It would seem that if there's a common complaint about George Saunders' Tenth of December, it's that it's just more of the same; nothing new from a master storyteller. But since this is the first time I've read Saunders, I have no such complaints and can say that I enjoyed this collection of short stories very much.
I was concerned a bit after the first story Victory Lap: in it, we're in the mind of three different characters -- a pampered teenage girl, her strictly-controlled teenage boy next-door neighbour, and a strange man with violent intent -- and, even though it's an incredibly strong story, with the boy and the man revealing in their thoughts everything that drives and conflicts them, the girl's thoughts are all just vacuous and inane:
Come on, Mom, get here. We do not wish to be castrigated by Ms. Callow again in the wings. Although actually she loved Ms. C. So strict! Also loved the other girls in class. And the girls from school. Loved them. Everyone was so nice. Plus the boys at her school. Plus the teachers at her school. All of them were doing their best. Actually, she loved her whole town. That adorable grocer, spraying his lettuce! Pastor Carol, with her large comfortable butt! The chubby postman, gesticulating with his padded envelopes! It had once been a mill town. Wasn’t that crazy? What did that even mean?Even after a thrilling climax, this girl is so passive and unreflective that I had to think, "Can this guy just not write females?" And then the next story, Sticks, is breathtakingly short and peculiar (and can be found here; read it, it will take two minutes) and, two stories in, I still wasn't overly impressed. Then in the third story, Puppy, we're in the minds of two different women, and I 100% believed that they were real women with complicated lives and honest motivations; a real stand out. And then, the next seven stories are all pretty similar, with men evaluating their positions in society -- sometimes in a slightly futuristic or surreal setting -- often concerned about class, wealth, their work, and acceptance; this is likely Saunders' true milieu, and if I say that these stories are similar, I also need to say that each is unique and highly inventive, and very often, very funny.
Escape From Spiderhead is set in a medical testing facility where murderers can opt to do their time -- as test subjects -- instead of being sent to prison. With MobiPaks™ filled with ViviStif™ and Darkenfloxx™, even the prisoners themselves can understand the moral good of acting as society's guinea pigs:
Or say we have two rival dictators in a death grudge. Assuming ED289/290 develops nicely in pill form, allow me to slip each dictator a mickey. Soon their tongues are down each other’s throats and doves of peace are pooping on their epaulets.Al Roosten is a heart-tugger, with the sad sack title character not entirely aware of how unsuitable he is for the charity bachelor auction he has volunteered for. The following totally captured him for me:
Was he some kind of expert judge on the cuteness of guys? No, he didn’t like guys and never had. There had been a period in junior high, yes, when he had been somewhat worried that he might perhaps like guys, and had constantly lost in wrestling, because, instead of concentrating on his holds he was always mentally assessing whether his thing was hurting inside his cup because he was popping a mild pre-bone or because the tip was sticking out an airhole, and once he was almost sure he’d popped a mild pre-bone when he found his face pressed against Tom Reed’s hard abs, which smelled of coconut, but, after practice, obsessing about this in the woods, he realized that he sometimes popped a similar mild pre-bone when the cat sat on his groin in a beam of sun, which proved he didn’t have sexual feelings for Tom, since he knew for sure he didn’t have sexual feelings for the cat, since he’d never even heard that described as being possible. And from that day on, whenever he found himself wondering whether he liked guys he always remembered walking exultantly in the woods after the liberating realization that he was no more attracted to guys than to cats, just happily kicking the tops off mushrooms in a spirit of tremendous relief.The Semplica Girl Diaries is another standout, this time written in diary form, by a cash-strapped father who wants nothing more than for his children to feel like they had happy childhoods -- that they had been provided with enough -- and his actions seem reasonable until we realise that the Semplica Girls that he aspires to having are actually desperately poor girls from around the world that Americans collect as lawn ornaments (hung by wires through their heads). The moral aspect of this is articulated from both sides and the peek into the father's thoughts as he keeps his diary is intriguing. If I had a complaint about this one, though, it's that the father's writing style can feel really gimmicky and tiresome (even if it's still funny):
If/when I die, do not want Pam lonely. Want her to remarry, have full life. As long as new husband is nice guy. Gentle guy. Religious guy. Very caring + good to kids. But kids not fooled. Kids prefer dead dad (i.e., me) to religious guy. Pale, boring, religious guy, with no oomph, who wears weird sweaters and is always a little sad, due to, cannot get boner, due to physical ailment.And this notion of trying to be a better person is a constant theme in these male-focused stories: the returning veteran in Home wants to reconnect with his family but the closest he gets to connection is the constant stream of strangers thanking him for his service; the middle manager in Exhortation writes a memorandum urging his staff to better meet targets in what is increasingly revealed to be questionable work; and the simple-minded sole breadwinner for his family in My Chivalric Fiasco learns the consequence of honesty. The collection is rounded off by the title story, Tenth of December, and without the gimmicks of clever wordplay or futurism or deadpan jokiness, we're let in on the thoughts of two different characters -- a man with a terminal disease who wants to end his life on his own terms and an outcast kid who prefers his fantasies to real life -- and we end in a place beyond class and wealth and power; a place reduced to pure humanity, elevated by nobility.
Ha ha.
Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.
Note to self: try harder, in all things, to be better person.
Because, O.K., the thing was -- he saw it now, was starting to see it -- if some guy, at the end, fell apart, and said or did bad things, or had to be helped, helped to quite a considerable extent? So what? What of it? Why should he not do or say weird things or look strange or disgusting? Why should the shit not run down his legs? Why should those he loved not lift and bend and feed and wipe him, when he would gladly do the same for them? He’d been afraid to be lessened by the lifting and bending and feeding and wiping, and was still afraid of that, and yet, at the same time, now saw that there could still be many -- many drops of goodness, is how it came to him -- many drops of happy -- of good fellowship -- ahead, and those drops of fellowship were not -- had never been -- his to withheld.I wouldn't say that these stories are a perfect glimpse into humanity -- the stuff that marks the brilliance of an Alice Munro short story -- but they certainly explore a certain worldview (especially that of the post-Recession American male) and they were overall entertaining. As a bonus, I listened to these on audiobook as read by the author and that was also an enjoyable experience. Since many of these stories originally appeared in The New Yorker, here are some links:
• Victory Lap
• Tenth of December
• Escape from Spiderhead
• Puppy
• Al Roosten
