned-off “celebrities,” lets his mind wander. He thinks about his sister, and her kids, and his own loneliness, and a whole bunch of other things. Roosten is a signature Saunders schmuck, riddled with self-doubt and plagued by a host of worries great and small, his inner babbling kept just this side of hysterical by moments where the clarity of either real humor or real animus breaks through all the noise. In this story, most of the animus is directed at a man named Larry Donfrey, a wealthy businessman with a nice house and a seemingly perfect family, who is in the charity auction too. Even though they’ve met before, Donfrey gets Al Roosten’s name wrong. He calls him Ed.
Backstage, afer the auction, Roosten spots Donfrey’s keys and wallet on the floor and decides to kick them under some risers. It’s a rare moment of aggression, not just fantasized about but actually realized, albeit in secret since Roosten is a coward. Moments later Donfrey walks in, “talking loudly on his cell in a know-it-all voice.” But Roosten isn’t going to get to savor his triumph, because Donfrey isn’t making a big business deal or dinner reservations: he’s checking up on his daughter. She’s had a limp her whole life because of a foot problem, and for the first time there’s a chance to go get her fixed up, and today is the day of her appointment, but he didn’t want to break his commitment to the charity auction, and it ran long so now he’s running late to take her to the doctor. And now he can’t find the keys to his car or his wallet.
Roosten spends the rest of the story tormented by his action: its possible impact on the life of an innocent and crippled girl, his misjudgment of Donfrey, and various ways he could make things right–all of which he’s too scared to try. Roosten is a man whose life doesn’t allow him much courage, and he spent what little he had an on act of petty malice, leaving himself unable to do the equally little it would take to reverse his mistake. It’s not so much that he was wrong about Donfrey–who clearly is a pompous jerk, at least some of the time–as it is that the stakes were so low. Even if he had been giving Donfrey just desserts, the total effect of making Donfrey crawl around looking for his car keys would have been next to nothing. And of course that’s exactly why Roosten did it, because it seemed like an action without consequence. He was utterly unprepared for his action to mean something, because of how long it’s been since anything in his life has.
The rest of the story is given over to a few fantasies of Roosten’s: a few scenarios in which all is forgiven and he befriends the Donfrey family, and sees himself contentedly basking in their reflected light: introducing them to his make-do family of his sister and her three rambunctious sons. There are also several imagined conversations with his dead mother, which are hilarious and sort of heartbreaking, almost a story within the story, because even in his imagination his mother’s sage advice quickly descends into platitudes. “[t]here’s not a mean bone in your body,” she says to him. “You are Al Roosten. Don’t forget that. Sometimes you think something’s wrong with you, but every time, turns out, there isn’t.” It’s perfect mother-logic, and that’s exactly why it’s as comforting as it is useless. Yes, he IS Al Roosten, but that doesn’t exculpate him from what he did, or from the more general charges of being a highly imperfect human being, which of course is just to say: a human being, period.
Roosten, like many Saunders characters before him, and doubtless more to come, seems to understand–or else to learn–that love born of compassion and/or compassion born of love–is certainly the greatest, and quite possibly the only, satisfaction to be had in a life largely governed by forces beyond your control, and which operate either without regard for or else in direct opposition to your needs and dignity. The problem is compounded because those same forces, in order to peddle their products, encourage a form of extraordinary solipsism that makes genuine human interaction–which is no mean feat to begin with–that much more difficult. What do you do when the one thing that can save you just seems to damn hard to try?
If Al Roosten learns anything, it’s the scope of his own failure: the way in which he let his worst self sneak up and make a mess of a day that started as a meager, but earnest, attempt to bring a little good into the world.
As Flannery O’Connor knew, one of the greatest positions for contemplating the sky is from flat on your back on the ground, especially if that ground is at the bottom of a ditch. Put another way: the sheer depth of his failure presents him with the novel sensation of intensity itself, and therefore allows for the possibility of an intense reversal–i.e. an intense success–which for the pre-lapsarian Roosten was wholly outside the realm of possibility.
