Lincoln in the Bardo

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Saunders, George, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Saunders, George
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A Two-Read Read submitted by spinkelman on June 25, 2018, 5:25pm This is a different kind of novel, clearly playing with form and ways to tell a story. This will frustrate some readers and enthrall others. It follows the format of a surreal play and it's hard not to think of Beckett. However, it is flush with meaning. There are beautiful and heart-wrenching moments. I found the first half a bit frustrating yet was glad I finished it and now need to reread to get a better handle on it.

remarkable, fun book submitted by 21621031390949 on July 19, 2018, 11:05pm A complex book, a fantasy based on historical information, spun wildly. Unique and clever.

Interesting ideas in a format that is hard to engage submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on July 21, 2018, 4:14pm At first I was profoundly put off by the writing style of this book. It looks more like a play than a novel, as it is written in 340-ish pages of narrative that range from a single line to a medium-length paragraph, with a full page thrown in here and there. Each one is attributed afterward to a narrator, some of whom clearly become the central storytellers. I read stories to become immersed, and I found this style to be choppy and disruptive.

Then a member of my book club said that she listened to this as an audio book, and it was read by 166 different narrators. With that, something clicked in my head and I was able to return to reading the book and *read it like a play.* That changed everything for me. I still don’t love the style, but it made sense, and I could follow what the author was doing.

And let me tell you, what Saunders did was bizarre and fascinating. He used the medium of a graveyard to explore questions about life goals and regrets. THAT was the fascinating part. But his characters manifest in bizarre ways that physically emphasized what they regretted most about their lives before death. Well, let’s just say that I read it for book club and if enough people got through the format, we ought to have an interesting discussion about the ideas.

So overall for me the book averages out to a 3. There were interesting ideas explored through means that I did not enjoy (by which I mean both the characters and the writing style). I’m definitely not a Saunders fan, and won’t read more of his work unless my book club pushes me into it again.

Interesting book submitted by thegretch on July 23, 2018, 10:32am For me the authors choice of writing style took a little getting use to. I enjoyed the history explored in the book.

Tale of Lincoln submitted by kgolden65 on July 27, 2018, 8:17am George Saunders created an interesting tale of the afterlife and an 'in-between' world. It definitely takes a little time to get into the writing style as some of it is written as excerpts from actual writings of the time when Lincoln was president and his son Willy died. It really does give an interesting feel of multiple entities exploring why they have yet to pass on to their afterlife. A very unique take on storytelling.

Excellent submitted by shannonwait on July 28, 2018, 9:10pm I loved how Saunders combined real historical quotes with a cast of bizarre and fascinating characters. I want to read more Saunders now!

contemplating loss submitted by camelsamba on June 30, 2019, 10:23pm There were aspects of this I enjoyed, and aspects that I did not. I enjoyed the last half more than the first. I listened to the audiobook, which is read/performed by a giant cast (the credits were 5 or 6 minutes long!); I would like to flip through the print edition to see how the different quotations and characters are represented.

One mundane aspect: the contemporaneous accounts of certain events that are described quite differently (e.g "the moon was full" yet also "there was no moon"), and the quotes of people lambasting Lincoln for things that we now hold in high esteem. I mean I get it, the country was divided, political opposition will always take such a form, but wow - it was stark. Especially in the context of the main drama, Willie Lincoln's illness and death.

More profound: contemplating the nature of life, and death, and the afterlife - soul and spirit and the spark that makes someone who they are. As someone grieving a recent loss, certain chapters really spoke to me (I listened to chapters 74 and 92 many times).

Ch 74, Abraham Lincoln, contemplating Willie's corpse: "Is it him? It is not. What is it? It is that which used to bear him around. The essential thing - that which was born, that which we loved - is gone. Though, this was part of what we loved. We loved the way he - the combination of spark and bearer - looked and walked and skipped and laughed and played the clown. This, this here, is the lesser part of that beloved contraption. Absent that spark, this, this lying here is merely ... [meat]"

Lincoln in the Bardo submitted by -alex- on July 11, 2019, 9:24pm Lincoln in the Bardo is a little hard to pin down, partly because it is such a strange mixture of so many wildly different things.

It is (in its own strange way) an epistalary novel. It's also a historical novel, and a ghost story. It's a rumination on grief, loss, trauma, desire, separation, greed, carnality, and all the other things that consume us in life. It's a deeply sensitive, probing, clear-eyed and heartbreaking character study. It's an easy read. It makes you think.

It's characters are firmly rooted in a conventional Amercan Christian worldview, yet the novel draws its premise from Tantric Buddhism. Somehow both things are compatible - can coexist and form a perfect, uncontradictory whole.

Lincoln in the Bardo is by far the best book I've read all year. It's worth your time.

Weird and fun and sad submitted by avandeusen on July 17, 2021, 12:43pm This book really takes the reader on a journey. Once I got used to the writing style, I really was caught up in the story!

Wow submitted by bcartm01 on June 21, 2022, 8:28pm I agree with several of the other reviewers that the writing style took several pages to get used to, however once I did get used to it, I really got swept up in the story. I ended up reading this book in one day. I highly recommend it and loved the ending.

Beautiful prose submitted by tcramer318 on June 27, 2023, 6:24pm Would recommend for anyone who has ever lost a loved one. Through his characters, George Saunders is able to explore what it is to grieve and to be grieved for, as well as the nature of experiencing, without being preachy or taking a particular religious bent. The action in this book mostly takes place over the course of a night, and there are citations from a variety of texts on Abraham Lincoln. One of the other reviews mentioned listening to this as an audiobook, and I think that may be the move for my next time around with this book.

Incredible and sad submitted by berkleya on August 13, 2023, 9:44pm Some if the best writing about grief I've ever read