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Pastoralia

4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 · rating details · 5,552 ratings · 517 reviews

Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders now surpasses his New York Times Notable Book, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, with this bestselling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape. One of Entertainment Weekly’s Ten Best Books of the Year

"Artful and sophisicated... tru...more

Paperback, 208 pages

Published June 1st 2001 by Riverhead Trade (first published May 8th 2000)

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Jul 15, 2010 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Rob by: Amy by way of Sarah

Shelves: ambulothanatophobia, bedside, 2008, collection, own, 2010

Imagine for a moment that you go into the up-scale liquor store around the block that is celebrated city-wide for its fabulous wine selection. You're a bit of a novice when it comes to wine and are a little embarrassed to be here because your wallet is that ballistic nylon stuff and not something truly exotic like alligator skin and with that in mind you decide not to ask the sommelier for any help. You browse around the store looking for a bottle of something called David Foster Wallace that wa...more Imagine for a moment that you go into the up-scale liquor store around the block that is celebrated city-wide for its fabulous wine selection. You're a bit of a novice when it comes to wine and are a little embarrassed to be here because your wallet is that ballistic nylon stuff and not something truly exotic like alligator skin and with that in mind you decide not to ask the sommelier for any help. You browse around the store looking for a bottle of something called David Foster Wallace that was recommended to you by your friend with the alligator skin wallet. You manage to find the bottle of DFW and admire the fancy bottle with its fancy label and its curlicues and footnotes and excellent leading. The bottle seems really heavy and big and everyone has told you how excellent it is. So you decide to try it but when you actually get to the counter you discover that you've picked up a bottle of something called George Saunders by mistake. The George Saunders bottle isn't as big or as fancy as the DFW and in fact it looks a little bit like a down-market or off-label knock-off of the vintage DFW but at the same time you believe that there is maybe something authentic and distinct about it anyway. The sommelier gives you a funny look as he rings you up but you don't say anything because you don't want to look stupid in front of him and anyway you're probably just being self-conscious about the whole thing like the time you had a glass of Pynchon at your friend's house and you said that it was a good Vonnegut and everyone laughed and your friend explained that the Vonnegut has a much sharper finish and you'll notice how the Pynchon seems to hang around in your mouth so much longer but he could see how you might make that mistake. And you try to think about that night on your drive home because it's that same friend with the alligator skin wallet that is coming over for dinner tonight with his wife and you remember how he plays golf with your boss and this is an important event to get right. So that night before the main course you pour everyone's glass in the kitchen so that no one will see the bottle and the secret will be safe with you. And your wife brings out the entree and you bring out the wine and everyone digs in and finds it delicious. Your friend with the alligator skin wallet remarks on how delicious the wine is and did you have any trouble finding the David Foster Wallace at the store? And was the sommelier there helpful? And what year did he recommend because this is really really quite good? And you smile and try to decide whether or not to say anything because you know that you'll need to say something but how are you going to make up something plausible on the spot. But then your wife blurts out that it's really a George Saunders and don't you just love it? Because she slurped down her glass of George Saunders and it was her third of the night anyway because she and your friend's wife managed to down a whole bottle of David Sedaris as a warm-up but they both agreed it was too dry for them even though you and your friend think that it's the perfect middle-of-the-week wine. For a moment you're paralyzed with fear because this was your shot, your chance to show off and really shine and display your competence and you blew it because you were too chicken shit to tell the sommelier at the counter that you picked up the wrong bottle by mistake. But instead your friend raises an eyebrow and says that it's wonderful, just delightful, and he'd never tried it before and though maybe it's not as dry as the DFW, does it ever have a great finish and it's just perfect for a dinner party, isn't it?(less)

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Dec 07, 2011 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

I think that if the arrangement of this collection had been reversed I would be singing a different tune right now, but as it stands I am a bit torn regarding rating this thing. Man, these stories are well-written. Saunders is darkly witty, and clearly his heart is in the right place. His main point of contention with the modern world is the reckless hammer of Capitalism, an easy target to be sure, but that is arguably all the more reason to call it into question. The injuries that it inflicts a...more I think that if the arrangement of this collection had been reversed I would be singing a different tune right now, but as it stands I am a bit torn regarding rating this thing. Man, these stories are well-written. Saunders is darkly witty, and clearly his heart is in the right place. His main point of contention with the modern world is the reckless hammer of Capitalism, an easy target to be sure, but that is arguably all the more reason to call it into question. The injuries that it inflicts are almost universally felt.