We can be better than we are. We can avoid eating shit and making others eat shit. We can love each other and be loved. Does Al Roosten “learn” this? It’s hard to say. He seems to glimpse the possibility, but it’s not clear that he “gets the message” or “learns the lesson,” or, if he does, that the lesson “sticks.” It’s more like a state of understanding he passes through, possibly without even being aware at the time: a state of Grace, in other words, or what O’Connor described, in the preface to the 2nd edition of Wise Blood, as Hazel Motes’s inability to rid himself of “the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind.” Motes eventually gets tired of running from the man, and so turns around to embrace him: a painful, crippling embrace which lasts forever, and which takes as much as it gives.
Saunders doesn’t push us quite so far, but as I said before, it’s hard to blame someone for failing the Flannery O’Connor Standards of Severity Test. Or else it’s possible that here we find the place where their philosophies take hard turns away from each other.
“Al Roosten” ends with the title character making a long, snide assessment of some homeless people who congregate by a viaduct near his store. For a guy in Roosten’s position (divorced; barely solvent; living with extended family) the homeless stand out not so much in contrast to his own position, but by virtue of the lack of contrast. It’s not their otherness that makes them vivid–and in their vividness, hateful to him–it’s their kinship. (A persistent, perhaps too-persistent critic might point his reader toward O’Connor’s short story “Revelation.”)
Weirdly, Roosten is most outraged by the misspellings on their signs, as if their apparent ignorance or disregard for the lanauge were directly related to their degraded circumstance. It’s yet another iteration of the story’s thesis that a small thing echoes large.
The pen-ultimate image of the story is positively O’Connorific, with Roosten fantasizing violence against a man he’s all too aware of being one twist of the knife away from becoming: “[he] imagined himself leaping from the car, knocking the man to the ground, kicking him and kicking him, teaching him, in this way, a valuable lesson on how to behave.”
But the ultimate image pulls this possibility back, even before allowing its implications to be fully realized in Roosten’s thought, much less as a reality of any kind. Extremity might make extreme success a viable possibility, but if it comes at the risk of more extreme failure, then perhaps this is not a path to be pursued after all.
“The man gave Roosten a weak smile, and Roosten gave the man a weak smile back.”
Weakness is the homeless man’s fundamental condition, and being confronted with it as it manifests–not in the abstract notion of “a homeless person” but in the actual and specific homeless person standing before him–re-kindles Roosten’s compassion. A Christian might call it his loving-kindness. A Buddhist might call it his Metta. Whatever it is, it rises up in him precisely because its display of weakness re-kindles Roosten’s sense of his own fundamental weakness. It’s a moment of recognition.
Here weakness functions differently than it did earlier in the story. Perhaps it has been transfigured by the events which have transpired–a lesson learned after all. Instead of serving as a barrier between people–encouraging suspicion and violence–it functions now as a common ground. In the space opened up by the mutual recognition of weakness, it is possible for the men to actually see each other, even if all they share is a glance. It is precisely because the constitutive element of their understanding is something so pitiful and broken that it has no choice left but to stand prostrate, defenseless, real.
I don’t read this as a vague call to “love,” but rather as a positive injunction toward engagement: mindful presence in the moments of one’s life, manifested as right action in the world. It’s a lot for a bumper sticker, maybe, and it purposefully suggests a path to walk down rather than any particular petition to sign, but I think it’s a message that’s been either ignored or actively suppressed over the last decade or so, and it thrills me to see it so forcefully articulated in the pages of any major, mainstream magazine. That Saunders should choose for his mode not a polemic, but a story, makes it–for me, anyway–all the more powerful.
“Al Roosten” is in many ways a story about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other, and how poorly imagined those stories are, and how little it takes to expose their plot-holes. Our protagonists are unsympathetic, the motives we ascribe to our villains don’t make sense, and the author is a two-bit hack.
But Saunders isn’t trying to make you hate yourself, or feel worse than you already do. He’s just saying that things don’t have to be this way. We don’t have to settle for what we’re given, or sit still while things get worse. We have choices, even if they are proscribed by circumstance, and even in the best case are hard to make. But at the very, very, very least–we must always be vigilant that we don’t become collaborators in our debasement.
