I actually listened to Lincoln in the Bardo, rather than read it. The story is narrated collectively by over 150 characters, so the audiobook seems like a more natural way to experience it. Hearing the different readers helped provide distinct personalities for each character, not to mention adding emotional color to the old-fashioned diction.
Lincoln in the Bardo takes place the night after Abraham Lincoln's eleven-year-old son Willie is buried. President Lincoln uses the prerogative of his office to get back into the cemetery after dark, to mourn alone. But he's not alone, because a variety of spirits live there and witness his unprecedented visit. They narrate the story while also telling us their own stories. It's an innovative and unusual structure, leading to review headlines like this one.
Saunders captures the tone in the very first chapters. The most prominent spirit, Hans Vollman (Nick Offerman in the audiobook), describes how he married a much younger woman, treated her with great tenderness, and was about to consummate the marriage when he "fell sick" from a ceiling beam to the head. He has been waiting ever since in his "sick box," which he reluctantly admits that he pooped in when he first arrived here. His narration is old-fashioned, compassionate, and just a little bit silly.
The book addresses big subjects like the meaning of life and death, and builds its own cosmology from an amalgam of Buddhist and Christian ideas. (The bardo is a Buddhist concept; one of the lead spirits is a minister.) The fancy structure distances us enough that Saunders can show us the most extreme emotions without tipping into melodrama.
Lincoln in the Bardo takes place the night after Abraham Lincoln's eleven-year-old son Willie is buried. President Lincoln uses the prerogative of his office to get back into the cemetery after dark, to mourn alone. But he's not alone, because a variety of spirits live there and witness his unprecedented visit. They narrate the story while also telling us their own stories. It's an innovative and unusual structure, leading to review headlines like this one.
Saunders captures the tone in the very first chapters. The most prominent spirit, Hans Vollman (Nick Offerman in the audiobook), describes how he married a much younger woman, treated her with great tenderness, and was about to consummate the marriage when he "fell sick" from a ceiling beam to the head. He has been waiting ever since in his "sick box," which he reluctantly admits that he pooped in when he first arrived here. His narration is old-fashioned, compassionate, and just a little bit silly.
The book addresses big subjects like the meaning of life and death, and builds its own cosmology from an amalgam of Buddhist and Christian ideas. (The bardo is a Buddhist concept; one of the lead spirits is a minister.) The fancy structure distances us enough that Saunders can show us the most extreme emotions without tipping into melodrama.
His mind was freshly inclined to sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in the world one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content, all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help, or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.
No comments:
Post a Comment