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Ladataan... Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)Tekijä: George Saunders
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Kirjaudu LibraryThingiin nähdäksesi, pidätkö tästä kirjasta vai et. Ei tämänhetkisiä Keskustelu-viestiketjuja tästä kirjasta. A moving story of loss and regret, set in a cemetery. I just wished for an author’s note with info about the memoirs from which he drew quotations. A strange story strangely told. The flipping back and forth between narrators was a bit jarring at first, but I did become used to it. I sense this is the type of book one either loves or hates, not much in between. While I found it fascinating i am not sure I would recommend it to anyone i know as reading material. The unusual format takes a little getting used to. I had to reread the first chapter once I’d gotten the hang of it( the name of the speaker follows the section they orate.) The emphasis on sex surprised me a bit, there are several characters for whom it is presented as the primary storyline. I understand that it deals with the various things in life that people valued or would miss in life, or that may have distracted them from other important things, but felt it was a little overemphasized. I enjoyed the parts with Lincoln and overall found it an interesting , thought provoking read "Lincoln in the Bardo" covers approximately the first 24 hours after the burial of Willie Lincoln, the president’s third son, from typhoid fever. Upon his death, Willie enters a “bardo,” a Buddhist state between your earthly life and your next reincarnation. Willie's body is placed in a crypt in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, a place full of dead souls who won’t admit to themselves that they’re dead and fear moving onto their next plane whether that be heaven or hell. Willie’s eventual realization that he’s dead and that he should move on from the bardo is facilitated by three ghosts — Hans Vollman, Roger Bevins III, and The Reverend Everly Thomas. These ghosts act as narrators of the novel, although narrators probably isn't the right word. The novel is split unevenly between brief chapters of historical quotations that give a glimpse into the depth of the Lincolns’ grief over the death of Willie, the fact that a state dinner was being held at the White House on the night of Willie’s death, and the growing carnage of the Civil War, and Willie’s time in the bardo alongside its many other inhabitants. This second portion of the novel, is its majority, is rendered like the dialogue of a play, where different ghosts show up and tell their stories or comment on the action with Bevins, Vollman, and Thomas being the main participants. These ghosts form a goofy parade of lost souls, each inflamed by the injustice of no longer being alive and eager to tell his or her story. The book ends with President Lincoln leaving the cemetery with the resolve that the Civil War must be won what ever the human costs meaning that Willie’s death in a way represents all of the young soldiers who have and will die. As you might expect this is quite an odd book at times amusing at others quite touching but I also found it a bit of a mixed experience. I felt that the most effective parts are when we see President Lincoln grieving over his son but this is interspersed with a lot snappy dialogue that whilst it reads quickly seems to take a long time to to get anywhere. This is my first experience of George Saunders works but I will certainly be on the outlook for more. The ghosts that hang around their graves in a Washington, D.C. cemetery in the year 1862 don't believe they're dead. They choose to believe they are on pause, their "sick forms" lying in their "sick boxes" in an unfortunate temporary condition. Quite the refusal to face facts, but they each have their reasons for desperately clinging to the earthly plane, the usual mix of regrets, materialist obsessions, and fear (more on that last in a bit). They are alternately hilarious, sincere, tragic, and offensive; always entertaining. The historical circumstances of the death of Willie Lincoln in the first year of the Civil War are well known. Here, the 11 year old's ghost is welcomed, and becomes a cemetery celebrity after President Lincoln returns the night following Willie's burial, to open Willie's sick box and cradle his son's body. This is seen as a sign to the lonely ghosts that those in that "other place" can still feel affection and love for them, that though they may feel abandoned their cause is not hopeless. The novel shifts back and forth interestingly from this ghostly realm, into the mind of the grieving and self-doubting President, and to pages of quotes from historical primary sources. These quotes and their sources are largely made up by Saunders (two, however, are credited on the copyright page, so he has mixed in some actually existing research with his imagination), and they creatively illuminate the historical context, while also contradicting in places, as the viewpoints encountered in historical research will tend to do. The plot's climax comes about due to an incomprehensible and cruel feature of this ghostly realm, this bardo - children's ghosts are not allowed the freedoms of the others, if they hang around the cemetery instead of passing on to the other side, and are quickly straitjacketed and tormented by the nonplussed souls of the damned. The ghosts don't understand this either, but feeling affection for Willie, a few battle to get him to choose "the familiar, yet always bone-chilling, firesound associated with the matterlightblooming phenomenon", ie, passing on to the next realm. This fate for ghostly children is one of a pair of ideas in the novel suggestive of a cruel God, one revolting to human reason. The other explains the fear of one of the ghosts, a Reverend when alive, who was shown the glory of the heavenly feast upon his death but then judged worthy of eternal damnation and shown a horrifying vision of hell awaiting him. He does not know what caused this judgement (Calvinism, I guess); fleeing it, he abides sympathetically in the cemetery. It's an appalling theology added to an exceedingly empathetic and humanist novel, entertaining and creative and a fine Booker Prize winner. ei arvosteluja | lisää arvostelu
PalkinnotDistinctionsAmazon.com Best Books (Top 20 – 2017) Notable ListsThe Great American Novels (2017)
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state, called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo, a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul. Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt. |
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Google Books — Ladataan... LajityypitMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Kongressin kirjaston luokitusArvio (tähdet)Keskiarvo:
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