In his commentary, Saunders focuses on its seeming narrative unwieldiness. Turgenev's “The Singers” is about a singing competition between two peasants in a poor rural pub. In his “Afterthought,” Saunders suggests the reader do a similar exercise with the Hemingway story “Cat in the Rain.” He also posits the movie Bicycle Thieves as a model of subtle narrative escalation, with the director taking responsibility for “every aspect of every frame” (75). He cuts the story off near the end, asking the reader what they would think of the story if it ended here. In this way, Saunders focuses our attention on the story’s subtle narrative shifts and deepening of characterization. Saunders often interrupts the story, asking simple questions: What do we know and not know, what do we expect to happen next, and what is our impression of the main character. Although written in a very different time period than our own, they are nevertheless “resistance literature the resistance in the stories is quiet, at a slant, and comes from perhaps the most radical idea of all: that every human being is worthy of attention” (10-11).Ĭhekhov's “The Cart” is about a provincial schoolteacher named Marya.
He has picked these particular stories because they offer a means of talking about “the short story form itself” (10). He has long taught the stories as a graduate writing instructor at Syracuse University “or a young writer, reading the Russian stories of this period is akin to a young composer studying Bach” (10). “We Begin” describes how Saunders came to these stories, what he has learned from them and what he hopes to teach the reader. The book is framed by two essays by Saunders. The stories are followed by Saunders's commentary, analyzing the stories and offering related advice for writers. He has published five short story collections, a collection of essays entitled The Braindead Megaphone, and a novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2017.Ī Swim in the Pond in the Rain discusses eight stories by four 19th century Russian writers: three by Anton Chekhov, two by Nikolai Gogol, and one each by Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. George Saunders is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer.
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