It was a treat reading this excerpt from the Shannon Reed book, which I have now pre-ordered, and not only because of my surprise when she mentioned a book I had written. It was gratifying to read her acknowledgment of her own confusion and to follow the method by which she, and eventually her students, sorted it all —okay ,most of it—out. I suffered from the same confusion when I began reading L in the B. And (not being in a class with Shannon Reed, alas) when I mentioned that to a book-loving friend, she suggested that I try LISTENING to it. I have never been an audio-book fan. I started to say "for reasons I won't bore you with"... but actually the reason is perhaps interesting. I happen to have an eidetic memory. That means that when I look at a page of a book, I perceive it all at once, without actually reading the words. The first time I tried listening to a book, I lasted only short while and then groaned...to myself... Oh lord, he's not going to make me listen to every WORD, is he? And of course he was, and did, and I set the audio book aside impatiently and went back to the print version. But with L in the B in front of me, and annoyed with my own confusion, and heeding my friend's advice, I did indeed listen to it. Every word. And it magically became clear. I don't think this would work for Finnegan's Wake, but it sure worked for me with Lincoln in the Bardo.
I love how Shannon Reed captures the imbalance and confusion that sets in upon first reading L in the B. I was reminded of my own confusion when I first read the novel, which was heightened by the fact that the first few chapters were bound upside down into my copy of the book. It was literally a topsy turvy experience (a bardo experience?). I read part of it one way, then part of it the other way, while also trying to track the dialogue of those ghosts. To this day I wonder if the mis-binding was on purpose, part of George's grand plan to rattle the reader's assumptions about life and storytelling by having his publisher send out a certain amount of copies bound partially upside down....
This line about George's book strikes me as an apt description of the way George treats all of us here in Story Club: "It assumed we were smart, and then it turned out that we are." Also, "trusting the fun" is about as George as you can get. A lovely chapter, Ms. Reed, and congratulations on your newest book. Your students are obviously lucky to have you as a teacher. To be able to say "I did the best i could" and know that it is true--well, that's a wonderful way to live. I look forward to reading the entire book when it's released. All best to you!
I love the circularity I felt when reading this. The chapter
1) was shared in the context of Story Club Office Hours
2) gives a snapshot of a class discussing a George Saunders story
3) tells of a student emailing George and getting a wonderful Office Hours-type response from him
4) includes a footnote from the author/teacher warning us not to do like the student and email a busy author/teacher
5) pings on the lightbulb realisation that Story Club is a ‘don’t email the author/teacher’ upended and delivered, on schedule, to our inbox.
So grateful for having this group. Not just for its writing insights but for George himself, with his gentle, generous rule breaking guiding us. I don’t know how you have the energy for sharing so much of your time, George, but so many of us appreciate it so deeply.
This piece made me want to read L in the B again and also made me wish I could read it for the first time. Even though I was only grasping at how to read all the characters and their stories, there was something dizzyingly lovely about not knowing how it all went together, sort of like being spun around and blindfolded before your chance to bust open the pinata.
I'm recovered from my Covid booster -- huzzah! -- and just wanted to say thanks to all of you for the lovely, thoughtful, inspiring comments on this post, which I have been reading and delighting in while convalescing. I'm heartened to know that so many other people were thrown off by LintheB at first, too, and even more heartened to know that you, like my classes, were able to find your footing and continue on, because it's such warm, funny, majestic, unique novel. I always tell my students after we finish it that now they can read and appreciate *anything* which is a wonderful, freeing feeling! They don't need to be afraid of Infinite Jest or Ulysses or Moby Dick or... because they're all just *books* and books were made to be read/listened to.
I wish I could share with you the fiction that the produce after reading LintheB -- it's so full of joy and play in the craft. They really do start to trust in the fun.
And I also want to thank George -- justly praised for his warmth and welcome by many here -- too. Not very many writers would read an essay that is faintly critical (although ultimately deeply admiring) of their work, and not just praise it, but share it with their community. What a mensch! Thank you, George, from the top, middle and bottom of my heart.
Finally, several folks asked what else I teach in that class. It's Readings in Contemporary Fiction, a required course in the undergraduate creative writing major/minor in fiction, and I also teach Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (there are essays in my book about both of those, too), and another novel that my undergraduate teaching chooses and I support them in teaching (so far, they've chosen The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V S Schwab, and LIttle Blue Encyclopedia [For Vivian] by Hazel Jane Plante). Before I started giving my TAs the task, I also taught The Known World by Edward P. Jones and Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. We start by reading Francine Prose's masterpiece Reading Like a Writer, and use those ideas and concepts in our discussion of the novels. It's a wonderful class!
What a generous, humble article. One thing she doesn't mention (though comes close with GS's own email about how "it looked on the page") and is somewhat short-changed in the audio version is the use of empty white space on the pages. The layout is crucial, I think. Like in poetry, the spaces between lines, between groupings, should be eloquent. In LinB they most certainly are. And isn't the Tibetan Buddhist Bardo essentially a place of significant empty white spaces?
Great, inspiring stuff, and another testament to George's remarkable generosity as a human being. True confession is I'm one of the strugglers out here. I had to look up bardo, for starters, which did not make me feel very smart, and it was all uphill from there. But, now I resolve to return to L in the B, and attempt to be a better reader !
I’m probably the only person here who hasn’t read the novel. No shame, just fact. Now, having taken a book like The Sound and the Fury into my heart and soul lo those decades ago (read three times and counting), it’s gonna move to the top of my stack. Good thing my wife works in a bookstore.
Well, thank Hera! I brought Lincoln in the B to Greece with me last fall & got through maybe three chapters & stopped. I was as lost as a newly sheared sheep on Wall Street. I toted the tome home & promptly put it & another book in Greek on the air dryer in the basement after spraying both books for bedbugs. And I haven't touched it since but after reading this I feel so much better & will attempt LITB again with this smart writer's humility and approach. Fun is so important in reading and writing. My best stories made me hoot with hysteria. F if they weren't published. Anyone who ends an essay on GS with Cher is my kinda of person. I'm so glad I read this because I really really wanted to leave LITB with the bugs in Greece. PS: I'm not sure they were bedbugs but I have never itched so much on any trip in my life. 🕶🕶🧿🌷
I have just started reading L in the B for the second time. My first experience left me breathless..disoriented..(which I love feeling from any art form) and totally bathed in George Saunders’ unique mix of wicked humor and profound pathos. Dazzled..and eager to return to the source of such mayhem..I am deeply grateful for this piece by Shannon Reed..which will so generously accompany me through this second excursion!
I love this excerpt as I also love L in the B. The joy of challenge and discovery in storytelling is what always brings me back, as a reader and writer. Trust the fun. I often receive a sideways glance from the more serious types for encouraging play in art and work. But I do it anyway.
I love this! How to read a book that intimidates you. I did it a bit differently. I read the first "chapter" and didn't get a thing. i reread, reread, reread, skipped 50 pages, read, when back to the beginning. The key for me familiarity breeds - not contempt, in any way - familiarity! Once I made the leap of faith in that opening dialogue, the rest let down the gates, and I WAS IN!
Relearning how to read definitely describes Lincoln in the Bardo, and more commonly, a lot of contemporary poetry. I appreciated finding prose that sung a new language experiment. (I think of Henry Hoke's "Open Throat" as a more recent example. The queering of genre & what prose can be, etc.) It's hard for "difficult lit" to be published or make a splash. I love when it happens
I had a very similar experience when I first attempted L in the B. I had a sense I was being dropped in the middle of something and/or somewhere but was very disoriented. I ended up putting the book down and not getting back to it for almost a month. In the intervening weeks I thought a lot about how I often feel much the same way when I engage with one of George's stories for the first time so I did not judge myself too harshly. I find that George's work requires intellectual work and the patience to know I will get oriented soon enough (i.e., the George will provide). I try to meet people and ideas where they are but often fail initial given whatever emotion pops up.
The act of stepping away from L in the B gave me time to think through what I might be reading. I am familiar with the loss of Lincolns sons and how it impacted both he and his wife and was familiar with the concept of the Bardo. I quickly put two and two together and off I went. It is a tough, challenging read but the payoff is tremendous!
I am not sure I would have the faith that I was up to the challenges of the book without the deep well of trust I have in George and his storytelling.
Well, maybe I'll have to give Bardo another shot. I only made it about half-way the first time. I approached it with such enthusiasm, based on what I'd heard, but found it quite the slog with all those voices just talking, stuck there in the cemetery, so tedious I couldn't stand it. And I'm no stranger to challenging literature; I taught AP Literature for 15 years, with a curriculum that included Ralph Ellison's, Invisible Man, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
There are other books I so wanted to like, but just couldn't get into. Joyce's Ulysses, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (As I Lay Dying, on the other hand, is my favorite novel). It's such a relief to be able to admit that Bardo just didn't work for me. I wasn't confused, I just didn't like it. More of a parade of the grotesque than a story. Grotesque for grotesque's sake. I did find the scene with Lincoln visiting Willie touching though (astonishing how that's a true story).
