In Escape from Spiderhead, there scarcely is a dull moment. He leaves us with an opportunity to form our own opinions yet leads us toward a common ending. He uses every captivating material in his repertoire to keep us locked in- sex, death, suicide, challenging authority, prison, women, men... All things that the readers secretly wish that they could have or do. His stories combine all of these edgy ideals into a massive hodgepodge of controversy and sensual chaos that leaves the reader wishing it wasn't a short story.
Monday, September 1, 2014
The Magic of a Geode
I'm not enchanted by George Saunders. He has his magical moments, but I never feel enchanted. Enchantment, as described by Nabokov, is a necessary happening to become a good author. However, I find that enchantment can draw away from the storyline of Saunders' short stories. When I think enchantment, I think wordy. Deep, too deep, descriptions of unnecessary scenes; and Saunders does not do that. He keeps the reader active and engaged-not dreary and dreading the next paragraph of descriptive fluff. He keeps up captivated- not enchanted.
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Escape from Spiderhead,
George Saunders,
Power,
Short Stories,
Vladimir Nabakov
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I think it's interesting how you make the point that enchantment is wordy. I definitely agree that Saunders does a good job at keeping us captivated, especially in "Escape from Spiderhead". I think enchantment is very difficult to achieve, and therefore it is much less common than captivation.
ReplyDeleteSaunders does a great job at enchantment, and your last line is so true! I wish his short stories weren't short at all!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't agree that he doesn't enchant his readers, but I do acknowledge it could have been executed a whole lot better, made a whole lot wordier and therefore have more meaning as you said. But honestly I love the simplicity of his stories, and especially how he captures our imaginations and throws us into the minds of Alison and Kyle and even the murderer in Victory Lap in just a couple words. My definition of enchantment is anything that makes me sit back and go "Woah", even a little bit. And for me, he got that. But he definitely could have done a better job.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's interesting that you bring up the difference between captivation and enchantment, which can often be confused while talking about this writing style. I agree that at many parts of the story, the confusion causes you to be captivated but I think that that captivation leads you to become enchanted. I think that his captivation requires your full focus which leaves you no choice other than to put yourself into the character and therefore become fully enchanted.
ReplyDeleteI am confused by your association of Nabokov's ideal of enchantment with writing that is "wordy" and "too deep." Isn't enchantment necessarily a good thing since it is defined as "delightfully charming or attractive"? Also, in what ways can writing be "too deep"? The only type of writing that that description makes me think of is writing that is meant to be profound but fails to present any new, substantive ideas, but that type of writing, it seems to me, is the opposite of writing that is too deep since it is actually not deep at all.
ReplyDeleteOh. Did you mean "deep descriptions" as descriptions that went into too great a depth? That would make more sense. I have just never heard it put that way before.
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