To say that I like George Saunders’ writing is a significant understatement. His work is important to me, and has been for nearly 30 years.
Reading his first collection of stories, “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” not long after its release in 1996, was a revelation. Here was someone who seemed to capture the playful, postmodern irony of writers like Donald Barthelme, and infuse it with a deep sincerity and depth of humanity. I’ve taught his story “Winky” (from 2000’s “Pastoralia”) to hundreds of students and choked back tears many times when reading the final paragraph aloud in the classroom. “Lincoln in the Bardo” was a baggy, searching masterpiece.
So, it has been a source of great confusion, and even distress, to process my less-than-positive response to Saunders’ new novel, “Vigil.” What has gone wrong here?
“Vigil” opens with ultrawealthy oil executive K.J. Boone unconscious on his deathbed, where he is visited by Jill, an angel-ish presence of the formerly living who have not ascended fully to heaven, but instead roam the Earth in great numbers. Jill’s mission is to ease the passage of the dying into being dead, even people like Boone, who have worked to suppress the development and dissemination of climate change science, leading to a likely environmental apocalypse.
There are other spirits who visit Boone, including a Frenchman, responsible for developing the combustible engine, who tries to convince the dying man that Boone is a villain who should take on a similar role of repentance once he has departed the earthly plane.
Boone struggles with dying while Jill struggles with the rising return of her memories of her human self as Jill “Doll” Blaine, a woman who was killed in the 1970s at age 22 when she was accidentally blown up by a car bomb meant for her husband. Boone and Jill engage in philosophical dialogues as others — both living (Boone’s wife and daughter) and not — visit the bedside.
Among the visitors are two deceased former oil executives (Mel R. and Mel G.), referred to as R. and G. in a reference to Shakespeare’s, and then Stoppard’s, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It is this portion where some early qualms about my connection to “Vigil” started to bloom. As in the texts Saunders is referencing, R. and G. are clowns of a kind and they engage in banter meant to invoke the language of post-War American greatness, a banter steeped in irony as Boone decays in front of our eyes, along with the planet he’s despoiled while filling his own pockets.
This section ends with some slapstick that is deliberately, comically juvenile, but it created, in me at least, a kind of tonal whiplash that I couldn’t quite shake. Some later scenes, particularly one with Boone’s 20-something daughter who is trying to balance a love for her father with the knowledge of the harms he’s done, uses a similar technique as R.’s and G.’s banter, but it begins to feel like schtick, a neat trick of verbal firepower, but still… a trick.
One of the book’s themes is that judging others is easy, but understanding is hard, a theme infused in Saunders’ oeuvre over the years. But in this moment, in this story, I could not wholly abide it.
I think some of this is in the uneven execution of the difficult problem Saunders gave himself with this book. But surely some of it is also found inside of me and my present view of the world that Saunders is trying to illuminate.
It felt false to me. I was shocked, but I couldn’t and can’t deny it.
John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Buckeye” by Patrick Ryan
2. “Straight Man” by Richard Russo
3. “James” by Percival Everett
4. “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver
5. “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy
— Adam T., Chicago
For Adam, I’m going to actually go a bit less epic than the preponderance of books on this list, but also a book that’s still going to get you emotionally, “We Run the Tides” by Vendela Vida.
1. “The Wedding People” by Alison Espach
2. “The Searcher” by Tana French
3. “The Correspondent” Virginia Evans
4. “Heart the Lover” by Lily King
5. “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman
— Nancy P., Wilmette
Lots of very popular books here — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but I’m going to guide Nancy toward a book she might not otherwise come to know, “Saul and Patsy” by Charles Baxter.
1. “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel
2. “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan
3. “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
4. “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov
5. “Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro
— Indira S., Chicago
My gut instinct is pointing toward Paul Murray’s intimate epic coming-of-age novel, “Skippy Dies.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.
