In all my time here I've never seen a Saunders thread. What's Veeky Forums's opinion of him?
I've been reading a lot of his stuff lately. It all feels thematically similar, but I haven't gotten sick of that theme yet. The prose is simple but fucking precise, in terms of capturing voice and a lower-class angst. He seems like a less long-winded, less pretentious DFW.
DFW and Tommy P also left him quotes, which is cool I guess
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Offloading for Mrs Schwartz or whatever it's called is great. I liked his essay Christmas 1984. I think his writing is a little retarded at times ("Oh what youth! Sweaty youth! Turntable youth!") but he's good.
>Offloading for Mrs Schwartz
I get more goosebumps from that ending than just about any other short story other than Good Old Neon's ending...
Such a good payoff.
Doesn't he offload all his own memories or something? Can't remember why he does it.
He teaches the MFA at Syracuse right? One can dream of meeting the guy.
hes great and yeah hes at syracuse. ive read all of his stuff with the exception of his children books.
i got a hold of his forthcoming novel and was really hoping that he would develop more into a traditional novelist but maintaining his prose and his weird sense of innocent depression but it read like a novella and im pretty bummed about that.
>drwrite.com
Yep. He's ruined/lost his only good relationship, and then fucked up at his dead-end job, and decides that he's insignificant and the memories aren't worth having. The future-tense prose of that last paragraph is what gets me though.
That's a beautiful dog.
I read Pastoralia and thought it was lukewarm at best. A few funnymoments here and there but very simple and kinf of hamfisted. maybe there is better material?
Initially excited when I saw his work but after buying all the collections, I did find it very repetitious in terms of theme and style. Its not helped by the fact he has the same "bullied everyman" (reminds me of PKD in this regard) character in these stories as well.
Maybe this is the problem. After rebelling against an identifiable MFA-style short story, the rebels have created their own Saunders-Wallace identifiable MFA-style 2.0 short story.
>it read like a novella and im pretty bummed about that
What's wrong with the novella? Did his material/matter seem ill-suited to the form, or what?
Personally, I think the novella/long short story needs a revitalization. Also, nobody reads Henry James anymore.
I agree about Pastoralia. The first story was pretty great, but then the rest get incrementally shittier until a nearly unreadable last one.
Also, dude just needs to go full bald. His little poof in the front is fucking ridiculous.
I recommend this non-fic essay: newyorker.com
tldr: Saunders quit his full-time job shortly after graduation, LARPed as Kerouac until he was 26, lived in his aunt's basement for a year or so, thought he was fucked irreparably, then got into an MFA course
My creative writing professor was actually his mentor so that's cool
...Tobias Wolff?
So theres me and this girl who doesn't really like me and we work as exhibits in a zoo. It doesn't pay that well but its a job. Also I have a boss I don't like. Its almost as if I'm a living in far too on the nose metaphor for the nature of contemporary suburban life. I spend a lot of time imagining things as a substitute for any real narrative, there is nothing more interesting than being interested in your own cognitions. I have the odd character quirk I'll admit, but its odd how they manifest in linguistic tricks suitable for short fiction that would get wearing at novel length. So am in a zoo or really trapped in a short story anthology? Thats just the kind of reflexive thinking a guy like me does, which is odd because I act stupid the rest of the time. Anyhow, one day the zoo burned down but I stayed anyway, a man's got to eat right? The End.
>In all my time here I've never seen a Saunders thread.
Then you haven't been here longer than a day.
Is this pasta? If not then I give you serious props. Makes me wonder whether his brand of precise humor is really good or something I just suck at writing myself.
if he ever wrote anything over 300 pages I might give him a try. I'm not shelling twenty bucks for eighty fucking pages, even if its dank.
>I have the odd character quirk I'll admit, but its odd how they manifest in linguistic tricks suitable for short fiction that would get wearing at novel length.
Any examples?
Any writers edgier than Nietzsche?
>suitable for short fiction that would get wearing at novel length
But he writes short stories. How is writing short stories in a style that's suitable for short stories bad because they wouldn't work at a different length?