In his write-up on the 2011 Cannes film festival, critic Mike D’Angelo said that he’d recommend “Melancholia” over “The Kid With a Bike” without hesitation, despite having given the latter a higher grade. “The Kid With a Bike” was a good movie, but Melancholia was a cinematic achievement, even if it kinda sucked. I can relate. George Saunders’s “Tenth of December” is much closer to my heart than Sam Lipsyte’s “The Fun Parts”—two of its stories, “Victory Lap” and “Puppy,” are among the best I’ve ever read—“Puppy” will make even non-parents feel guilty about parenthood (those last lines! Gah!); Victory Lap’s central idea, that there is a human impulse to do good, was so beautifully rendered that I cried. I will reread more from “Tenth of December” as my life goes on. If I had to recommend one of these books to a non-writer, I would go with “Tenth of December,” without question. But “Tenth of December” is undoubtedly flawed—two stories, “Sticks” and “Exhortation,” read as workshop exercises (as opposed to something heartfelt and necessary), so it’s unsurprising to find out later that “Sticks” is from the mid-90s, when Saunders was arguably still finding his voice (curious that it hasnt been included in any previous collections). “Exhortation” was actually written for a McSweeney’s prompt (“Four Institutional Monologues”). Both pieces would have been better off in a posthumous collection like the kinds Kurt Vonnegut’s estate keeps producing. Furthermore—though it’s hard to blame him after publishing four (mostly great) short story collections—Saunders’ stories have begun to rehash his previous work. “Escape from Spiderhead”’s conclusion is all too similar to that of “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.” And though the title story is a knockout, I’m ambivalent about how often Saunders employs “person dithering over whether or not to help another person” scenarios. When the story is most similar to “Victory Lap” or “The Falls,” I hear wheels spinning. Or maybe I don’t. I honestly can’t say. “The Fun Parts” is much closer to perfect—I can’t justifiably call any of these pieces “weak,” or even “weaker than the others,” or even “better than the others.” There isn’t a standout story, and though I have a favorite (“This Appointment Occurs in the Past”), I’m not sure it’s really my favorite, because I can’t specify what makes it any better than the other stories (Denser prose? Is that a legit reason? Surely not?). None of the stories reduced me to tears, though I often ached at the depth of the self-loathing Lipsyte depicts—each character wants desperately to be something he/she will never be. This line, spoken by the narrator in “This Appointment,” reads as a thesis statement for the entire book: “We were poseurs, but why do you think poseurs pose? Because they want to be invited to the dominion of the real, an almost magical zone of unselfed sensation, and they know their very desire for it disqualifies them. Consider that, the next time you cluck your tongue at some awful, grandiose fake.” This is probably the right time to note that Lipsyte’s prose frequently left me envious, scratching my head and wondering how the hell an actual human being could ever write a sentence that sharp. Every story in ‘The Fun Parts’ is an example of how to write well. I can’t say that for Saunders’ book. But the best pieces in Saunders’ collection are more memorable than the best pieces in Lipsyte’s collection. Saunders has the book I love more, but it’s a B-plus/A-minus. Lipsyte has the book that is an A/A-minus, if an A-minus I’m slightly less inclined to reread. But there must be some souls out there who cry when they read Lipsyte and will die with his books at their bedsides. I can’t let my bias cloud this: “The Fun Parts” wins. Mike D’Angelo link: avclub/article/cannes-11-day-eight-the-latest-from-takashi-miike--56315
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 06:15:30 +0000