List About Books CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
| Title | : | CivilWarLand in Bad Decline |
| Author | : | George Saunders |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 179 pages |
| Published | : | February 6th 1997 by Vintage (first published January 16th 1996) |
| Categories | : | Short Stories. Fiction. Humor. Science Fiction. Dystopia |
George Saunders
Paperback | Pages: 179 pages Rating: 4.22 | 16716 Users | 1473 Reviews
Commentary In Favor Of Books CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Have you ever heard a politically incorrect joke and laughed, and then felt guilty, but then laughed again?Have you ever driven by a car wreck and slowed down to see the emergency response vehicles, and the vehicle made to look like a damaged accordion?
Have you ever watched a reality TV show and saw folks fighting each other and tearing clothes and being separated by bouncers and realized you were hypnotized by the gross lowest common denominator humanity?
Have you read Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders?
Twisted. Degenerate. Profligate. Absolutely and unconditionally brilliant.
I loved it and am seeking counseling.
If Kurt Vonnegut had a redheaded stepchild, that illegitimate heir to the black comedic, satirical throne may be George Saunders. Civilwarland in Bad Decline, his 1996 collection of short stories and one novella is Vonnegutesque in the sense that Saunders pokes relentless fun at our society and culture, accepts Louis CK-like the abashed groans, and then plunges ahead with more of his acerbic, vitriolic and wickedly funny as hell slam dunk on our society.
But that really doesn’t fit either, a slam-dunk is too pedestrian and neutral of a reference. Saunders takes our capitalistic, Judeo-Christian, western civilization morals and ethics and delivers an MMA beat down that would make Quinton "Rampage" Jackson wince.
Vonnegut, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs and Harry Crews in a literary tag team no-holds barred grudge match.
His characters wheeze and moan with pathetic life and piss themselves. There is casual, negligent murder followed by halfhearted suburban, banal regret. Saunders describes flagrant, unapologetic infidelity both literally and metaphorically. His is not just the gutter, but a glittery and neon bright cesspool meandering into a dog bowl.
Saunders demonstrates his skill with the unreliable narrator the same way Picasso did with the color blue. If he were a harmful drug he would not be heroin but rather a ball peen hammer and a shot of El Torro tequila. Use with moderation.
Take the eponymous story for example, Civilwarland in Bad Decline. An absurd parody of a theme park suffering financial setbacks amidst roving teenage vandals. There are ghosts of Civil War era people haunting the grounds of the fake interactive museum. Then there is a mentally disturbed war veteran – in the fake theme park haunted by formerly real live civil war veterans.
Several short stories and a novella – and the theme and tone of the collection coalesces into the novella “Bounty”, a caustic satire of Americana gone all wrong.
And so it goes.
Specify Books Toward CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
| Original Title: | CivilWarLand in Bad Decline |
| ISBN: | 0099595818 (ISBN13: 9780099595816) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Tähtivaeltaja Award Nominee (2017) |
Rating About Books CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Ratings: 4.22 From 16716 Users | 1473 ReviewsAppraise About Books CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
This is the first Saunders I've read, and I have to say there are a lot of surface-level similarities with some Wallace stuff. The most obvious is that Saunders wants to communicate a really bleak message about late-stage capitalism, but he feels the need to make his prose consistently and manically funny so that people will bother to read it. I like a funny book as much as the next guy, but I do occasionally feel a little insulted by an author who seems to think I'll stop reading if the jokesMan, this little guy...I can't fault it a single sentence. Every story in this tiny collection made me want to high-five the author with one hand and cradle my hanging head in the other. Maybe I was a bit hard on his later Pastoralia because I needed to warm up to Saunders, maybe my head was just in the right space this time around, or perhaps this really is the superior group of stories. Whatever magical trippydippy cosmos aligning parade of "f*ck yeah" was going on, I dug the expletive deleted
Welcome to the OccupationThe whole way through George Saunders' first collection of short stories, there are suggestions that the world is not as it should be.Imagine a world like this, totally unlike our own:The characters and narrators are (or are surrounded by) kooks and wackos. People have names like Shirleen and Melvin. Where there were once cornfields and flood plains, there are now parking stations and theme parks. Gangs invade civil war re-enactments. All dreams are defiled. All
This is a very hard book to describe. I found it really compelling and hard to put down, but Saunders' view of the world is so desolate and harrowing that I came away emotionally sandblasted. I think that was part of the intended effect, and I don't mean it as a criticism.The protagonists in Saunders' stories are mostly helpless and adrift in a world that's been trashed and pillaged by twenty-first century capitalism and then recreated by canny, cynical entrepreneurs as a heritage experience.
The past couple of months, two activities have dominated my leisure time: reading and watching NBA hoops. After reading CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, I was reminded of a hoops argument that I think should carry over to modern literature as well. The argument has to deal with the unceasing quest for the so-called next Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan was the transcendent athlete, if not public figure, of my childhood. There are a generation of kids who still drink Gatorade, buy Nikes, and wear Hanes
Poor George Saunders must have had a real real bad theme park experience in his youth. This collection of stories makes the dystopia of Zombieland seem sedate. I love Saunders' take on American consumption and the way he is able to shove values and virtues of 20th century America into a funky future that makes all our virtues absurd and makes this anti-utopia seem closer than you might have previously imagined.
Set in a near-future America which appears to have become one big dilapidated theme park, the bizarre stories (and novella) of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline are by turns funny, disturbing and moving. Saunders' characters are invariably weird, eccentric, even occasionally horrifying, yet they end up feeling more human than the majority of fictional characters. It's also satisfying to find I can now detect Saunders' influence in the work of so many other writers I admire - to name a few: Lindsay
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