It was a treat reading this excerpt from the Shannon Reed book, which I have now pre-ordered, and not only because of my surprise when she mentioned a book I had written. It was gratifying to read her acknowledgment of her own confusion and to follow the method by which she, and eventually her students, sorted it all —okay ,most of it—out. I suffered from the same confusion when I began reading L in the B. And (not being in a class with Shannon Reed, alas) when I mentioned that to a book-loving friend, she suggested that I try LISTENING to it. I have never been an audio-book fan. I started to say "for reasons I won't bore you with"... but actually the reason is perhaps interesting. I happen to have an eidetic memory. That means that when I look at a page of a book, I perceive it all at once, without actually reading the words. The first time I tried listening to a book, I lasted only short while and then groaned...to myself... Oh lord, he's not going to make me listen to every WORD, is he? And of course he was, and did, and I set the audio book aside impatiently and went back to the print version. But with L in the B in front of me, and annoyed with my own confusion, and heeding my friend's advice, I did indeed listen to it. Every word. And it magically became clear. I don't think this would work for Finnegan's Wake, but it sure worked for me with Lincoln in the Bardo.
I love how Shannon Reed captures the imbalance and confusion that sets in upon first reading L in the B. I was reminded of my own confusion when I first read the novel, which was heightened by the fact that the first few chapters were bound upside down into my copy of the book. It was literally a topsy turvy experience (a bardo experience?). I read part of it one way, then part of it the other way, while also trying to track the dialogue of those ghosts. To this day I wonder if the mis-binding was on purpose, part of George's grand plan to rattle the reader's assumptions about life and storytelling by having his publisher send out a certain amount of copies bound partially upside down....
This line about George's book strikes me as an apt description of the way George treats all of us here in Story Club: "It assumed we were smart, and then it turned out that we are." Also, "trusting the fun" is about as George as you can get. A lovely chapter, Ms. Reed, and congratulations on your newest book. Your students are obviously lucky to have you as a teacher. To be able to say "I did the best i could" and know that it is true--well, that's a wonderful way to live. I look forward to reading the entire book when it's released. All best to you!
I love the circularity I felt when reading this. The chapter
1) was shared in the context of Story Club Office Hours
2) gives a snapshot of a class discussing a George Saunders story
3) tells of a student emailing George and getting a wonderful Office Hours-type response from him
4) includes a footnote from the author/teacher warning us not to do like the student and email a busy author/teacher
5) pings on the lightbulb realisation that Story Club is a ‘don’t email the author/teacher’ upended and delivered, on schedule, to our inbox.
So grateful for having this group. Not just for its writing insights but for George himself, with his gentle, generous rule breaking guiding us. I don’t know how you have the energy for sharing so much of your time, George, but so many of us appreciate it so deeply.
This piece made me want to read L in the B again and also made me wish I could read it for the first time. Even though I was only grasping at how to read all the characters and their stories, there was something dizzyingly lovely about not knowing how it all went together, sort of like being spun around and blindfolded before your chance to bust open the pinata.
I'm recovered from my Covid booster -- huzzah! -- and just wanted to say thanks to all of you for the lovely, thoughtful, inspiring comments on this post, which I have been reading and delighting in while convalescing. I'm heartened to know that so many other people were thrown off by LintheB at first, too, and even more heartened to know that you, like my classes, were able to find your footing and continue on, because it's such warm, funny, majestic, unique novel. I always tell my students after we finish it that now they can read and appreciate *anything* which is a wonderful, freeing feeling! They don't need to be afraid of Infinite Jest or Ulysses or Moby Dick or... because they're all just *books* and books were made to be read/listened to.
I wish I could share with you the fiction that the produce after reading LintheB -- it's so full of joy and play in the craft. They really do start to trust in the fun.
And I also want to thank George -- justly praised for his warmth and welcome by many here -- too. Not very many writers would read an essay that is faintly critical (although ultimately deeply admiring) of their work, and not just praise it, but share it with their community. What a mensch! Thank you, George, from the top, middle and bottom of my heart.
Finally, several folks asked what else I teach in that class. It's Readings in Contemporary Fiction, a required course in the undergraduate creative writing major/minor in fiction, and I also teach Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (there are essays in my book about both of those, too), and another novel that my undergraduate teaching chooses and I support them in teaching (so far, they've chosen The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V S Schwab, and LIttle Blue Encyclopedia [For Vivian] by Hazel Jane Plante). Before I started giving my TAs the task, I also taught The Known World by Edward P. Jones and Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. We start by reading Francine Prose's masterpiece Reading Like a Writer, and use those ideas and concepts in our discussion of the novels. It's a wonderful class!