In Pastoralia, Saunders has created a series of near-future worlds sprinkled with Dystopian and Horror elements, in which the voyeuristic tendencies and indiscriminately exploitative undercurrents of modern society are heightened in such a way that they become grossly comical. The name of the game is satire, and he pulls out all the stops while driving home just how pathetically isolating, spirit-breaking, and hedon-making the process of staying above water in today's Western World has become for its majority. Saunders has the panache of a Gilliam, Burgess, or Huxley, most effectively executed in the phenomenal title story which composes the first half of the book. However, his sardonic message eventually gets to feeling a bit redundant, and the stories seem to grow weaker and weaker as you move forward. For one, he is not really in the habit of crafting likeable characters. This is not generally a deal-breaker for me (if you know me on gr, that should be clear enough), but it begins to feel short-sighted after a while. Then again, I suppose that if you continuously grind a person down, there eventually won't be much left other than his or her most vile, base desires and tendencies. Enter George Saunders...

I dunno; maybe the novella Pastoralia just outshines the rest of the stories by far too many watts. Still, the collection is a fast and surprisingly breezy read for its dark content. I would strongly recommend Saunders to anyone with a stomach of steel and the heart of a cynic. Or anyway, that's me, and I thought this was pretty damn good indeed.

*Just imagine a fourth star, but its bulb is perpetually burning out in that way that makes it erratically flicker on and off. Deal? (less)

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Mar 08, 2012 Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, short-stories

Like other folks I know and respect on Goodreads, I loved the opening, titular story but found the rest of the book to be middling. Like, disappointingly, forgettably, middling. I know the stories were kinda weird and stuff but for the life of me I can barely even remember what they were about or even distinguish them from each other. I don't think I've ever felt so uneven about a short story collection. It's so strange that it makes me curious enough to give them a reread at some point, despite...more Like other folks I know and respect on Goodreads, I loved the opening, titular story but found the rest of the book to be middling. Like, disappointingly, forgettably, middling. I know the stories were kinda weird and stuff but for the life of me I can barely even remember what they were about or even distinguish them from each other. I don't think I've ever felt so uneven about a short story collection. It's so strange that it makes me curious enough to give them a reread at some point, despite the less than flattering description I've just given. I feel like I must have read them incorrectly somehow, since the opening story was so engaging and fun, which is where the ~~four~~ three stars come from.

I love books and films that utilize facades and museum-like tableaux and the story "Pastoralia" does this with great effect. This quality plus the cover image of my copy of this book has established itself so firmly in my mind that when I see things like fake trees indoors or big landscape/nature murals (think of the paintings placed around City Hall on the TV show Parks and Recreation) that I think of them as being "Saunders-like" in the instant-association segment of my brain. I haven't yet totally over-analyzed what my attraction to certain uses of facades and replicas is all about yet (though there's been a more extended musing on this elsewhere) but I guess it might just have something to do with fond childhood memories of visiting museums and being enthralled by the displays of animals and humans, made to be lifelike but frozen into place behind glass. I still experience a powerful mix of sentimentality with a healthy dose of Ineffability when I revisit the Milwaukee Public Museum, a place I've wandered around many times over the years, each time worrying that I'll drain the magic of the childhood memories on this visit, but each time managing to still feel wrapped in an almost mystical euphoria and nostalgia.

Saunders tale is surreal and dark and playful and some of its main devices called this feeling up from the inner depths.

