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Pastoralia (Paperback)

de George Saunders (Author) "I HAVE TO ADMIT I'm not feeling my best ..." En savoir plus
4.2étoiles sur 5  Voir tous les commentaires (42 évaluations de client)
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In both his acclaimed debut, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and his second collection, Pastoralia, George Saunders imagines a near future where capitalism has run amok. Consumption and the service economy rule the earth. The Haves are grotesque beings, mutilated by their crass desires and impossible wealth. The Have Nots are no less crippled, both emotionally and physically, by their inferior status. It's a kind of Westworld scenario, but instead of robots, the serving wenches, bellboys, and extras are real people, all of them mercilessly indentured by the free market.

Sounds like bleak stuff, doesn't it? Yet Saunders handles his characters with grace and humor. In the title story, for example, a couple occupies a squalid corner of a human zoo, where they act out a parody of caveman times, communicating in grunts and hand motions (speaking is instantly punishable by the Orwellian management) and conducting their lives during 15-minute smoke breaks. In "Winky," a born loser (really, all of Saunders's characters are born losers) visits a self-help seminar, where he's encouraged to rid himself of all those people who are "crapping in your oatmeal." Exhilarated at the prospect of dumping his simple, crazy-haired, religion-besotted sister, he returns home to the bleak discovery that he needs her as much as she needs him. The protagonist of "Sea Oak" works as a stripper in an aviation-themed restaurant and lives next to a crack house with his unemployed sisters, their babies, and a sweet old maid of an aunt. The aunt dies, and then returns from the grave--not so sweet, now, and still decomposing--with strange powers and a sobering message:

You ever been in the grave? It sucks so bad! You regret all the things you never did. You little bitches are going to have a very bad time in the grave unless you get on the stick, believe me!
The characters and situations in the rest of Pastoralia are equally wretched. But Saunders rescues them from utter despair with a loving belief in the triumph of the human spirit: yes, things can always get worse, but worse is better than the cold dirt of the grave. And in the small space between wretchedness and death there is plenty of room for laughter, and even love. --Tod Nelson --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.

From Publishers Weekly

Saunders's extraordinary talent is in top form in his second collection (after CivilWarLand in Bad Decline), in which his vision of a hellishly (and hopefully) exaggerated dystopia of late capitalist America is warmed and impassioned by his regular, irregular and flat-out wacky characters. Merging the spirit of James Thurber with the world of the Simpsons, Saunders's five stories and title novella feature protagonists who are losers yet also innocent dreamers: in "Winky," a single guy lives with his sister but hopes to improve his life with his new self-help cult's mantra, "Now is the time for me to win!" The tales pit bleak existences with details so contemporary they're futuristic, as in "Pastoralia," where the narrator is a "re-enactor" who lives in a cave as part of an exhibit in the Pastoralia theme park. Authenticity demands that he speak no English, pretend to draw pictographs on the wall and eat goat. His cave partner, Janet, is driving him crazy, because she uses English, smokes and hates goat; meanwhile, the clumsy, bullying management leans on the narrator to testify against her. In "Sea Oak," the narrator is a beleaguered male stripper who lives with his Aunt Bernie and two other relatives, both clueless, young single mothers whose dialogue consists of trashy talk-show vernacular. They eke out their lives in foggy complacency until the pathetically passive Bernie dies and comes back to life to boss around the household: "I never got nothing! My life was shit! I was never even up in a freaking plane." These characters may not have much, but they do possess the author's compassion, and so are enigmas of decency enshrouded in dark, TV-hobbled dumbness. Saunders, with a voice unlike any other writer's, makes these losers funny, plausible and absolutely winning. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
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Pastoralia
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Pastoralia 4.2étoiles sur 5 (42)
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42 évaluations
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4.2étoiles sur 5 (42 évaluations de client)
 
 
 
