a swim in the pond in the rain george saunders

‘The Russian greats truly shine in this account but Saunders is the real star. Published now, it feels like a vital and civilising corrective to the pretend certainties of public life – and, increasingly, of our personal lives too’ Telegraph ‘Published any time, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain would be a joyous reminder that fiction is the most effective mode of mind-to-mind communication ever devised. 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.Ī Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

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.

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 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. How necessary, at our particular moment' Tessa Hadleyįrom the New York Times- bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves - and our world today.įor the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. 'This book is a delight, and it's about delight too. 'A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion' Guardian Summer Reading Picks 2021 PICKED BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, IRISH TIMES, SPECTATOR, TLS, NEW STATESMAN, MAIL ON SUNDAY, I PAPER, PROSPECT, REVEW31 AND EVENING STANDARD AS A BOOK OF 2021

A swim in the pond in the rain george saunders