This is still the only Saunders I've read. I assumed his work would be so up my alley that I ordered three of his short story collections last year, had my weirdly uneven experience with this one and haven't exactly felt compelled to make the others a priority yet. I still have a sense that I'll like more of his work, but this experience was just such a strange disappointment in a way I can't really explain at all. At least I have a case to solve now, so I'll be back to Saundersville to snoop around for clues and answers later.(less)

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Apr 17, 2013 Madeleine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, our-libeary, mmxiii

Based on the opinions of people with excellent taste in books, I knew I was in for something good when I grabbed Pastoralia from the shelf the other day. I didn't know what to expect beyond that but it sure wasn't the sardonic giggles this collection gave me. Does everyone find their first foray into Saunders's mind this darkly endearing? 'Cause.... lemme tell you, you all led me somewhere I can't wait to revisit.

There is something off about the worlds Saunders creates. Not off-the-charts unbeli...more Based on the opinions of people with excellent taste in books, I knew I was in for something good when I grabbed Pastoralia from the shelf the other day. I didn't know what to expect beyond that but it sure wasn't the sardonic giggles this collection gave me. Does everyone find their first foray into Saunders's mind this darkly endearing? 'Cause.... lemme tell you, you all led me somewhere I can't wait to revisit.

There is something off about the worlds Saunders creates. Not off-the-charts unbelievably weird (view spoiler) but there's this vertiginous element to them that makes being jarred from such a mercilessly absorbing reading experience by, say, the unwelcome intrusion of your job (whyyyyyyy do you people keep assuming I'm here to proofread your ineptitude when I'm so clearly lost in something that is infinitely more rewarding than your refusals to grasp the nuances of proper comma usage and pica distances WHYYYY?) a little disorienting upon reentry. I encountered a thing that doesn't happen often enough while reading this short-story collection: I forgot I was reading because I was so engrossed in the tales Saunders was weaving. Picturing the story that was taking shape right in front of me was equal parts riveting and really quite disturbing. Kind of like the clown car on fire that you'll snap photos of as you pass the gruesome scene but fuck no you're not stopping to help because it's a car full of clowns and everyone knows that clowns are evil but then the sadness of the whole thing hits you when you post the picture (along with an appropriately glib comment) on Twitter later but you're still snickering about the image for days.

And then there is something distinctly, deliciously Vonnegut-flavored here, too, but Saunders even makes that all his own. While Vonnegut's humor seemed like that of a cranky but avuncular relative whose lessons seem harsh at the time but are driven by an overriding love and a desire to emphasize the necessity of self-improvement, who softens the blow of reality with a satirical wit, Saunders seems more interested in pointing out the flaws so they can be turned into a long-running joke that derives its comedy from the dichotomy between a thing's inherent potential for dark humor and the deadpan subtlety in observing it from such an angle. It's realizing the hopelessness of a situation and having a good laugh at its expense because, otherwise, the void wins and everything is rendered too meaningless to face just one more insignificant day.

Pastoralia, ultimately, is a collection of stories that proves if you're taking life too seriously, you're doing it all wrong. Tragedy is just comedy that tests your resolve to arrive at the punchline. (less)

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Jun 04, 2012 Jacob rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-fiction, 2012, salinger-sandburg-saunders

Previously: In Persuasion Nation

January 2012

protesting in Madison

[Image description: Photo of a woman standing in front of the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. She is holding a protest sign that says "Hey Scott! The phone is ringing! It’s the people of WISCONSIN."]

January 14, 2011: My parents took me out to eat for my birthday. Nice sushi place in Madison, a few blocks from the State Capitol. It was snowing when we left the restaurant, and the capitol building looked very pretty lit up so late at night. My mom w...more

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Nov 04, 2010 MJ Nicholls rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, merkins

‘Pastoralia’ (the opening story) shows what Saunders can do. How his prose can be funny and surreal and warm and satirical and touching. Unfortunately, having done this, the other stories in this collection seem like shticky filler. ‘Winky’ was another strong piece, but I found myself snoozing through ‘Sea Oak’ which does a surrealist dance in a ra-ra skirt, and getting annoyed by his rhythms in ‘The Barber’s Unhappiness.’ His repetition, his rambling passages of superfluous detail, how he goes...more

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Mar 16, 2008 Heidi Mckye rated it 4 of 5 stars

Any person who does not deeply love George Saunders is not allowed to be my friend. Even a little bit.