 
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5.0étoiles sur 5 Bizarre, Grotesque, Absurd, and all too real!!!, Mars 18 2004
Par S. Henkels (Devon, Pa United States) - Voir tous mes commentaires
(REAL NAME)   
Comparisons with other writer's do not do justice to Mr. Saunders! His zany, laugh out loud, heart rending tales, are simply in a class of their own! And his stream of conscious narrations are about perfect! Take the bike riding boy in one tale. This youngster daydreams in a sci-fi world wishing for weird things to happen to his neighbors. How many other boys, and girls, have done the same, but who else can write about it like Mr. Saunders! Or the narrator of "The Falls", obsessed with his grown up neighbors, and wondering how to greet his odd "friend". Then Mr. Saunders reverses course, and into the mind of the frustrated artist antagonist, all the while sending a sly warning about two girls boating towrds the falls! There's the daydreaming barber with no toes, who lives with his mother, wondering about making the first move towards a beautiful, but awkwardly overbuilt, fellow student at a course for driver's caught speeding, not to mention the all too real instructor. Who would not want to be a student in this unique author's creative writing class?! The title tale also has its strange moments, as does the entire collection of a real original in contemporary writing!!
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1.0étoiles sur 5 Losers & Whiners learn to Hope, Fév 25 2004
Par Un client
I was stuck on a plane with no other book to read or I would never have finished this one. The first story of people as theme park exhibits reminded me of Star Trek episode with Orwellian overtones. You can only save yourself by betraying others, and the life you are saving yourself for is probably not worth the self laothing. Perhaps the stories are well written, but the themes are so off-putting that they detract from any enjoyment.
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3.0étoiles sur 5 If you like Dellilo, climb aboard, if not, think twice., Janv. 25 2004
In his short story collection Pastoralia, George Saunders guides us through alternately self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, self-castigating, self-deceptive, and simultaneously self-aware selves. His characters often live grotesquely pathetic lives: a middle-aged worker on a computer company factory line who longs to get rid of the mildly retarded sister he cared for, a male stripper who is rated by his customers as somewhere between "Honeypie" and "Adequate" and lives in the projects with his two malopriating sisters and self-abnegating aunt, a fat, hateful little boy constantly mocked by his mother and step-father, a barber born without toes who is tortured by his inability to see beyond the physical imperfections of the women in his life. Almost all male, often adults still living with their mothers, self-identified lifelong losers, Saunders' characters brood on past injustices and failures and, more often than not, show themselves unable to break the patterns that have stalled their lives.
These are comic tales, though not, in my view, of the laugh-out loud kind. They are darkly, even bitterly, ironic, and though Saunders sometimes tempers his irony with redeeming moments of pathos, his world is generally one in which mean spiritedness rules the day. Whether the storyteller, himself, is guilty of such mean spiritedness or whether he merely documents it, is difficult to say. One can detect a certain degree of affection toward these characters in the narrative voice, but there is also a little disdain. This ironic detachment is, perhaps, what marks these tales as postmodernist. I am reminded not so much of Pynchon as of Don DeLillo, so that if you like the latter writer, I suspect you will enjoy Saunders.
I, myself, am not a fan of this brand of postmodernism. Ultimately, such writers in my view construct mere caricatures-highly complex, sophisticated caricatures, but caricatures nonetheless. If you are more humanist than postmodernist, I think you will find these tales to be interesting, but limited, explorations of our psychic warts.
One more thing. I haven't discussed the first story in the collection which gives the book its name. I did read it, but I found it so alienating I almost did not continue on to the other stories. Set either in the near future or in some alternate dimension of the present, "Pastoralia" is the story of a man who earns his living by serving as a live exhibit in some kind of historical theme park. Hired to be a Neanderthal, his job requires him literally to live in a cave, mimicking the daily activities of our prehistoric ancestors for sporadic visitors. He finds himself caught between the demands of a woman partner who refuses to remain in character and an exploitative management that appears to be running the theme park into the ground. It's an imaginative plot, but I found the execution tedious and unrewarding. So, my advice to the reader is not to skip this story, but simply to be patient. If feel like your slogging through it like I did, don't toss away the book. There are better things to come.

BTW, in looking over the other reviews, I see that I am among a tiny, tiny minority. Nearly everyone else gives Saunders five stars and lauds him as hilarious, insightful, and original. Maybe I have a def ear to this kind of satire, but I found all of these raves to be hyperbolic. One of the few other reviewers who is critical of this collection suggests that Saunders appeals distinctly to men. She may have a point. Maybe Saunders cynicism is more male oriented. I also suspect though, that he appeals to many readers because he enables them to feel smart and superior not only to the consistently pathetic protagonists but also to the moronic demands of the society that they live in. I'm no big defender of the status quo, but I'm afraid I just don't see the world as quite so stupid as these stories portray it, and so I don't take any joy from the collection's social critique. The barbs aimed at the social order are undoubtedly clever, but they are hardly subtle.

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 		 Commentaires client les plus récents

2.0étoiles sur 5 Quirky, often funny, well written... and oddly unengaging...
I really wanted to like this book. A close friend who shares a lot of my taste in writing (Borges, TC Boyle, ZZ Packer, Lester Bangs, etc. Read more
Publié le Mai 17 2004 par Monkey Deathcar

5.0étoiles sur 5 Arcadia Ego
One of the most compassionate, quirky, and incandescent books I have read, Pastoralia is on my short list of all-time favorites. Read more
Publié le Avril 29 2003 par Open Container

5.0étoiles sur 5 The Truth Distilled
If you've ever felt valueless as an employee/citizen....you're not alone. Saunders exposes how earnestly we pursue our livings in a Capitalist system so devoid of humanism that... Read more
Publié le Mars 4 2003

5.0étoiles sur 5 Looking for happiness in all the usual, wrong places
The first story in this book, the title story, grabbed me immediately. I laughed aloud, delighted at the inventiveness of Saunders' depiction of the corporate culture, as seen... Read more
Publié le Fév 5 2003 par Susan O'Neill

4.0étoiles sur 5 It is to laugh... and then feel really queasy
Does this guy Saunders have a lock on the proto-futuristic-pre-wasteland-alternate-present-reality thing, or what? Read more
Publié le Nov. 12 2002 par Barry Fitzsimmons

5.0étoiles sur 5 the best bad metaphors
The satirical Pastoralia will cause you to harass your book-reading circle, reciting countless excerpts, promising that each will be the last you read aloud - that is until you... Read more
Publié le Oct. 20 2002 par Christina Shaw

5.0étoiles sur 5 A Quick, Hilarious, and Sometimes Heart-warming Read
I can imagine that some wouldn't like the fiction of George Saunders. It's bizarre at times in its pulling situations from left field and making them central to the world of its... Read more
Publié le Sep 26 2002 par Volkswagen Blues

4.0étoiles sur 5 The anti-heroic in the age and place of the hero...
The stories in "Pastoralia" center on eccentricly flawed characters teetering on the brink of making a decision. Read more
Publié le Juil 29 2002 par David Grim

1.0étoiles sur 5 blech
I read two pages of glowing reviews here before I wrote this, and they were all written by men. I am not a man, and I did not like this miserable book. Read more
Publié le Mai 28 2002

5.0étoiles sur 5 Not your standard pastorals
I strongly recommend George Saunders's fiction to anyone that enjoys cynicism dished up with a dollop of hope. Read more
Publié le Fév 26 2002 par Eric Franklin

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