Pastoralia

As I read the novella, Pastoralia, I was reminded of the trapped souls in Kafka’s writings. Here, two characters are a part of a primitive cave man display where they must prepare food over an open fire (when they receive a goat or a hare). They pick bugs and in the cave as they act as if they are real caveman. But behind the walls in their private quarters, where they can go when off-duty, there is a fax machine that is their link to the outside. There, they also have soft drinks and other luxuries that they are unable to enjoy while playing the part of a cave dweller. The people who run the theme park go to great lengths to save money (charging them for disposing their human waste) and making crazy arguments as why they have no other option. But the two employees are so dependent on the organization, so they keep playing the game, hoping each day to have a goat to roast.In “Winky,” we’re taken to a “get-rich-quick” convention where those in attendance wear hats colored for how far they have come in the process of becoming wealthy. Like many such schemes, the message is partly religious, but instead of failure due to one’s lack of effort, it’s because of others are holding you back. “God doesn’t make junk,” they’re told. “If you’re losing, somebody’s doing it to you.” The scheme sets people up to focus on their needs and to challenge or remove those from their lives that hold them back. Getting ahead is the only thing that matters.The short story, “Sea Oak” is about people trapped in lives from which they are unable to escape. It’s a world turned upside down. To make a living (in the hope of escaping to a better neighborhood), the protagonists works at “Joysticks,” where men partly strip and serve women (but they can’t completely strip) and earn titles. The best men become “pilots” although they are still stripping and serving as they parade around with their private parts slightly clad. The customers rate the men and when your rating falls to “stinker,” you’re out the door. Saunders has turned the world upside down as I couldn’t help but to think of a time when flight attendants were “sexualized” but instead of men looking at women, it’s reversed.“Sea Oak” is the dumpy community where the protagonist lives. He’d like to escape, but there is no way out. To escape, there’s the television with reality TV-like shows such as “The Worst that Could Happen.” The aunt dies and the family struggles over how to bury her. They would be in debt for seven years to give her something nice, but the funeral home as other options such as painted cardboard boxes. But she comes back to life, only to fall apart, one body part at a time. Even the hope of resurrection is hollow in this story.There are several additional stories in this collection. Saunders stories are funny, but sad. As they describe people trapped, I found them to be very Kafkaesque. Both writers describe hopeless situations. In Saunder’s stories, people place their hopes on bizarre schemes to escape, but no one (especially not the reader) believes they have a change. These stories, I found, are very political in a subtle way as if by telling them, those who are trapped with realize how the system is rigged against them and no longer play the game using rules that keep them from improving their lives.

Pastoralia by George SaundersThis book is a riot of language and character and if you read it, you won’t ever forget it. Pastoralia is a collection of six stories: Pastoralia, Winky, Sea Oak, The End of Firpo in the World, The Barber’s Unhappiness, and The Falls. Each has its particular nervous, urgent, pressing voice that takes you into the characters lives, challenges, hopes and fears. It is in equal parts darkly funny and deeply troubling. There are slivers of hope.Pastoralia made me think of Charles Portis’ The Dog of the South, but on speed. Both focus on specimens of society gone wrong, or simply bumping along the bottom, but with hope still not extinguished. George Saunders’ characters reflect at their sort at 100mph, while Charles Portis’ are more slow-motion car crashes. Both make heroes from the underdog and those (almost) trodden underfoot.To give you an introduction without spoiling the plot:Pastoralia is about a man and a woman acting as cavemen/women in a modern zoo, while real world pressures bear down on them from the outside. Imagine that this is your job and your life depended on it;Winky is a weak little man taking a self-assertion course to deal with a dear challenge in his life;Sea Oak focuses on a male club stripper trying to drum up funds for his family stuck in misery. Things go wrong, then very very strange;The End of Firpo in the World is about a boy on a bicycle travelling just as fast in his mind as on his out-of-control bike.The Barber’s Unhappiness deals with power, love & lust, social perception and critical self-deception, and self-destructive criticism.The Falls is about watery ends and a little bit of hope, maybe.These are recounted at super high-speed language, with huge sentences where the reader dances from despair, to hope, to judgement of others, to self-criticism, to self-embellishment, to honour and loyalty, to betrayal, and back. The commas are little stepping stones for readers to jump left, right and on.So, for writers looking for tools of the craft – look at the voice, the voices of his characters. All of them are so real, they could be alive in grotty parts of your city, fighting to make ends meet, to realise the dreams despite all. Some of the voices might aggress you, render you nervous, but all are worth listening to and learning from.And, look at George Saunders’ self-asserted freedom of language, allowing himself labyrinthine sentences that sing, grammatical errors that are just right for the voices he shares. When one is a master of language, one can write one’s own rules.

I was laughing out loud several times, other times I was nodding and the rest of the time my eyes were wide open of anticipation. What a skillfully written book. It talks about low class people, but it touches on aspects of humanity that are all too familiar, and makes me realize I could be very well one of the characters. Truly enjoyable.

as expected

As described

I really enjoyed this assortment of short stories. Many are messed up! The first novella points a jarring finger at workplace politics and busy-work, but in a fun/creative way. There's also a very memorable short about a dead poor woman who comes back from her gave to "haunt" her family. She pushes them to move up in the world economically, all while she is in a state of denial regarding her body's increasing state of decay. This story managed to be funny and heart breaking.

Not my favorite type of reading. Should have read previews before ordering it. I'm just not a sci-fi fan. Did like Lincoln in the Bardo though.