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May 27, 2008 Mykle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Wal-Mart employees contemplating suicide

Shelves: can-t-decide

I finished this last night when I couldn't sleep ... I adore George Saunders in small doses, he is so very funny and has such an ear for the pathos of our sad American industrial poverty.

But there's a kind of story that he writes over and over again ... not exactly the same story but the same kind of story. A story about a hilariously awful job, a hilariously difficult life and a sad, pathetic person stuck within. I don't even object to the repetition, but when I read it all back to back the re...more

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Mar 13, 2008 Dani rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's kind of a funny story...
Someone on topicless asked "What music are you currently addicted to?" So someone recommended the Matches, who have this song called The Barber's Unhappiness. I got pretty hooked on this song, but was listening to it thinking, this is a really weird song, lyrically. What is all this stuff about twin rose trellises?

So I went on songmeanings.net, where if anyone knows anything about what a song is really about, it shall be posted. and indeed, I was pointed to the Georg...more

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Sep 08, 2007 Leftbanker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Comic Genius

The only American publication I still receive here in Spain is The New Yorker. It gets here a little late so you'll have to excuse the late news. Probably my favorite funny person in the world, George Saunders, has a story in the May 28 issue. Not to spoil this mess of a story for you but I found this part laugh-out-loud funny. Why did I find it laugh-out-loud funny? It just is.

But if no one took the pup he’d do it. He’d have to. Because his feeling was, when you said you were going...more Comic Genius

The only American publication I still receive here in Spain is The New Yorker. It gets here a little late so you'll have to excuse the late news. Probably my favorite funny person in the world, George Saunders, has a story in the May 28 issue. Not to spoil this mess of a story for you but I found this part laugh-out-loud funny. Why did I find it laugh-out-loud funny? It just is.

But if no one took the pup he’d do it. He’d have to. Because his feeling was, when you said you were going to do a thing and didn’t do it, that was how kids got into drugs.

I will probably steal this line, not in print but in conversation. When I do I doubt that I will get a laugh, just a blank stare and a "I think I have to go now."

I sent this out last year as a bulk email so I'll stick it in here, too. This is one of the funniest fucking things that I have ever read. It's taken from a George Saunders story in Pastoralia called The Barber's Unhappiness. A group of people are forced to take a remedial driver's education course for speeding violations. The instructor gives this tortured discourse on safety:

"What I was saying was that, our aim is, we're going to be looking at some things or aspects, in terms of driving? Meaning safety, meaning, is speeding something we do in a vacuum, or could it involve a pedestrian or fatality or a family out for a fun drive, and then here you come, speeding, with safety or destiny of that family not held firmly in your mind, and what happens next? Who knows?"

"A crash?" said someone.

"An accident?" said someone else.

"Crash or accident both could," said the instructor. "Either one might or may. Because I've seen, in my CPR role, as a paramedic, when many times, and I'm sorry if you find this gross or too much, I've had to sit in our rescue vehicle with a cut-off arm or hand, even of a kid, a really small arm or even limb, just weeping as if I hadn't been thoroughly trained, as I know none of you have, but I have, and why was I holding that small arm or limb and bawling? Because of someone like you yourselves, good people, I know you are, I'm not saying that, but you decided what? What did you decide? Or they. That person who cut off that kid's arm I was carrying that day I was just saying."

No one knew.

"They decide to speed is what you did," said the instructor sadly, with pity for both the armless child and the otherwise good people who on that fateful day had decided to speed, and now sat before him, lives ruined.

