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.]]

Tenth of December is my favorite short story collection, or tied for favorite with Flanner O'Connor's Complete Short Stories, if I'm allowed to cheat. The two collections couldn't have settings that are more different...Saunders' stories have modern settings and sometimes mix in mysterious science fiction, and he has a fetish for bizarre amusement parks. O'Connor, on the other hand, wrote gothic (creepy, horror-esque) stories about Southern people in the 50s.

And yet they both do the same thing really well, which I love: deep characterization. They both dance between the line of stream-of-consciousness and not. There are lots of inner thoughts, but blessedly, they are significantly more comprehensible than, say, Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner, the true stream-of-consciousness writers who throw you into a brain storm of thoughts devoid of context. Those feel like too much work for me to completely enjoy, although I respect them.

Saunders is my favorite living author. His combination of wit, weird humor, strange themes, and just...I don't know how to explain it, but he really knows how to write a short story. They are always very evocative and stick with me, and yet he never really gives you a solid definite moral to the story or even a definite theme.

I still don't know what themes Saunders was trying to get across to me and actually, I think that's a good thing, because that way it doesn't get in the way of the art, and allows me to read my own themes into it. I don't know what themes he had in mind not because he didn't have themes in mind, but because he writes in such a way that the stories and art come first, and he kind of gets himself "out of the way" of the story.

His prose is beautiful and stark at the same time. He does things that frankly I have no idea how he pulls off. His stories have darker elements and yet there is an element of hope that keeps them from just being purely bleak. In one particular story, I was struck with the fact that somehow, I felt quite hopeful at the end even though it ends with the protagonist dying. How did he do that?

This is one of the few books I have read multiple times. It has inspired me to read some of his other fiction: Lincoln in the Bardo and Liberation Day. Unfortunately, neither of those hit the high bar that Tenth of December hit for me; but you can read my reviews of those if you're curious for more detail.

One of his stories, Sticks, is only a page long. And it's one of the best flash fiction stories I have ever read; it has to do with the different ways that a group of adult sibilings react to the death of their father. There is a particular line I think about a lot, when he says that his father's "one concession to glee" was this pole that he would decorate with some ridiculous arnamentation, some kind of human-esque parody to represent the current season.

Anyways, this book is so full of paradoxical strengths. And he manages to write about so many different people in different stages and walks of life and be totally convincing. The first story, Victory Lap, has a teenage girl voice that for once is believable and yet not tropey. Without going into all of the stories I will just say, this book is a great character study and not a page is wasted.

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.

The story telling is excellent. Do I live in a world peopled with these kinds of idiots, or is it just George Saunders?

The sad and scary thing is that I've known almost every character in this book. "The Semplica Girl Diaries", in particular, is a painfully accurate reflection of today's culture of consumerism and exploitation. That one goes right up there with Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

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/