Rating: 
Summary: An excellent collection of stories
Review: I initially discovered G. Saunders in the New Yorker via a short story entitled "The End of FIRPO in the World" -- taken from Pastoralia -- and became and instant fan. This is the first book of his short stories I bought, and shortly there after I also purchased Pastoralia, his second collection. Both are wonderfully written, dark and very funny without seeming repetitive or forced. His stories are some of the most original and fresh I've read by a contemporary author in a long while, and I've passed his books on to many friends.
Rating:
Summary: Dark but very accessible social satire
Review: I really enjoyed this book, which is very much in the absurdist/satirical tradition of Donald Barthelme. Saunders's fiction, however, is easier to decode than Don B.'s, probably because Saunders performs his stories in the voices of very sympathetic, underdog first-person narrators. He shares Don B.'s gift for exposing the most ridiculous patterns in our cultural discourse, but he does so in the process of shaping deeply symbolic stories, as opposed to Barthelme's brilliant, jarring fragments. I am really looking forward to his next collection.
Rating: 
Summary: "Read one story per month."
Review: I think a dosage label should come with all of Saunder's books. It should read"Read one story per month." What was your first Saunders? "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz" was mine. It was in the first issue of The New Yorker with Tina Brown at the helm. I remember this well, because I wrote a review of the "new" New Yorker for my college paper at the time and was super-impressed with Offloading, especially juxtaposed against the boring John Updike short that was also featured in the issue. In the last 4-5 months, I've read a number of Saunders stories in the New Yorker: "Sea Oak," "The Barber's Unhappiness," and "Pastoralia," all of which are probably featured in his second collection of shorts. I read these stories 2-3 months apart, and I must say, that's the right pace for Saunders. That brings me to CivilWarLand. Excellent stories, no doubt about it, but when I end up reading one story after next, a rather boring pattern forms: Royally Screwed Protagonist does Something Stupid and ends up Getting Even More Screwed. The whole corporate-speak thing gets old fast. It's Orwellian, sure, but when you dip into the well that often, well, you might as well just jump in. (Maybe Murakami will save you, who knows.) The best stories are the ones with a heart. There's only one of those, and that's Offloading. What a sweet, spectacular ending! It's probably worth the book just for that story alone. The worst story is the novella, "Bounty." It just doesn't work. Boring. Still though, Saunders makes me laugh. Writing humor is a tough thing to do, so I have to tip my beenie to Saunders. I don't think there's a funnier writer out there right now. - SJW 4 stars
Rating:
Summary: "Read one story per month."
Review: I think a dosage label should come with all of Saunder's books. It should read "Read one story per month." What was your first Saunders? "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz" was mine. It was in the first issue of The New Yorker with Tina Brown at the helm. I remember this well, because I wrote a review of the "new" New Yorker for my college paper at the time and was super-impressed with Offloading, especially juxtaposed against the boring John Updike short that was also featured in the issue. In the last 4-5 months, I've read a number of Saunders stories in the New Yorker: "Sea Oak," "The Barber's Unhappiness," and "Pastoralia," all of which are probably featured in his second collection of shorts. I read these stories 2-3 months apart, and I must say, that's the right pace for Saunders. That brings me to CivilWarLand. Excellent stories, no doubt about it, but when I end up reading one story after next, a rather boring pattern forms: Royally Screwed Protagonist does Something Stupid and ends up Getting Even More Screwed. The whole corporate-speak thing gets old fast. It's Orwellian, sure, but when you dip into the well that often, well, you might as well just jump in. (Maybe Murakami will save you, who knows.) The best stories are the ones with a heart. There's only one of those, and that's Offloading. What a sweet, spectacular ending! It's probably worth the book just for that story alone. The worst story is the novella, "Bounty." It just doesn't work. Boring. Still though, Saunders makes me laugh. Writing humor is a tough thing to do, so I have to tip my beenie to Saunders. I don't think there's a funnier writer out there right now. - SJW 4 stars
Rating:
Summary: A Promising and Fulfilling Debut
Review: I think the reviewer (The NY Times, was it?) who described Saunders as the illegitimate offspring of Nathaniel West and Kurt Vonnegut, as much as I usually hate such analogies, hit the proverbial nail right on the head. Saunders' endearing sense of humor seems to me to be a cross of those two literary giants'. However, there is nothing derivative or hackneyed about this collection at all. In fact, I think he is the most original and interesting of literature's new voices. Though many of the stories share much in common, the collection is, as a whole, diverse and extremely enjoyable. Maybe even cathartic? I found "Civilwarland in Bad Decline" to be one of the most enjoyable collections I've read in years and I'd recommend it to anyone searching for something new from the world of literature.