"I didn't hit nobody," said a girl in a T-shirt that said Buggin'. "Cop just stopped me."(less)

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Aug 08, 2007 Spencer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm doing this from memory, hope I don't leave any out--

"Pastoralia" - some interesting ideas (and some all too familiar ones) about human social organization. Too long.
"Winky" - wacky but one-dimensional. The ending is pretty predictable.
"Sea Oak" - hysterical and sophisticated, the best story in the book.
"The End of FIRPO in the World" - very touching and an interesting protagonist, but so short it felt underdeveloped. I wish this story had been much longer.
"The Barber's Unhappiness" - Some in...more

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Jul 15, 2010 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

One or two of the jacket blurbs on this collection of short stories compares Saunders to Matt Groenig, and I could definitely see especially the title story as a Simpsons episode. It's bitingly funny and a little sad (because it's true). That's the genius of a good satirist I guess. There's no doubt Saunders is one of the greats writing today. This book is fun, funny, fascinating and thought provoking. The best parts are what one critic calls the "self-flagellating interior monologue" -- his cha...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Will rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story

Good grief. Seriously, this is the next "big thing?" After reading Civilwarland in Bad Decline, I thought, "It might be a hokey throwback to Vonnegut, but by Samuel Clemens' ghost, George has got something here..." Of course, after reading Pastoralia, I have become strangely skeptical of his growth as an author.

Sure, what Saunders has produced is worthy of some attention, but is this guy a one-trick pony? I'm almost convinced he doesn't read anything--at least not so much it would change his st...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Raconteur rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Why is Pastoralia by George Saunders , a collection of far fetched short stories a worthy read?
For once, his writing style is graced by authentic, compassionate, and cruel humor squeezed into wildly imaginary novellas.
Two of the stories "Winky" and "The Falls" while probably not in the same standing as the others novellas, have an existential daydream quality to them.
Both protagonist despised by others, flee into an inner day dreaming dialogue that rapidly hurdles them into a life or death Scena...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Justin Gerhardstein rated it 3 of 5 stars

Question: Who is that creepy depressing dude with the awkward fake smile that lives in that crappy apartment complex down the road? Answer: find out exactly what's going on in that dude's head in Pastoralia!

If you haven't read any Saunders, check him out; even if you don't dig his style, it's entertaining, digestible and very well written. This paperback contains 6 short stories that all seem to revolve around mediocre, and sometimes unlikable, characters. Saunders takes the fleeting thoughts o...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read around 2004. Here's an interesting quote from the back cover of William Empson's "Some Versions of Pastoral". I think it can be applied to Pastoralia or Tenth of December. "Mr Empson sees the pastoral convention as including not only poems of shepherd life but any work 'about the people but not by or for' them." (And since he named the book Pastoralia, if he's not aware of this, I am sure he would allow for such an interpretation.) I don't see this as a bad thing, necessarily. I probably wo...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: postmodernism, stories, dark, funny, hipster, smart-nerdy, personal-favorite, alt-history

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

I had the pleasure of getting to talk with legendary author George Saunders for CCLaP's podcast last week, a rare treat given how in demand he is on this latest tour even among the major media; but that meant I had to do some serious cramming in the few weeks leading up to our talk, in that (I guiltily con...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: shorts, reads-i-recommend

Six short stories populated with an array of neurotic characters. Something about the writing feels fresh and different, but I can't qualify that.

My favorite story form the collection, the first in the collection and eponymous 'Pastoralia' takes place at a sort of history center meant to educate people about what it was like to live in other periods of time. The main characters live in the cave-man exhibit.

The business is undergoing financial stress and sends out funny letters. I quote one of...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

One can easily read Saunders and DFW as doing something similar: taking the cynical 'postmodern' literary style/pose and turning it inside out, so you start off with the cynicism and pose and end up, either to your disgust or delight, with an intense emotional connection to these characters. But they're not real people! But narrative is an oppression of the real world! Oh, you are so inauthentic! But more importantly, you're a human being again.

This is particularly effective, I think, in the lo...more One can easily read Saunders and DFW as doing something similar: taking the cynical 'postmodern' literary style/pose and turning it inside out, so you start off with the cynicism and pose and end up, either to your disgust or delight, with an intense emotional connection to these characters. But they're not real people! But narrative is an oppression of the real world! Oh, you are so inauthentic! But more importantly, you're a human being again.