I’ve framed my discussion of this story in largely spiritual terms, and almost certainly not the terms that Saunders himself would have chosen. But be that as it may, I want to draw this to a close by revisiting my initial claim for Saunders as a politically radical writer. His positing of a world of such brutal humanity struggling to survive the brutality of dehumanization, and moreover a world where humanness itself is so brutally important–a thing to be protected fiercely, but also the force we must wield in order to do the protecting–is a radical and salient political statement, no less novel for the fact of our living in the post-electoral era of respectable audacity and the chicness of hope. Not to suggest that those things aren’t nice, too.
Tags: Flannery O'Connor, George Saunders, The New Yorker
really nice article justin. i hadn’t read this story yet and i am glad i did.
i love the perfect sentences hidden all throughout this thing, and how he does not ‘tell you a story’ but ‘tells you stuff’
‘A bird on a parking bumper bolted, alarmed at the advance of the leaves.’
I found myself wondering in the midst of this: if another author besides George Saunders submitted this story to (X big name to midsized journal) I am fairly certain it would get rejected at more than most. I don’t know what that means exactly.
Maybe it means that Saunders’s stuff is definitely more complex than it seems, as you have elucidated so well here, and that would-be imitators, who seemed to pop out all over the place after he got well known, watered down that signal in a way almost in a nirvana and ‘oh shit look at all the shitty shit that came around because of us’ kind of way
Not that that matters at all, but I think it is interesting, given the weird arc curve Saunders seems to have hit in his last few books. As much as I loved all the stories in his first 2, and a majority of In Persuation Nation, I can’t say that the later stuff has hit me as much (mainly really just Reign of Phil and the essay book). But this story is a great reminder, of why Saunders deserves his honor, and hopefully is a boon for the next book.
Thanks for getting me thinking about this kind of work again: I think I needed to.
really nice article justin. i hadn’t read this story yet and i am glad i did.
i love the perfect sentences hidden all throughout this thing, and how he does not ‘tell you a story’ but ‘tells you stuff’
‘A bird on a parking bumper bolted, alarmed at the advance of the leaves.’
I found myself wondering in the midst of this: if another author besides George Saunders submitted this story to (X big name to midsized journal) I am fairly certain it would get rejected at more than most. I don’t know what that means exactly.
Maybe it means that Saunders’s stuff is definitely more complex than it seems, as you have elucidated so well here, and that would-be imitators, who seemed to pop out all over the place after he got well known, watered down that signal in a way almost in a nirvana and ‘oh shit look at all the shitty shit that came around because of us’ kind of way
Not that that matters at all, but I think it is interesting, given the weird arc curve Saunders seems to have hit in his last few books. As much as I loved all the stories in his first 2, and a majority of In Persuation Nation, I can’t say that the later stuff has hit me as much (mainly really just Reign of Phil and the essay book). But this story is a great reminder, of why Saunders deserves his honor, and hopefully is a boon for the next book.
Thanks for getting me thinking about this kind of work again: I think I needed to.
Yeah, I think GS is a great writer, but that doesn’t mean I’m persuaded by everything he does all the time. But any author will have the occasional fizzle, and sometimes that fizzle isn’t his, it’s yours as a reader. But “Al Roosten” is easily one of the best stories of his I’ve ever read, or at least it does at this particular moment in my life, because of where my head is at. There’s really no way to say for certain, but in any case, yeah, I think his story sort of put him back on the map for me in the same way you’re saying I just did for you–which, thanks for saying that, btw.
Regarding the other thing you said, about whether he’d get accepted/rejected if he wasn’t him- all I can say is that he wasn’t him until he was him. He had to become a “name-writer” somehow. As far as what the NY’ker fiction department would have made of this story if it had come from Joe Smith–I have no idea and I’d rather not guess. So yeah, I’m 100% with you when you say “not that that matters at all.”
I think it’s more interesting, actually, to wonder aloud whether the idea of them giving him a closer look on account of his being him is really such a bad thing? I’ll be the first to admit that it’s part of the reason I bothered to read his story–I haven’t read a piece of NY’ker fiction in months, but I saw it was him and I decided to go for it. The NY’ker likes to publish the occasional debut writer, but it’s not really the business they’re in.
And let’s be really honest. I chose this story to write about–by this author, from this magazine. I didn’t write an essay on some random discovery in the backfiles of Bicycle Goat Review–or anyone in, say, the magazine you publish either. Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t–God knows I have, and doubtless will again–but in this case, I just didn’t.
