George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo: A Book Review

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While George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo was a critical success, I struggled to fully appreciate and enjoy this text with the same esteem. Set around the death of Willie Lincoln and his ghost’s quest to either stay in the Bardo or move on, the novel effectively and innovatively invokes an experimental style that blends fact and fiction through a rapid flow of interviews. The plot itself is rather thin—Abraham visits his son’s body, holds, and mourns over it, while Willie struggles to come to grips with his death and placement in the spirit world. Around him swirl myriad ghosts chronicling their past, their present, and rooting for Willie to be Willie. A single night passes and the ghosts help determine the fate of a child died too young.

Perhaps it is here that the novel fails to hold me: I struggled to first care about these other specters and then to full differentiate between them in a meaningful and discernable way. Yes, some of their stories are interesting and some of the Civil War bleed over is as well, but much of the text seems stuck in neutral. While the experiment might be a success, the craft outweighs the substance in my mind, and I often struggled to plow on and find purpose in the meandering prose. Ghost here, story there, none of it was gripping in a traditional sense, which given the style is understandable, but it failed to fully gel together in my mind. That said, Saunders still flashes as a talented writer, and obviously it worked for a great many, even if I was languishing in the bardo.

Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita: A Book Review

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In terms of innovation and creativity, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita crafts a beautiful tale that mystifies, amuses, and traipses across history. While difficult to fully describe, the novel is both literal and dense, yet the density is rewarding and in no way stands as an exercise in self-flagellation.

Set in 1930’s Moscow, the novel follows that hysteria that the appearance of a gang of magical, omniscient, and seemingly knavish causes in the city. No life is spared, no one is safe, and everything is at risk. On one end a strange foreigner takes over the artistic community with his ghosts, witches, and talking cat, while on the other a mysterious figure known as The Master discusses his motivations for creating a novel that centers on Pontius Pilate. At times these two plot lines and their many spokes seemingly have no connection, yet at others they overlap, intersect, and ultimately intertwine. In the process, the reader is treated to tremendous satire, and a brand of dark comedy rarely found in any media. The results stand as enjoyable and rewarding experience worth both the time and money.

Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories: A Book Review

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Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories stands out as a calm and complacent piece of literature among the author’s normal social controversies. Written more for children, but enjoyable by adults, the piece centers on a young man named Haroun. Haroun’s father Rashid stands as a storyteller in a sad city (unnamed) located in an unknown country that most likely stands as India. Yet when Haroun’s mother walks out on the family, life is thrown into turmoil and his farther loses the gift of story. It is here, when Iff, a water genie, appears to disconnect Rashid’s story stream, that the pair encounter a whimsical journey to what amounts to imagination land. Here, stories flow, processes too complicated to explain control all, and the populace is under attack by shadows attempting to reverse the stories and render everything, well normal. 

Within these constraints, Haroun experiences a classic hero’s journey. Full of joy, full of classical archetypes, Rushdie’s 1991 novel flows rapidly and is worth the time for any fan of the talented author.