The Book-a-Week Project, Week 9

Pastoralia: Stories
George Saunders

It’s a thrill to discover a book that makes me want to read everything that author has ever written. Pastoralia is that great. I’d already read Saunders’ The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, a children’s book that ought to be a classic, but moved slowly to his fiction. Fool!

Pastoralia’s stories are all ultimately sad ones – brief satires of industrial life, complete with emotional disconnectedness, selfishness, and ignorance – but none are bleak. Saunders has such affection for his characters that they’re never evil, even when they’re destructive. A story that in many other authors’ hands would leave the reader hopeless and angry has the opposite effect coming from Saunders’ pen. Highly recommended.

Another late review. Next, which is to say currently, is The Shroud of the Thwacker: A Novel by Chris Elliott. Yeah, that Chris Elliott! He’s a very funny writer! Yeah!