Saunders is a brilliant writer. Victory Lap was spontaneous but well written. Escape from Spiderhead was dark but at the same time made you happy. I really enjoyed reading Escape from Spiderhead. Saunders created characters that the reader could think about. He did not create characters that readers would want to identify with, but characters that the reader could learn from.
In the story Victory Lap after Allison's attacker is hit with a rock he seems to have an epiphany that he is going down to hell. In Spiderhead when Jeff overdoses on Darkenfloxx he feels as if he is going up and his death seems more noble then the attackers.
I don't know if Saunders intended to draw this parallel in stories twenty pages apart, but I thought it was cool how he illustrated the different paths of two "criminals." Jeff repented on his crime and honestly regretted it and when he died he was forgiven and allowed into Heaven. I know that sounds all religious but I think that it takes some skill to insert a religious message like that into a story without overdoing it.
The song Spiderhead by Cage the Elephant isn't necessarily related to The Tenth of December in any way, but I think a connection could be made. I am going to leave that up to any of the readers. I left the link the song below check it out and comment on how you think it relates to one of Saunders stories.
The spacing is weird
ReplyDeleteWell I think the line in the chorus "You can take my eyes, but baby I'm not blind" can be paralleled to Jeff and Abnesti/the program's relationship. Jeff and the other inmates are basically forced to receive specific sensory information through the drugs they are given, but Jeff manages to still think and feel for himself by, earlier on, hesitating in acknowledging the base-line drug after having sex and at the end escaping via darkenfloxx.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Megan that that's a very significant and relevant line from the song. I think maybe you could immediately recognize this as applicable just because of the title, but I think it does work further than that. Plus it's a great song!
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