Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel Hardcover – Deckle Edge, February 14, 2017

I have to say upfront that I’ve been a Saunders fan since CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, so I jumped to order this book as soon as I saw it. It’s his first novel, and it’s very Saunders-like — meaning that it’s not like anything he’s done before, because that’s how he does things.It’s written in an unusual voice, which I found a little disorienting and difficult to follow at first. But once you get it, it flows. The story is told by numerous characters and narrators, both contemporaneous characters and historical sources and commentators looking back on the events from the near present. It feels like a play, with characters speaking in turn as much to the audience as to each other.The central event is the death of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Willie. Willie dies at the end of his father’s first year in office, as the Civil War, and the horrors of the war, ramp up. President Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were devastated by their son’s death, and haunted by guilt that they hadn’t done enough to prevent it as Willie’s sickness worsened.Willie has arrived in a kind of limbo — the bardo — after his death. This limbo is populated by a whole array of characters, many of whom have been there for decades, never able to accept that they have died. For many, some issue, grievance, or unfinished business in general prevents them from letting go of their lives.In Willie’s case, the unwillingness to let go comes from both sides. His father cannot let go of Willie, visiting and staying by his resting place, even taking him from the crypt back into his arms. And Willie is simply taken before he is ready, not letting go of his father, longing to have his father feel his touch.Hans Vollman and Roger Bevins III are seemingly permanent residents of the bardo. They take a special interest in Willie. Normally children as young as Willie don’t stay in the bardo very long, but Willie is a special case. Lincoln provides the view of Willie from life, the child stolen away too early and maybe avoidably. Vollman and Bevins provide the view from the other side, where Willie is not in heaven but lost in this limbo, from which he can’t touch the living world or be touched by the father he left behind.Vollman and Bevins try to help Willie, although the help he really needs, letting go of life, is something they can’t even do for themselves. At the same time, they try to help the president, bringing him together with his son so that each can accept Willie’s death, so that Willie can let go of life and Lincoln can let go of death.All of this happens in parallel with the events of the Civil War, a virtual flood of death itself. Willie’s death and Lincoln’s reaction to it come at the same time that so many are grieving the deaths of so many, under the orders of Lincoln himself. The preident feels the shock of a son’s death while the war’s losses are shocking the mothers and fathers of sons fighting the war, the war that Lincoln feels responsibility for and that he and his critics are seeing go horribly wrong at this stage.The images of Lincoln that Saunders presents, overcome and paralyzed by grief, paint a picture of a depressed president being tested. He must have been tempted to try to end the war and the deaths that are doing to countless parents what Willie’s death is doing to him.Willie and all the dead in the bardo teach Lincoln about the commonality of suffering and the reality of death. When he does let go of Willie, he lets go of grief’s paralysis, for himself and his presidency. He turns a corner away from grief and sorrow and toward resolve.The dead learn a similar resolve. Willie breaks the taboo of the bardo when he says, “Everyone, we are dead!”One measure of a book is its emotional effect. I think this is an oddly inspiring book. “Oddly” because so much of it is about death. But it’s also about an attitude — moving forward and not clinging to things that are over and done with. That goes not only for death but for all the changes we go through within life.

