Okay, I just finished reading In Persuasion Nation and I just wanted to weigh in with some final thoughts on it. In my last post I expressed regret that Saunders, while skilled at tearing town our established ways of seeing, is able to offer almost no solutions to the current state of American myopia. Well, perhaps by coincidence (since I didn’t read the stories in this book in order but instead hopped around), I just happened to read the three darkest tales in this collection last. And this got me to thinking–sometimes people live in disillusionment, far away from the light, without any hope that they will ever not be impotent. So, maybe what Saunders is saying is that there is no real hope in this life except for a glitzy, illusion-like world of materialism. Perhaps Saunders is saying that if we turn away from this parallel universe of consummerism and explore our souls we will find emptiness, loss and, maybe even, insanity. I hope it’s not too much of a leap to make this assumption.
Juxtaposed to the states of depression and paucity in Saunders’ darker tales are the ecstasies of materialism and comfort mixed with the orgasmic throes that come from being immersed in gratifying pop-culture. Could we also say that Saunders delineates these two polarizing worlds as both being illusions? On the one hand, materialism dupes us into believing that we our safe and special while depriving us of the organic joys of life, and on the other hand, extreme dearth and hopelessness rob of us our sanity and make life a bitter pill to swallow.
I think it would not be difficult to find numerous examples from the text to support both of my arguments. But I want to put George Saunders on the shelf for now. It’s time to inject myself with something more positive and uplifting before I read The Braindead Megaphone.
