Name: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
ISBN: 9781526624284

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.

What Hacker News says

rgrzywinskiFeb 2025

Thanks for the thoughtful comment! The evolution of my thinking had several key "aha" moments:

The first came while struggling with working with Firestore. I knew what I wanted to build but trying to juggle the constraints of Firestore Rules, Firestore queries, TypeScript itself, the problem itself that I was trying tackle, etc, etc, etc. was a cognitive nightmare. There had to be a way to grapple with all of the constraints in a more systematic way.

The second breakthrough came from reading George Saunders' "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain." He describes writing not as executing a perfect plan, but as making a move and then reacting to it - each sentence creating constraints that shape what comes next. I realized this was exactly how I approached coding problems!

The third moment was connecting these dots across domains. Whether debugging code or writing prose, we're all doing the same thing: making decisions that create constraints, then pushing against those constraints to discover new possibilities. The todo app example in the Foundations section illustrates this - when we say "a todo item must belong to exactly one user," we're not just stating a rule, we're revealing a web of relationships that shapes everything from database structure to UI flows.

What's been most surprising is how this lens transforms seemingly technical problems into creative ones, and vice versa. A database query and a poem suddenly look remarkably similar - both are explorations of constraint spaces, both emerge through iteration and refinement.

I'd love to hear if any particular section resonates with your own work or thinking!

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crackedbassoonDec 2022

I’ve listened to 130 audiobooks in 2022 so far. I think I’ll get one more in before the new year but it won’t make this list. Some stood out:

Greek Mythology series by Steven Fry. Not literary adaptations nor scholarly treatises; just accessible, fun reads with enough accuracy and attention to detail for a layman like me.

I’m working my way through Cormac McCarthy. This year I read Suttree and The Crossing, which are both excellent IMO.

I discovered these beautifully written character observations: Matrix (Lauren Groff), Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan), and The Crimson Petal and the White (Michael Farber).

Not exactly unknown in the fantasy genre, but Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy is great. I think Abercrombie is actually an awesome writer. For instance, he has this trick for composing his big action sequences almost entirely through POV vignettes from disposable characters, which I think is a remarkable idea that essentially fixes one of the commonest problems in fantasy (plot over characters).

On Writing (Stephen King). I read a few writing guides this year and was by far freshest.

Collected Fictions (Borges).

Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler) is a classic in the same vein as One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Shadow Divers (Robert Kurson) is a true-life story about divers discovering and exploring a remarkable wreck. Read this by accident, turned out awesome.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (George Saunders) was one of those times where I knew little about a topic going in but got swept up by the author’s eloquence and enthusiasm.

I rediscovered Michael Moorcock’s Elric series thanks to new audiobook recordings. The Witcher but good.

Second Place (Rachel Cusk) was a batshit boilerroom melodrama. My first Cusk, will read more.

The first three books of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series are great, but particularly The Eyes of the Overworld, which I was surprised to find was hilarious.

I reread some classic Philip K Dick, including Flow My Tears and Stigmata, and More than Human (Theodore Sturgeon).

The first two books of The Dark Star trilogy by Marlon James are both huge things, but worth it for fans of super dark fantasy. The setting really works for me, as far too much of this genre is basically set in a hyper caricature of medieval Europe.

Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle might be the best fantasy series for me. Tenahu might be one of my favourite books of all time.

The first two books in Gene Wolfe’s Latro series are superb and perhaps just as good as his New Sun novels.

Gateways to Abomination by Matthew Bartlett is a gross, super dark, and fun little horror collection.

I read East of Eden for the first time.

Here are some books that were enjoyable but had some problems for me:

The Royal Game (Stephan Zweig) was a super interesting novella that just sort of stopped.

The Elementals (Michael McDowell) was an awesome horror novella with a mostly excellent cast of characters and plot, whicho was almost totally let down by an unsavory trope that’s unforgivable in something written in 2014.

The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Beuhlman) is the first novel in a new grimdark series with some interesting variations on familiar tropes, although the characters were somewhat flat overall.

Here are some books I read in previous years but have stuck in my head: Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Roadside Picnic, The Vegetarian, The House on Vesper Sands, My Name is Red, The Lathe or Heaven, The Gloaming, The Worst Journey in the World, The Fisherman, At Night All Blood is Black.

Things I read this year I wouldn’t recommend: Lord Foul’s Bane (offensive, poor writing), The Cement Garden (tries to be shocking but is quite boring), Lapvona (major disappointment), Them: Adventures with Extremists (superficial), The Wrack (feels trivial post COVID).

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johndhiNov 2022

I like Saunders but this is like the 20th time I've seen him interviewed about his process. I'm a little tired of it.

Do recommend a swim in a pond in the rain though.

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panarkyNov 2022

Just finished A Swim in a Pond in the Rain and it was a mind-expander for me.

Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University. This book repurposes some of his teaching for a more general audience by analyzing seven classic Russian short stories, sometimes sentence by sentence.

That may sound tedious and technical, but for me it was enlightening. There's so much going on beyond the story itself that it's thrilling to understand the other dimensions.

The book is for fiction writers, which I'll never be, but I feel it's improved my skills as a reader, and as a thinker.

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morleyJul 2022

George Saunders' recent book "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain" is great: he goes through four classic Russian short stories and dissects how they work.

He also has a Substack where he does the same for other stories, in addition to answering misc questions.

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johndhiJun 2022

George Saunders is funny. I highly recommend reading his commencement speech and I REALLY highly recommend reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. The latter because Russian literature is amazing.

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