George Saunders’ new novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo” is a unique work of historical fiction. It uses a series of accounts, some real, some fictional, all revolving around once singular, true occurrence. While the staccato placement of accounts may have felt sort of jarring on the page it served its particular purpose, in some areas, beautifully. Saunders’ use of contrasting accounts is particularly interesting. Two consecutive accounts on one page describe the moon as incredibly clear, and completely obfuscated. I can’t quite place his intention surrounding those conflicts (but then, unlike George Saunders, I don’t have a genius grand) but it seriously underscores the human capacity for error which was so prominently displayed in the era of the Civil War.George Saunders, ever a fan of the strange, hilarious, and terrifying, managed to create an equivalent of purgatory both calm and incredibly frightening; a “bardo” or inbetween state that its inhabitants are consciously unaware of. To admit one’s own death is embrace it, and to disappear forever. Rather than admit their deaths, the inhabitants of the cemetery in which most of the book’s occurrences unfold emerge from their “sick boxes” each evening, wandering aimlessly within the cemetery grounds, unable to effect any change in the outside world, and waiting endlessly for family that never comes.In the world of the living, meanwhile, Lincoln had spent weeks believing his son was going to recover, when in fact, he only got weaker. While his son suffered through his final hours, Lincoln held a feast. Some of the accounts featured in the book judge Lincoln quite harshly for this, but can it really be blamed? He was, after all, the president, and was expected to hold dinners at the white house, although the merriment may well have been in excess. His son had been ill for weeks, how was he to know this was poor Willie’s final day?All of these accounts of his faults, and the imagined thoughts in his head serve one, perfectly executed purpose - to paint Abraham Lincoln as human. He was imperfect. In his early days his handling of the Civil War was clumsy and purposeless. He held a loud, raucous party while his boy suffered. But he loved his son. No account Saunders created could demonstrate that more than the truth of history - the first night Willie Lincoln was interred, Abraham Lincoln was absent from the Whitehouse. The president was seen by the gatekeeper of the cemetery, entering late in the evening, and not leaving until morning.This emotional momentum is echoed by the voices of the chorus of ghosts present in the cemetery, who come to terms with their own death largely by witnessing the purity of sorrow felt by Lincoln, but they do get tedious. The purposeful repetition was overused quite often throughout the novel, and I think a more judicious editor would have done the book some good. Additionally, I think that the utter lack of standard prose detracts from George Saunders's greatest asset - his voice. His capacity to display people at their barest, simplest, most childlike emotional state was largely absent from the novel, replaced by an editorial echo of the loss felt by the nation during the civil war.Either way, Saunders presents an incredibly introspective story - one where missed opportunity, loss, and a deep sense of mourning overpower any of the books faults.Personal notes -I would rank George Saunders amongst the greatest fiction writers who have ever lived, and as perhaps the greatest ever American fiction writer (high praise considering there is a Kurt Vonnegut quote eternally present on my chest.) His transition from the short story to the novel underscores a new potential for him to exercise his voice. One I hope he will make ample use of.

Com estrutura diferente de qualquer outro romance e narrado por vozes diversas, essa é uma história profundamente tocante (e por vezes muito divertida) sobre amor e perda, sobre aceitação da própria finitude e da finitude de quem amamos. Uma leitura deliciosa e impactante.

Can't put it down.

J’ai lu ce texte sans attente et c’était surprenant et très intéressant comme création.Livraison parfait. Merci.

This is one the most wonderful books I have read / heard / experienced in a long time - brilliant, weird, insightful, crass and confusing all at the same time I am still not sure what I think about this book except that I loved it.I have been meaning to pick this book since November 2017 and I have the physical copy on my shelves since August 2019. I borrowed the audiobook around 16 times before actually reading this. All in all, to say that this was a book I was apprehensive about would be an understatement. I was expecting this mediation on loss and grief which would only help making me depressed too - what I got was something that did talk about grief but also about grace, moving on and life’s absolute absurdity and our delusions - both internal and external.The first thing that struck me was how funny this was - some parts are comedic and entertaining (especially the main three narrators in the Bardo) but even the constant historical excerpts about the Lincolns made me grin. In the space of a page, the President was accused of being a bad father, a good father, indifferent and grief stricken. We never got to hear from him directly - there was always a distance between us and the reader - either through the ghosts or the “historical” texts. That struck me as I felt that the author was pointing out the futility of ever knowing someone - especially in terms of knowing someone’s history and the fallacy of making conclusions of intent. (Not all the excerpts are from the real books which makes one question what is actually ‘read’ and ‘false’. It kept me on my toes and sent me down a google rabbit hole periodically - so cool).The audiobook was fantastic - fully narrated which added an immediacy to some of the longer passages. I did also follow along the narration with a book which was the right mix for me. This novel works more like a play with the character’s direct dialogue but the ability to go back and re-read the print quickly or pause and focus on the ridiculous titles of the “historical” texts was interesting.There are passages which the spelling is archaic or not correct (e.g:“Begins, I’ll piss a line of toxic in yr wretched twin wristcuts Groping you by ye clubsick, Vollman, I’ll slag you into the black fence.” )which reflects a state of mind of the ghost which the audio narrator doesn’t fully get across. However, the audio reflect class differences through accent and cadence so clearly that I honestly think this book should both be read and listened to simultaneously.You can also see Mr Saunders’ short story background play out here. A lot of the ghosts' dialogue worked like little vignettes, some were poignantly funny and some were sad. And some fluctuated back and forth.In the end, I loved the surrealness of the book - I was reminded of Lost Gods which was also set in purgatory. And despite the fact that the latter book had more violence and literal gods / monsters, this was more atmospheric and weird. This book didn’t really explain what was happening but just asked you as a reader to gamely follow along.I loved this book - I had 9 pages of thoughts on this! Definitely worth getting the audiobook and giving this a try. I agree with the Guardian which called this book “a performance of great formal daring. It perhaps won’t be to everyone’s taste, but minor missteps aside it stands head and shoulders above most contemporary fiction .Just don't wait for 3 year before picking this up.

No me gustó que pedí que me enviaran todo en un solo envío y se me cobró dos veces