This is particularly effective, I think, in the longer stories. In those Saunders does an amazing job of showing our non-romantic relationships, with our bosses, work-mates, family and our selves. It's easy to write a love story in which the real world has no impact; it's much harder to write about the relationships Saunders focuses on and forget that these relationships are often deformed in horrific ways by the pressures of, well, modern capitalism. A nice, if repetitive device is the violence with which the bosses and authority figures always treat the English language. In Saunders' universe, it appears, the inability to use syntax is identical with the inability to be a decent person. I think that's about right.

I love all of that: very self-aware, emotionally moving stories that are moving because of the harm the world inflicts on people rather than because of the characters being so well fleshed out that you can't help but get invested, and that show you in no uncertain terms how important syntax is to human existence.
The problem is that it's all very one note.* This is, of course, a problem for most short story writers. Saunders is almost certainly aware of it: 'Brief and Terrifying' is clearly one way out of the short-story drudge. I really hope he can find other ways out of it, but even if he can't, the three short story collections deserve a small place in the Fictioneers' Corner, wherever that might be.

*: I have a theory, motivated entirely by one line on wikipedia, which tells me that Saunders used to be a Randian. In short, he's like an ex-smoker: his attacks on modern life aren't without cause, but they might be without end. (less)

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Jul 19, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short_stories, read-more-than-once, contemporary_fiction

Wobbling back and forth between five stars and four. I generally prefer this collection to his first, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, though there are gems in that book that I've read a few times and love to distraction. ("The 400-pound CEO" is just freaking amazing.)

Similiarly, stories I love in this collection I've read more than once—"The Falls," the story that closes out the book, is a stunner, not the least of which because it ends on a hopeful note that redeems the grim characters who people...more

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view all 5 comments

Michael Oh, do you mean the NYer story in which the kid brains the would-be kidnapper with, like, a geode? Because that story was brilliant. That it didn't ap...more
Jul 19, 2012 02:01pm

Marian The one I read was about a soldier returned home to his mom and messed-up family. Not quite brilliant but very, very good. Gotta check out those I mis...more
Jul 20, 2012 02:59am

Jun 23, 2012 Lisa Roney rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction

This was my first experience reading Saunders, and I had read a review of this book that called it futuristic and surreal. I found it neither, though I suppose it's true that the title novella (which is narrated by a man who works as a caveman in a theme park and also has to live there) might seem to most people futuristic and surreal. To those of us who live near Disney World, it seems all too real and current.

And that's what's most interesting to me about Saunders other stories as well--the wa...more

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May 14, 2012 natalie chin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i liked the cover of this book
a healthy deer in ‘the wilderness’
looking serenely away from the camera
like where it is right now is where it belongs
i want to be that deer

the first story of this book was ‘pastoralia’
i didn’t know what was ‘going on’ till much later
i think it’s set in a different kind of future or maybe
the world of the narrator is confined to this world
and the normal world exists outside
he works and lives in a cave/enclosure of some sort
at first it seemed like a zoo, maybe
but there...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably one of the best story collections I've ever read. Characters with strong, clear, and distinct voices. The ability to plant us into the lives of these "hopeless nobodies" without being preachy or bashing us over the head. Best of all it conveys their inescapable, menial and shitty lives and the problems inherent in our society in such a darkly hilarious way. The arc of the stories themselves is nicely placed. Pastoralia (the novella) wonderfully transports the reader into the vision Saun...more

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Feb 24, 2011 Ted Burke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Author George Saunders is a crazed ,surrealist comedian who , in his tales of conflated literary genres and cultural traits defying any personalized sense of proportion you might have and cherish, reminds you in moments of the three year old for whom there is no required separation between ideas, things and the places where they may belong. That is to say what ever makes sense in the telling of a tale is okay, is alright, is perfectly natural, "natural", that is , because it occurred to the thre...more Author George Saunders is a crazed ,surrealist comedian who , in his tales of conflated literary genres and cultural traits defying any personalized sense of proportion you might have and cherish, reminds you in moments of the three year old for whom there is no required separation between ideas, things and the places where they may belong. That is to say what ever makes sense in the telling of a tale is okay, is alright, is perfectly natural, "natural", that is , because it occurred to the three year old while his mind gathered it's narrative materials. Nothing is excluded, no matter how out of wac. So it is with Saunders, who's 2001 story collection Pastoralia is simply an inspired and condensed can of insanity.