I don’t *think* that I paid closer attention to this story because GS is GS- I think I had an honest reaction to the work and decided to share it, as I assume the editors there did too. But, if there’s an element of truth to the notion that his being himself making a critical difference at any step of the way: them reading the story and choosing to publish it, my choosing to read it, or in my reading of it and then choosing to write about it, I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, at any of those levels.
I mean, yes, I understand the dangers of a name-centric approach to reading and writing criticism, but those perils are so much less grave than they’re made out to be, I just have a hard time taking them seriously.
I mean a huge portion of this piece about GS is devoted to Flannery O’Connor–what does that say? One of my favorite things about his story is how it helped me think through some things that pre-occupy me about her. I think literature should be open, flexible and fair–on the publishing side as well as the writing side–but that doesn’t mean it should be pure democracy, or a double blind scientific study. Hierarchies of value and affiliation inform our approaches and inspire the choices we make- as readers, writers, publishers, etc. I’m really okay with that. In fact, I think it’s a net good.
Yeah, I think GS is a great writer, but that doesn’t mean I’m persuaded by everything he does all the time. But any author will have the occasional fizzle, and sometimes that fizzle isn’t his, it’s yours as a reader. But “Al Roosten” is easily one of the best stories of his I’ve ever read, or at least it does at this particular moment in my life, because of where my head is at. There’s really no way to say for certain, but in any case, yeah, I think his story sort of put him back on the map for me in the same way you’re saying I just did for you–which, thanks for saying that, btw.
Regarding the other thing you said, about whether he’d get accepted/rejected if he wasn’t him- all I can say is that he wasn’t him until he was him. He had to become a “name-writer” somehow. As far as what the NY’ker fiction department would have made of this story if it had come from Joe Smith–I have no idea and I’d rather not guess. So yeah, I’m 100% with you when you say “not that that matters at all.”
I think it’s more interesting, actually, to wonder aloud whether the idea of them giving him a closer look on account of his being him is really such a bad thing? I’ll be the first to admit that it’s part of the reason I bothered to read his story–I haven’t read a piece of NY’ker fiction in months, but I saw it was him and I decided to go for it. The NY’ker likes to publish the occasional debut writer, but it’s not really the business they’re in.
And let’s be really honest. I chose this story to write about–by this author, from this magazine. I didn’t write an essay on some random discovery in the backfiles of Bicycle Goat Review–or anyone in, say, the magazine you publish either. Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t–God knows I have, and doubtless will again–but in this case, I just didn’t.
I don’t *think* that I paid closer attention to this story because GS is GS- I think I had an honest reaction to the work and decided to share it, as I assume the editors there did too. But, if there’s an element of truth to the notion that his being himself making a critical difference at any step of the way: them reading the story and choosing to publish it, my choosing to read it, or in my reading of it and then choosing to write about it, I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, at any of those levels.
I mean, yes, I understand the dangers of a name-centric approach to reading and writing criticism, but those perils are so much less grave than they’re made out to be, I just have a hard time taking them seriously.
I mean a huge portion of this piece about GS is devoted to Flannery O’Connor–what does that say? One of my favorite things about his story is how it helped me think through some things that pre-occupy me about her. I think literature should be open, flexible and fair–on the publishing side as well as the writing side–but that doesn’t mean it should be pure democracy, or a double blind scientific study. Hierarchies of value and affiliation inform our approaches and inspire the choices we make- as readers, writers, publishers, etc. I’m really okay with that. In fact, I think it’s a net good.
i’d never argue against close reads of an author, mega famous or small as fuck. it is of course a net good, and a needed. no need to defend ;)
i’d never argue against close reads of an author, mega famous or small as fuck. it is of course a net good, and a needed. no need to defend ;)
I kind of skimmed this because I haven’t read the Saunders story yet, but I wanted to tell you JT–and you’ll appreciate this b/c you’re an alum–I’m doing this story with my fiction writing class this week at UF. Look forward to reading the last half of this post once I get through the GS story.
I kind of skimmed this because I haven’t read the Saunders story yet, but I wanted to tell you JT–and you’ll appreciate this b/c you’re an alum–I’m doing this story with my fiction writing class this week at UF. Look forward to reading the last half of this post once I get through the GS story.
