Pete's review
The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
It's worth at least an attempt to read through cover to cover, although if you get frustrated with some of the short "experimental" pieces (which, frankly, come off like his fiction with most of the charm and warmth removed -- which arguably may be the point) please do yourself the favor of reading his appreciations of literature (Johnny Tremain, Vonnegut, Huck Finn, a Barthelme short story he workshops) and the three reportage pieces. The third of those -- about a young monk meditating for months on end in Nepal -- is really good, and I think I liked it more for having gotten through the entire book to get to it. There's a good balance between a sort of cheerful cynicism (thankfully not the other way around) and awkward optimism (especially in the face of the awe-inspiring, and even in the face of what inspires awe in the other) in his thinking, which is what I really like about him, over and above all the consumerist satire that hooked me in the first place.
