Lincoln in the Bardo
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. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins a story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. 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.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
5mentions
5people
2018–2026years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I read 57 books this year, a mix between fiction and non-fiction
Top 5 fiction
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- Trust by Hernan Diaz
- City of Thieves by David Benioff
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
- Widow Basquiat by by Jennifer Clement
Top 5 non-fiction
- Boom Town by Sam Anderson
- The Second Founding by Eric Foner
- The Club by Jonathan Clegg and Joshua Robinson
- The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel by Douglas Brunt
- The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre
- For me audio books don't replace regular books, they supplement them, by expanding my reading time and by getting me to read books I'd otherwise not. I often end up with both the physical or e-book plus the audio book. Sometimes I start with the audio book, especially if the book is challenging, then later switch to the non-audio book. Sometimes I jump back and forth. Yeah, crazy.
Down sides? Choice. (You want a different translation of The Brother's Karamazov? Ha!) You still need a hand, or at least a finger, to pause or go back, like when your mind inevitably wanders. You can't share an audio book with a friend, a downside of e-books too. And then there's the whole mind-wandering thing. I can't multitask. I can't listen to an audio book at just any time I need my hands for something else. The context switch is a buzzkill.
The key to a good audio book, in addition to the book itself being good, is a good reader, so here are some of my current faves with splendid readers: A Clockwork Orange narrated by Tom Hollander; Lincoln in the Bardo, Nick Offerman; Mrs Dalloway, Juliet Stevenson; Lolita, Jeremy Irons; and Milkman, Brid Brennan.
- Book Titles
> Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson.
> Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved, by Kate Bowler
> Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders.
> Origin Story: A Big History of Everything, by David Christian.
> Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund.
He goes in depth on why he recommends them on the gatesnotes website.
- Yes, and innovative writing sells well. There is room for the Da Vinci Code _and_ Lincoln in the Bardo.
- With all due respect to Kevin Kelly (who has lived a life worthy of the aphorisms he writes!), I prefer the guidance of George Saunders (via Lincoln in the Bardo):
> Please do not misunderstand. We had been mothers, fathers. Had been husbands of many years, men of import, who had come here, that first day, accompanied by crowds so vast and sorrowful that, surging forward to hear the oration, they had damaged fences beyond repair. Had been young wives, diverted here during childbirth, our gentle qualities stripped from us by the naked pain of that circumstance, who left behind husbands so enamored of us, so tormented by the horror of those last moments (the notion that we had gone down that awful black hole pain-sundered from ourselves) that they had never loved again. Had been bulky men, quietly content, who, in our first youth, had come to grasp our own unremarkableness and had, cheerfully (as if bemusedly accepting a heavy burden), shifted our life’s focus; if we would not be great, we would be useful; would be rich, and kind, and thereby able to effect good: smiling, hands in pockets, watching the world we had subtly improved walking past (this empty dowry filled; that education secretly funded). Had been affable, joking servants, of whom our masters had grown fond for the cheering words we managed as they launched forth on days full of import. Had been grandmothers, tolerant and frank, recipients of certain dark secrets,who, by the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness, and thus let in the sun. What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.