Something about this world reminds me, fleetingly, of The Bed Sitting Room, a film directed by Richard Lester, where addled Brits go about their business after a three-second nuclear war, as if nothing had happened, unaware that their actions are very odd permutations of old habits. This , along with the fact that some characters are morphing into inanimate objects.

What's similiar is that they way you, like Lester, treat your inventions less as weirdness for it's own sake--Tom Robbins when he's boiling over--but how you keep the descriptions and the details of your character's lives in scale; your tone has the unfoldings and detail bask in the light of their own skewed logic: the details relate to one another. "Sea Oak" , with all it's reversals and inversions , pretty much gets the internalized logic of diminishing returns in strip clubs. The returned aunt from the dead, pissed an aggressive economic agenda for a family of whiners, was genius.His use of brief sentences and jerky dialogue makes this skewed universe clang and clack with a sound and feel not so removed from the actual world: his attention to the banal, and his twisting the items just so, makes this a wonderful set of satires. "Sea Oak" is particularly brilliant.

A basic and important strength in your writing is the spare style you prefer to use, as it allows you, it seems to be, to accumulate the carnivalized strangeness and build on it credibly, if that's the word to use. It gives your zaniness a subtle, additional dimensionality that makes this series of tales read like descriptions of a fully realized universe.
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Mar 13, 2010 Thurston Hunger rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

More Magical Cynicism (?) from Saunders as I work my way through his body of work. I still think his writing is chewing gummy, but at least a new variation that like some kind of memory metal can partially reconstruct itself like origami on your tastebuds. Then again perhaps I'm all wrong, and this is more substantial and meant to hold families and Critical Reading faculties together?

On the Adult Swim scale, it's definitely on the Swim side of the pool...if you love this, congratulations you ar...more

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Jan 26, 2010 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-humor-short-stories

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Thin line of gold: How George Saunders fuzzes our minds with “no-no-not-me” stream of consciousness naysayerism, making readers’ eyes pop when he pops a hero out of his hat in “The Falls” (from the Pastoralia stories)

It’s the “long, ugly body” (188) that takes your throat. It’s the story’s last line and the last unit of insult. It’s the persistence of self-loathing even after the character Morse has kicked off his loafers, in spite of having convinced himself that the soon-to-be-drowning girls...more

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Oct 11, 2009 Bren rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In a harsh, gray environment with no viable means of escape comes George Sanders' short story collection, Pastoralia. Eight protagonists in six stories find that their means of life - though somewhat more exaggerated and scathingly satirical than anything ordinarily lived in the non-literary realm - discover that their own traumas and trials of living have become who they are.

Look at, for instance, the narrator of the title story, who literally resides at his job in a museum, as a real-life cave...more In a harsh, gray environment with no viable means of escape comes George Sanders' short story collection, Pastoralia. Eight protagonists in six stories find that their means of life - though somewhat more exaggerated and scathingly satirical than anything ordinarily lived in the non-literary realm - discover that their own traumas and trials of living have become who they are.

Look at, for instance, the narrator of the title story, who literally resides at his job in a museum, as a real-life caveman. Forbidden from speaking beyond primitive guttural noises and grossly pantomimed actions (even when nobody has peered inside the make-believe cave of the man and his "wife" in ages), the modern-day caveman plays his role fanatically for the sake of supporting his ailing son (whom he has not seen in years as the direct result of his job). The man's cave "wife," however, makes no such effort to follow the rules. She curses, allows personal visitors into the display, and tells off obnoxious visitors who ask embarrassing questions of the cave people. The narrator knows that she will be his eventual downfall, but feels some misplaced loyalty to her and lies in an attempt to protect her, in hopes that his kindness will eventually be remembered by her. Day after day, as tourists become fewer and fewer, the curators of the display begin to neglect the feeding of the cave people (i.e. no dead goat slipped into the cave from beyond, for the purposes of dressing, cooking, and eating within). And from this point on, things begin to turn dismal.

