The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
Ratings19
Average rating3.4
'An American short-story writer of intimidating talent' Zadie Smith'Graceful, dark, authentic and funny' Thomas Pynchon'You do not read Saunders' stories so much as watch them detonate on the page in front of you, like a firecracker some joker has slipped into your pudding' New StatesmanFrom the No. 1 New York Times Bestselling Author of the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, and the story collection Tenth of December, winner of the Folio Prize for Fiction 2014Welcome to Inner Horner, a nation so small it can only accommodate one citizen at a time. But when Inner Horner suddenly shrinks, forcing three-quarters of the citizen in residence over the border into Outer Horner territory, the Outer Hornerites declare an Invasion in Progress, having fallen under the spell of the power-hungry and demagogic Phil. So begins his brief and very frightening reign...A surreal and incisive satire by the Booker Prize-winning author whose work illuminates the strangest and most darkly funny corners of our reality.
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This is a deft, but pretty cute satire. A quick read and quite enjoyable. You'll laugh out loud while admiring the poignancy of the commentary on leadership, borders, etc.
an interesting allegory/metaphor, and pretty great writing! I've never read anything by george saunders before, but I think I would again. If I were to change anything, there were just a few lines about how the ... creatures? humans? looked, that I would get rid of. They were just confusing to me, not helpful to the story overall.
Weird. Heel weird. Aanrader!
“It's one thing to be a small country, but the country of Inner Horner was so small only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of Outer Horner.“
“Even though Little Andy was the youngest Inner Hornerite, he had an acute probing intelligence that the Inner Hornerites all respected, an intelligence probably related to the fact that he had two distinct functional brains, one on the side of his neck and the other on his hip, with a shiny yellow Decider located midway between them.”
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