Liberation Day: Stories

Saunders is one of those authors whose style is a bit off-putting. I would love to crawl into his brain for a day. Always thought provoking, he looks at the world from a curious angle. I didn't love this collection but I would still recommend it if you are a serious reader who values introspective books that stretch you.

Niet altijd meteen duidelijk waar elk van de verhalen zich afspeelt, en wie wie is, een prachtige diverse verzameling verhalen. Van een dystopisch, sci-fi achtig verhaal over mensen? robots? opgeprikt aan de muur? die een historisch drama verbeelden

All Speaking stops, all Singing stops. As instructed by Mr. U., we go limp, stand motionless, hang our heads, there upon the Speaking Wall. At Podium, Mr. U. also hangs his head. He does not need to turn to know what Company thinks. He knows. We know. We know very well how powerful we have been. Company rises to its feet, its wild enthusiasm seeming impatient that its only path into the world is via these limited, applauding, middle-aged bodies.

tot een moeder die een tikje aan het doordraaien is.

God, the hours of her life she'd spent trying to be good. Standing at the sink, deciding if some plastic tofu tub was recyclable. That time she'd hit a squirrel and circled back to see if she could rush it to the vet. No squirrel. But that didn't prove anything. It might have crawled off to die under a bush.

Really good short stories, basically what I wanna do but a little more grounded in reality (maybe I should be too? idk)

4.5. I keep saying I'm not a short story kind of person but I'm two George Saunders books down, and I'm amazed and at the edge of my seat. The explorations of class dynamics, surrealism and dystopian fever dreams are stories I could be lost in all day.

The first story was brilliant. I still can not stop contemplating it.
The others, less so. I found myself feeling tremendous melancholy throughout most of these stories. An emotional resonance, I'm sure, was altogether intentional.
So. Nailed it.

Not bad, but not his best. Some of these stories feel like (inferior, and wearier) variations of similar ideas already used in previous stories. I still feel like CivilWarLand and Pastoralia are his best overall collections – though “CommComm” remains, for me, the pinnacle “just read this one” story to see what a great Saunders story is: inventive and disorienting, wicked and sharply funny, but also deeply empathetic and ultimately profound.

A lot of good stories, with the first few being the most powerful.

I'm starting to think George Saunders thinks we're all brainwashed or something.

Perspective is hard when we're immersed in chaos—that's why we go to therapy. What Saunders has done here is kind of like showing us our Selves, from an outside perspective, except he makes it feel recognizably personal, like he's writing from the inside. (I can't find the right words. If I could, I'd be a writer myself.)

Each story is unique and powerful. Different settings and voices, with common themes of consciousness, self-awareness, moral agency. Saunders does an exquisite job of depicting inner monologue, monkey mind, life on autopilot; and a painfully accurate job showing the rationalizations we make every day to protect ourselves from discomfort. The book does not feel Buddhist in any way, but I think its insight and kindness make it a book that only a Buddhist could write. Each story requires effort from the reader; some more, some less. They're worth it.