Rating:
Summary: AmericanFictionLand In Bad Decline
Review: If I could communicate, as clearly as possible, the embodiment of a 'glowing review,' I would do it here. These days it seems almost anyone can write a decent sentence. There are so many MFA programs out there now, that it seems like more people write short stories than read them. Yet, to come across a talent as huge as George Saunders (by education an Engineer, by pure gift of God, a writer) is still something to behold. With so many good writers writing good stories made of good sentences, its kind of tough to stand out and write with true excellence and originality. But George Saunders does this. Oh, does he do this. You don't know the meaning of the word pathetic until you step into the heads of some of these characters. Granted, you will get the sneaking feeling that the same protagonist is being transported from place to place and story to story, with few changes, but Saunder's heroes (if we can call them that) are so pathetic, so pitiable, so 'downtrodden,' that you can read of their ridiculous plights repeatedly and still be surprised at how good it makes you feel to do so. The main reason for this is Saunder's killer prose; it's almost an invented dialect of the post-modern mind. The very phrasing makes you feel like you're being tickled. And there's the voyeuristic aspect concomitant with today's TV culture. It's just great fun to watch bad things happen to normal people. And even if the main characters are very similar, the supporting cast is always a riot, complete with beautifully idiotic dialogue and deadpan narration. But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these ironic, self-mocking tales, is their undercurrent of sympathy and sensitivity. At the end of nearly every story, Saunders manages to change the tone faster than Jeff Gordon can go through the gearbox, and suddenly you find yourself disarmed by the recognition of your own cynicism and what it might prevent you from knowing.
Rating:
Summary: reimagined morality
Review: If I could recommend one book published in the last five years, I think this would be the one. I bought this book because I loved David Foster Wallace and he praised it in an interview, but this book shattered all expectations I had. This is a book that cuts through everything and reimagines the state of humanity. His overexposed lens of a nightmarish future allow Saunders to show us the necessity of humanity in a consummeristic world fraught with unutterable loneliness. The shocking similarities to our own lives is devestating and Saunders is one of the few contemporary writers with a true understanding of the role and necessity of a refigured morality for our lives. Anyone who wants to write should read these story. This book is what is necessary for literature to find a place in contemporary America.
Rating:
Summary: Are you Disneyed-out yet?
Review: If you're feeling that life is getting to be too much Disney, shopping malls, and TV infomercials, this IS the book for you. You'd hope corporate moguls would read it; but then -- they just wouldn't get it, would they?
Rating:
Summary: The right satire at the right time
Review: Man, I haven't been this excited by an author's debut since V. by Tom Pynchon. The reviewers have it wrong; it isn't Saunders' vision that is "skewed" or "demented." It's our own perception that's skewed; this is satire of the caliber of "Dr. Strangelove", only this time around it's not the absurdity surrounding the bomb that's the target, but our own crazed desire to create artificial worlds in which to entertain or distract ourselves. In "CivilWarLand", Americans behave in treacherous and self-absorbed ways, only to confront the horror or absurdity afterwards, if at all. Dreams and ghosts play a large role amidst all this mayhem. All this acute perception, and really funny, too. This is one book I can't wait to have my friends read. You should too
Rating:
Summary: What Would Kafka Do?
Review: Remember the classic Brando line from On The Waterfront? ~~~~~I coulda been a contender~~~~~~~ George Saunders' CivilWarLand in Bad Decline brought those words to mind partially, but from a dramatically different source. Saunders' characters are all low-level functionaries with brilliant descriptive powers. Nearly a century ago, there was a low-level German official named Franz Kafka and if he were to read this book, he would say ~~~~~If I had had a sense of humor, I coulda been George Saunders~~~~~ CivilWarLand is a hilarious and lush tapestry of absurdist misery. The 21st century, where no one is enslaved by chains but all are wired together by the internet is in good hands with the likes of George Saunders. If you can't get this book tomorrow then buy it today!!
| 