I liked reading this. I wonder how much it would take to keep going from this out to (into?) a big and beefy argument for the sustained relevance of “social realism” in fiction?
I liked reading this. I wonder how much it would take to keep going from this out to (into?) a big and beefy argument for the sustained relevance of “social realism” in fiction?
Blake- nothing can ever drive us apart.
anthony l- hey that’s awesome, man. Eva and I had dinner with Padgett last night. First time I’d seen him in a buncha years. It was really great. That’s cool you’re doing this story. If you make your kids read this essay, I’ll totally answer their questions if they want to email me or post here. Or not. I mean, whatever works.
Mike- I’m glad you liked it. I’m drunk now, but I think the key word in “social realism,” at least as I used it, is the word “strict” which came before it. I side with Donald Barthelme in not being convinced that what we think of as “realism” truly qualifies as a more valid representation of ‘the real’ than experimental or other non-realist forms. Granted, there’s a tangible difference between Marilynne Robinson and Aimee Bender, we don’t have to argue that the reverend John Boughton is as “unreal” as Bender’s girl with the hand of fire and girl with the hand of ice, or Chris Adrian’s Children’s Hospital. but there’s clearly a point beyond which these categories are less than useful. I’m thinking of Bishop on O’Connor, of course, as I wrote, but in terms of satiric fiction, I think it’s very easy to read something like “Civilwarland” as a dark cartoon, whereas I think it’s much closer to reality than that–as the dinosaur photo proves. My other favorite example of this is unsurprisingly the brilliant Chris Bachelder, whose Bear V Shark was read as heavy satire until reality TV basically out-satired it within 18 months of its publication. It’s still a great book, but for other reasons.
Blake- nothing can ever drive us apart.
anthony l- hey that’s awesome, man. Eva and I had dinner with Padgett last night. First time I’d seen him in a buncha years. It was really great. That’s cool you’re doing this story. If you make your kids read this essay, I’ll totally answer their questions if they want to email me or post here. Or not. I mean, whatever works.
Mike- I’m glad you liked it. I’m drunk now, but I think the key word in “social realism,” at least as I used it, is the word “strict” which came before it. I side with Donald Barthelme in not being convinced that what we think of as “realism” truly qualifies as a more valid representation of ‘the real’ than experimental or other non-realist forms. Granted, there’s a tangible difference between Marilynne Robinson and Aimee Bender, we don’t have to argue that the reverend John Boughton is as “unreal” as Bender’s girl with the hand of fire and girl with the hand of ice, or Chris Adrian’s Children’s Hospital. but there’s clearly a point beyond which these categories are less than useful. I’m thinking of Bishop on O’Connor, of course, as I wrote, but in terms of satiric fiction, I think it’s very easy to read something like “Civilwarland” as a dark cartoon, whereas I think it’s much closer to reality than that–as the dinosaur photo proves. My other favorite example of this is unsurprisingly the brilliant Chris Bachelder, whose Bear V Shark was read as heavy satire until reality TV basically out-satired it within 18 months of its publication. It’s still a great book, but for other reasons.
Hey Justin, thanks for this article. I remember thinking along a similar trajectory when I read GS’s “Puppy” in the NY-er last year. What struck me is that the work reminded me so much of, well, Gogol — the kind of thing that has you laughing until you’re tearing up and it takes a while to realize you’re actually crying. I could totally see Al wearing “The Overcoat.” Also, paging Sam Starkweather:
‘A bird on a parking bumper bolted, alarmed at the advance of the leaves. Stupid leaves, they’d never catch that bird. Unless he killed it with a stone, left it lying there. They’d be so grateful they’d declare him King of Leaves.’
Hey Justin, thanks for this article. I remember thinking along a similar trajectory when I read GS’s “Puppy” in the NY-er last year. What struck me is that the work reminded me so much of, well, Gogol — the kind of thing that has you laughing until you’re tearing up and it takes a while to realize you’re actually crying. I could totally see Al wearing “The Overcoat.” Also, paging Sam Starkweather:
‘A bird on a parking bumper bolted, alarmed at the advance of the leaves. Stupid leaves, they’d never catch that bird. Unless he killed it with a stone, left it lying there. They’d be so grateful they’d declare him King of Leaves.’
