Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
One feels such love for the little ones, such anticipation that all that is lovely in life will be known by them, such fondness for that set of attributes manifested uniquely in each: mannerisms of bravado, of vulnerability, habits of speech and mispronouncement and so forth; the smell of the hair and head, the feel of the tiny hand in yours—and th
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I was not surprised to find that George Saunders is a father to two daughters.
He was an open book. An opening book. That had just been opened up somewhat wider. By sorrow. And—by us. By all of us, black and white, who had so recently mass-inhabited him.
George Saunders • Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
I love the slow exposition of Lincoln throughout this book - how the ghosts influence him as a result of his son's passing. It's a truly poetic thought.
When a child is lost there is no end to the self-torment a parent may inflict. When we love, and the object of our love is small, weak, and vulnerable, and has looked to us and us alone for protection; and when such protection, for whatever reason, has failed, what consolation (what justification, what defense) may there possibly be? None. Doubt wi
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I have these morbid thoughts many times while my sone plays in the bathtub alone for a minute or I see him walking close to the edge of a pier (even if I'm there). Our family has friends who lost both of their boys on the same night, when the older boy was driving home and flipped off a rural country bridge into a creek.Parenting is frightful stuff.
inclined. These were Abernathy, Seville, and Kord, all of whom
George Saunders • Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
It was as if a rushing river had routed itself through my house, which was pervaded now by a freshwater scent and the awareness of something lavish, natural, and breathtaking always moving nearby.
George Saunders • Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one mu
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Some blows fall too heavy upon those too fragile.
George Saunders • Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
And proceeded past Trevor Williams, former hunter, seated before the tremendous heap of all the animals he had dispatched in his time: hundreds of deer, thirty-two black bear, three bear cubs, innumerable coons, lynx, foxes, mink, chipmunks, wild turkeys, woodchucks, and cougars; scores of mice and rats, a positive tumble of snakes, hundreds of cow
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Reading this seemed to be the key to understanding why so many remained after death and why so many were eventually unburdened.
Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing: