Tenth of December

1) "From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew among them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would."

2) "We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us."

3) "Oh, God, what a beautiful world! The autumn colors, that glinting river, that lead-colored cloud pointing down like a rounded arrow at that half-remodeled McDonald's standing above I-90 like a castle."

4) "Yeah, right. Like any of that was happening. Like he was racing back. They'd see through him. They'd fry his ass. People were always seeing through him and frying his ass. When he'd stolen Kirk Desner's flip-downs, the kids on the team had seen through him and fried his ass. The time he'd cheated on Syl, Syl had seen through him, broken off their engagement, and cheated on him with Charles, which had fried his ass possibly worse than any single other ass frying he'd ever had, in a life that, it recently seemed, was simply a series of escalating ass fries."

5) "So goodnight to all future generations. Please know I was a person like you, I too breathed air and tensed legs while trying to sleep and, when writing with pencil, sometimes brought pencil to nose to smell."

6) "I took me to the Banks of the River, and tarried there awhile, as the lowering Sun made one with the Water, giving generously of Itself & its Divers Colors, in a Splay of Magnificence that preceded a most wonderful Silence."

7) "Yes, Suzanne said. We also have a pool. You should come over this summer. It's cool if you swim with your shirt on. And also, yes to there being something to us. You are by far the most insightful boy in our class. Even when I take into consideration the boys I knew in Montreal, I am just like: No one can compare."

A series of very similar stories that are all both funny and tragic. GS says in an afterward discussion with David Sedaris that he likes to put ordinary people in a high-pressure circumstance and see what happens, i.e. he claims that he doesn't plan his stories out, but rather starts with an idea or situation and just sees where it goes. There are assorted delightful things here; medications that make characters fall in love or speak in Olde English, a reality TV show called I, Gropius that I will not describe, and, in more than one story, the redemption of an heroic act.

[Note: Some years ago I read a story that I liked a lot. I don't recall the title or author. It was the story of an overweight young man with OCD-like repetitive thoughts about his perceived worthlessness who stumbles upon a struggling child rushing down a river. It is so similar to these stories that I wonder if GS wrote it...? Let me know if you know it. [Note within note: I think it was probably The Falls. It was in the January 22, 1996 New Yorker. And it might be in Pastoralia.]]

I guess I don't get this collection of stories but I can't figure what it was about them that I missed. The first story, a pretty horrifying abduction attempt, but there was something about the overwhelming internalization of the main character (and probably of the writing style in general) which really sucked the life out of even a situation that dramatic.

The rest of the stories, I found myself flipping through pages, not finding anything engaging for me to want to get deeper into them. It was all very flat, maybe dense, with indistinguishable characters. Some stories, I think were science fiction, but everything was so flat that it was hard to tell. I mostly kept turning the pages because I started it and wanted to finish it. In the end, I probably couldn't tell you what most of the stories were about or what any of the characters were like.

It took me too long to decide whether Tenth of December is pathos or bathos, compassion or cruelty. I’m going with kindness, because Saunders seems too aware and insightful to be nasty. Compassion takes many forms and I think this is one that I hadn’t seen before.

They’re trying their best; they just don’t know any better. Most of Saunders’s protagonists are slow-motion train wrecks: no prefrontal cortex, no impulse control or foresight. Barely human and yet oh so human. Saunders shows us their inner voices, and they sure are ridiculous—but aren’t we all? Who of us isn’t a train wreck? Each story is excruciating to read. We all know what’s coming, and we all know people like those, and we wish there was something we could do to help... but just like in real life, there isn’t.

I wonder if Saunders is pulling a fast one. Aiming for different audiences with different purposes: trying to get each of us to recognize something in ourselves and grow. Some readers may think twice about the importance of keeping up with the Joneses; some may learn to pause before judging our fellow. I’m not smart enough to figure it out.

The bottom line, though, is that I really didn’t enjoy the book. I’m glad I read it, glad for the opportunity to think, but most of all I’m just glad it’s over with.

American journalist George Saunders is often known for his short stories; a finalist for the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for his first collection of stories, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. His second collection In Persuasion Nation was a finalist for The Story Prize (2007). So when his third book of short stories came out this year Tenth of December you can bet it received a lot of buzz.

I’ve personally not read George Saunders before but when people keep calling him one of the best writers in this medium I knew I had to check him out. Tenth of December reminded me firstly of Deborah Levy’s collection of short stories Black Vodka, simply because it had that same feel to them (at least for me); that contemporary and witty flavour with an element of darkness.

Tenth of December blends ten thought provoking stories with his own blend of satire that is often heading towards a cliché but always manages to avoid it. The humour mixed with the bittersweet and sometimes dangerous plots are clever and unpredictable. I never really thought of myself as a fan of short stories in the past but I’ve discovered so many really great contemporary collections well worth exploring. Tenth of December will be joining that list along with Black Vodka by Deborah Levy and Revenge by Yoko Ogawa.

Nothing like reading a short story before bed, especially when you have no idea where the author is going to take you. George Saunders does a great job at this and I’ve heard this is the weaker of his short story collections; if this is the case I can’t wait to read some more. Highly recommend this to people interested into something complex and satirical that deals with ludicrousness, fear and rescue. Most stories originally appeared in The New Yorker and highlights for me include Escape from Spiderhead, The Semplica Girl Diaries and Home.

This review originally appeared on my blog; literary-exploration.com/2013/03/07/book-review-tenth-of-december/