And so these tales of human anguish grow: a young overweight boy wrought with breathing problems, seeks to find acceptance through the imaginary people who commend his cruel pranks and misdeeds throughout the neighbourhood; A middle-aged stripper who lives with his luckless aunt, his sister, her friend, and their two very threatened young sons, in a decaying part of a violent town; A feeble-minded non-entity who feels burdened through life with his aging retarded sister, unable to provide proper care for either himself or for her, and thereby incapable of divining a proper life for either; A rambling old man who lives solely to impress his impassive wife and codger of a neighbour, and frequently fails to sate even himself; and a homely middle-aged barber who finds himself wrapped in fantasy of the gorgeous women he sees, admires, and realizes he will never live to have so long as his live-in mother dictates his life, though attempts to impose unfounded glamour on these anonymous faces of beauty.

Pastoralia is a dumping ground of human detritus, having drifted ashore from various wrecks over the ages, and have yet to sink beneath the polluted, salt-laden waves of despair.

One holding point in Sanders' work, however - the thing keeping him from attaining the heights of, say, a John Cheever or a Raymond Carver - is his reliance upon the word "shit." "Shit," and its various derivatives: "shithead," "shitbrain," "shitface," "crap," "dump," etc. Upon reading one of his stories, the reader feels compelled to wipe his or her shoes before setting the book down to peruse another. While there are no literary rules which make such obsequious vulgarities verboten, the prolific (and almost exclusive) usage thereof proves grating, much as overuse of any English noun/verb/adjective in a short span of paragraphs. It becomes not so much offensive as irritating, the reiteration of an unpleasant image driven through the text as if in a prurient attempt to expand word count.

All in all, though, Saunders' work represents a higher caliber of writings from a younger generation. He presents no unfounded allure nor attraction to even the most piteous of his characters, not making them so much traditionally sympathetic as he does palatably realistic.

A smear of realism in a Universe clouded with cruelties of an almost (but not absolute) surrealist nature.(less)

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May 30, 2009 Karin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, quirky, short-stories, borrowed-from-the-library

I’d read Saunders’ CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and loved it. He’s got so many weird things going on in his brain and in his stories. With this collection, I meant merely to glance at it one morning and I was immediately caught up in the first story, Pastoralia, which takes place in one of those reenactment types of parks – except the people on exhibit never go home. They have to live on site and are expected to behave according to whatever historical tradition they’re representing. Pastoralia is...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Charles rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Whoa...what the f**k was that? Were those stories for real? Strangely beautiful, despite the grotesque nature of some of the characters. Strangely horrific despite the humble heroism of some of the characters. If the ancient Hebrews had been trailer trash, and written their scriptures in tight, terse prose, then the Old Testament would read like some of these stories. If Lao Tzu had been the maintenance man at a crumbling Section 8 housing project, then the Tao Te Ching might read a bit like the...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, read-in-2012

was on my daughter's reading list for Uni, so read it while she was home. Very quick read too. review coming..

So pissed off! I wrote a beautiful review, probably the best review ever to appear on goodreads (and in the future too) and when I went to save it said GR was over capacity and I lost the whole thing. Now you lot will have to put up with a remembered re-hash which won't be as good of course.

Not really my sort of writing being dry and satirical and depending for its effects on tautology a...more

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About George Saunders

George Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysi...more

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Quotes from Pastoralia

“Down in the city are the nice houses and the so-so houses and the lovers making out in dark yards and the babies crying for their moms, and I wonder if, other than Jesus, has this ever happened before. Maybe it happens all the time. Maybe there's angry dead all over, hiding in rooms, covered with blankets, bossing around their scared, embarrassed relatives. Because how would we know?” — 8 people liked it

“Good God, but life could be less than easy, not that he was unaware that it could certainly be a lot worse, but to go about in such a state, pulse high, face red, worried sick that someone would notice how nervous one was, was certainly less than ideal, and he felt sure that his body was secreting all kinds of harmful chemicals and that the more he worried about the harmful chemicals the faster they were pouring out of wherever it was they came from.” — 4 people liked it

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