I like the 400 pound CEO and The Barber’s Unhappiness.
I like the 400 pound CEO and The Barber’s Unhappiness.
i fixated on ‘a dense ball of birds went linear’
i fixated on ‘a dense ball of birds went linear’
we’re reading sea oak in my intro to reading/writing about fiction class
good essay justin – i liked reading this
we’re reading sea oak in my intro to reading/writing about fiction class
good essay justin – i liked reading this
Ana- glad you enjoyed it! And yeah, I know GS is a big Chekhov guy, so it stands to reason there’s some Gogol in there too.
Gian- ditto and ditto.
Ryan- thanks.
Ana- glad you enjoyed it! And yeah, I know GS is a big Chekhov guy, so it stands to reason there’s some Gogol in there too.
Gian- ditto and ditto.
Ryan- thanks.
great essay justin.
i really like the idea of really getting into a particular piece of writing — like you did here. you should (we should) do this more often.
great essay justin.
i really like the idea of really getting into a particular piece of writing — like you did here. you should (we should) do this more often.
Sure, yeah, I’m not thinking so much of representation as concerns, I think.
Sure, yeah, I’m not thinking so much of representation as concerns, I think.
[…] HTML Giant, Justin Taylor looks at the work of George Saunders via his short story “Al Roosten”. […]
thanks for the link, scowl.
thanks for the link, scowl.
You’re welcome; thanks for the piece…
You’re welcome; thanks for the piece…
This is great. I did not know Saunders was a Buddhist. Compassion isn’t so hard when you realize the non-dual nature of reality.
This is great. I did not know Saunders was a Buddhist. Compassion isn’t so hard when you realize the non-dual nature of reality.
great post. people are talking about this one, justin. people are talking.
great post. people are talking about this one, justin. people are talking.
Great essay, Justin. I liked that you contextualized the story in a comprehensive spiritual bent. Illuminating.
Great essay, Justin. I liked that you contextualized the story in a comprehensive spiritual bent. Illuminating.
I can’t talk pretty, today.
I can’t talk pretty, today.
Fucking brilliant, Justin. I have nothing else to say really. I don’t think satire is “mere” nor do I think Al Roosten was satire, but there are elements, for sure.
I just loved this. Wow.
Fucking brilliant, Justin. I have nothing else to say really. I don’t think satire is “mere” nor do I think Al Roosten was satire, but there are elements, for sure.
I just loved this. Wow.
One thing- I feel he walk a tightrope of mocking his characters (this would be the satire) and yet compassion is poured all over them as well. It’s a wonderful balance, but a balance nontheless. Occasionally, he falls to the side a bit, and his characters become too mocked for my taste. I don’t like to feel the author’s superiority (and it is something I struggle with in my own work, I feel). Mostly, he stays delicately wavering on that rope. He’s awesome.
One thing- I feel he walk a tightrope of mocking his characters (this would be the satire) and yet compassion is poured all over them as well. It’s a wonderful balance, but a balance nontheless. Occasionally, he falls to the side a bit, and his characters become too mocked for my taste. I don’t like to feel the author’s superiority (and it is something I struggle with in my own work, I feel). Mostly, he stays delicately wavering on that rope. He’s awesome.
That said (wow, I’m really thinking in a very disjointed way -(sorry)- I think I may like your essay more than the story. What does that mean?
That said (wow, I’m really thinking in a very disjointed way -(sorry)- I think I may like your essay more than the story. What does that mean?
pr, i agree: i don’t think this is satire. this has satirical elements, but is ultimately complex. if anything, i think it might fall to the compassionate scale of the balance. i don’t necessarily feel saunders himself is implicated when al roosten, for example, is berating the blond lady or the other guy. i feel the author distanced from that. roosten is flawed, but, as justin points out, “lovable”, which is to say, i think, “sympathetic”.
i’m not really a fan of satire without some compassion to balance it because i don’t feel like the author is really taking any personal chances there. there’s no danger, because there’s no love. the most effective “satire”, i think, is satire that is serves not only as an indictment against the group or society being satirized, but ultimately against the author as well. that’s when i think satire becomes complex, mysterious, transcendent.
