george saunders tenth of december stories

Reading “Tenth of December” made reading Tenth of December more than worthwhile to me. One in ten: not a great ratio, if you weigh every reading experience equally, but I don’t think art really works that way. Then I read “Tenth of December.” This story put a lot less gimmickry in my way it was the only story in the book that seemed to me clearly written by the author of Lincoln in the Bardo. Nevertheless, I persisted with Tenth of December, both because of Lincoln in the Bardoand because of Saunders’ reputation, including with readers whose sensibilities I trust. “Home” was a better experience for me “My Chivalric Fiasco” was worse.

(I’m not saying it isn’t there: just that the style and conceit were very distancing for me.) This slowed my momentum in the collection to the point that I nearly didn’t pick it up again. Then, unfortunately, I really bogged down in “The Semplica Girl Diaries”: it was obviously doing a lot, but the story’s concept was so aggressive, its execution so heavy-handed, that for me the whole exercise just drowned out any underlying humanity in the story itself. I was doing OK, if not great, with Tenth of December until I got to “The Semplica Girl Diaries.” Up to that point the story I’d appreciated the most was “Sticks” I was gripped by both “Victory Lap” and “Puppy,” and “Escape from Spiderhead” moved quickly enough that I didn’t quite tire of the conceit before it ended. Perhaps this is a lesson in the importance of reading to the end it is certainly a reminder that abandoning books part way through brings the risk of missing what is best about them.

Everything was good now, everything was -Īlthough I found several of the stories in it interesting and memorable, I didn’t much like Tenth of December until I read “Tenth of December,” the final story in the collection. He hadn’t died in his shorts by a pond in the snow. What a thing! To go from dying in your underwear in the snow to this! Warmth, colors, antlers on the walls, an old-time crank phone like you saw in silent movies.

George saunders tenth of december stories