What a generous, humble article. One thing she doesn't mention (though comes close with GS's own email about how "it looked on the page") and is somewhat short-changed in the audio version is the use of empty white space on the pages. The layout is crucial, I think. Like in poetry, the spaces between lines, between groupings, should be eloquent. In LinB they most certainly are. And isn't the Tibetan Buddhist Bardo essentially a place of significant empty white spaces?
Great, inspiring stuff, and another testament to George's remarkable generosity as a human being. True confession is I'm one of the strugglers out here. I had to look up bardo, for starters, which did not make me feel very smart, and it was all uphill from there. But, now I resolve to return to L in the B, and attempt to be a better reader !
I’m probably the only person here who hasn’t read the novel. No shame, just fact. Now, having taken a book like The Sound and the Fury into my heart and soul lo those decades ago (read three times and counting), it’s gonna move to the top of my stack. Good thing my wife works in a bookstore.
Well, thank Hera! I brought Lincoln in the B to Greece with me last fall & got through maybe three chapters & stopped. I was as lost as a newly sheared sheep on Wall Street. I toted the tome home & promptly put it & another book in Greek on the air dryer in the basement after spraying both books for bedbugs. And I haven't touched it since but after reading this I feel so much better & will attempt LITB again with this smart writer's humility and approach. Fun is so important in reading and writing. My best stories made me hoot with hysteria. F if they weren't published. Anyone who ends an essay on GS with Cher is my kinda of person. I'm so glad I read this because I really really wanted to leave LITB with the bugs in Greece. PS: I'm not sure they were bedbugs but I have never itched so much on any trip in my life. 🕶🕶🧿🌷
I have just started reading L in the B for the second time. My first experience left me breathless..disoriented..(which I love feeling from any art form) and totally bathed in George Saunders’ unique mix of wicked humor and profound pathos. Dazzled..and eager to return to the source of such mayhem..I am deeply grateful for this piece by Shannon Reed..which will so generously accompany me through this second excursion!
I love this excerpt as I also love L in the B. The joy of challenge and discovery in storytelling is what always brings me back, as a reader and writer. Trust the fun. I often receive a sideways glance from the more serious types for encouraging play in art and work. But I do it anyway.
I love this! How to read a book that intimidates you. I did it a bit differently. I read the first "chapter" and didn't get a thing. i reread, reread, reread, skipped 50 pages, read, when back to the beginning. The key for me familiarity breeds - not contempt, in any way - familiarity! Once I made the leap of faith in that opening dialogue, the rest let down the gates, and I WAS IN!
Relearning how to read definitely describes Lincoln in the Bardo, and more commonly, a lot of contemporary poetry. I appreciated finding prose that sung a new language experiment. (I think of Henry Hoke's "Open Throat" as a more recent example. The queering of genre & what prose can be, etc.) It's hard for "difficult lit" to be published or make a splash. I love when it happens
I had a very similar experience when I first attempted L in the B. I had a sense I was being dropped in the middle of something and/or somewhere but was very disoriented. I ended up putting the book down and not getting back to it for almost a month. In the intervening weeks I thought a lot about how I often feel much the same way when I engage with one of George's stories for the first time so I did not judge myself too harshly. I find that George's work requires intellectual work and the patience to know I will get oriented soon enough (i.e., the George will provide). I try to meet people and ideas where they are but often fail initial given whatever emotion pops up.
The act of stepping away from L in the B gave me time to think through what I might be reading. I am familiar with the loss of Lincolns sons and how it impacted both he and his wife and was familiar with the concept of the Bardo. I quickly put two and two together and off I went. It is a tough, challenging read but the payoff is tremendous!
I am not sure I would have the faith that I was up to the challenges of the book without the deep well of trust I have in George and his storytelling.
Well, maybe I'll have to give Bardo another shot. I only made it about half-way the first time. I approached it with such enthusiasm, based on what I'd heard, but found it quite the slog with all those voices just talking, stuck there in the cemetery, so tedious I couldn't stand it. And I'm no stranger to challenging literature; I taught AP Literature for 15 years, with a curriculum that included Ralph Ellison's, Invisible Man, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
There are other books I so wanted to like, but just couldn't get into. Joyce's Ulysses, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (As I Lay Dying, on the other hand, is my favorite novel). It's such a relief to be able to admit that Bardo just didn't work for me. I wasn't confused, I just didn't like it. More of a parade of the grotesque than a story. Grotesque for grotesque's sake. I did find the scene with Lincoln visiting Willie touching though (astonishing how that's a true story).