pr, i agree: i don’t think this is satire. this has satirical elements, but is ultimately complex. if anything, i think it might fall to the compassionate scale of the balance. i don’t necessarily feel saunders himself is implicated when al roosten, for example, is berating the blond lady or the other guy. i feel the author distanced from that. roosten is flawed, but, as justin points out, “lovable”, which is to say, i think, “sympathetic”.
i’m not really a fan of satire without some compassion to balance it because i don’t feel like the author is really taking any personal chances there. there’s no danger, because there’s no love. the most effective “satire”, i think, is satire that is serves not only as an indictment against the group or society being satirized, but ultimately against the author as well. that’s when i think satire becomes complex, mysterious, transcendent.
James, I think we are in agreement on satire and compassion in general. I guess I find in this story an issue with a well known, famous writer, writing for the elite who read the New Yorker, writing about “simple folk”. Ultimately, he finds his balance, and like I said, pours compassion all over them. But that educational and even class difference can be where he slips a bit for me, in the other direction. This is nitpicking maybe, so I feel sort of dumb pointing it out. But with Cheever, for instance (again, only some of his stories utilized elements of satire), he was always gently mocking his own kind. It’s a bit more delicate when you mock “others”. Anyway, great story, interesting discussion and Justin’s piece rocked me off my chair.
James, I think we are in agreement on satire and compassion in general. I guess I find in this story an issue with a well known, famous writer, writing for the elite who read the New Yorker, writing about “simple folk”. Ultimately, he finds his balance, and like I said, pours compassion all over them. But that educational and even class difference can be where he slips a bit for me, in the other direction. This is nitpicking maybe, so I feel sort of dumb pointing it out. But with Cheever, for instance (again, only some of his stories utilized elements of satire), he was always gently mocking his own kind. It’s a bit more delicate when you mock “others”. Anyway, great story, interesting discussion and Justin’s piece rocked me off my chair.
Finding this very late, but I just wanted to say fantastic article here Justin. I’ve recently gotten into Saunders, starting with “Puppy” which blew me away. Now “Al Roosten” and “Victory Lap” have wormed their way into my brain, and I am glad. I welcome it, even. I’ve been so encouraged by the authors pushing the state of “literary” fiction. GS, AM Homes, TC Boyle, and many newer voices (to me at least) in this year’s BASS – Karen Brown’s “Galatea” and Katie Chase’s “Man and Wife.” I met Ron Kesey at AWP NYC and much like these other voices, find that there is indeed room for more “surreal” literary fiction, magical realism, and language as well, curse words and sex, my LORD. :-) I will now read any GS wherever it pops up. And that’s a good thing. Sometimes you just find a voice that resonates. Some other voices I’ve recently found that I’ll just trot out there, Mary Gaitskill (Bad Behavior), she’s been around, but new to me, but also Holly Goddard Jones (Girl Trouble) and Mary Miller (Big World). Check them out, if you haven’t yet.
Thanks Justin. Great article.
Peace,
Richard
Finding this very late, but I just wanted to say fantastic article here Justin. I’ve recently gotten into Saunders, starting with “Puppy” which blew me away. Now “Al Roosten” and “Victory Lap” have wormed their way into my brain, and I am glad. I welcome it, even. I’ve been so encouraged by the authors pushing the state of “literary” fiction. GS, AM Homes, TC Boyle, and many newer voices (to me at least) in this year’s BASS – Karen Brown’s “Galatea” and Katie Chase’s “Man and Wife.” I met Ron Kesey at AWP NYC and much like these other voices, find that there is indeed room for more “surreal” literary fiction, magical realism, and language as well, curse words and sex, my LORD. :-) I will now read any GS wherever it pops up. And that’s a good thing. Sometimes you just find a voice that resonates. Some other voices I’ve recently found that I’ll just trot out there, Mary Gaitskill (Bad Behavior), she’s been around, but new to me, but also Holly Goddard Jones (Girl Trouble) and Mary Miller (Big World). Check them out, if you haven’t yet.
Thanks Justin. Great article.
Peace,
Richard
[…] you’ve read “Roosten,” make sure to check out this Justin Taylor essay comparing him to Flannery O’Connor. The essay has stood out in my mind longer than most for […]