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A review by studeronomy
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
4.0
"The closest thing to a method I have to offer is this: go forth and do what you please." That's the closest George Saunders comes to giving definitive, categorical writing advice in this book about writing. In most places, he hedges and hesitates on questions of method. This isn't a typical guide to creative writing, and Saunders is pretty humble about his ability to impart authoritative knowledge to his readers...especially, perhaps, because he's using the great Russian writers as his case studies, and those guys are pretty intimidating.
But this guide to fiction writing is extremely practical and, I think, more useful than the typical guide. The book is based on Saunders's years of teaching the Russians to creative writing students, and you can tell he has honed his observations over time. Even for those of us who aren't fiction writers or creative writers, this is a great book: it's about creative thinking, really, and relating to other people in more humane ways. Fiction teaches us to understand the complexity of the world and to empathize with other people, Saunders concludes (this is hardly an original conclusion, which he admits), and the Russians are as good as anyone at teaching us to understand complexity and to empathize.
"The closest thing to a method I have to offer is this: go forth and do what you please." The Russians would have vehemently disagreed with this, as Saunders knows. Tolstoy in particular was extremely prescriptive about the function of art, and it had nothing to do with creative freedom (perhaps Chekhov would have felt differently). Tolstoy would have aligned more closely with Socrates in "The Republic," with the view that artistic license and aesthetic freedom are suspect, especially if the artist isn't producing art that edifies us. For the Russians (as for most artists and critics throughout history), art had a definite and normative purpose. Saunders is very much a product of the late-twentieth-century Workshop culture, which emphasizes pragmatism, utility, novelty, and craft over questions of function, purpose, and the ethics of the aesthetic. Consequently, Saunders occasionally strains to make a work like Tolstoy's "Alyosha the Pot" a model for modern short story writers. But his strain is enjoyable to read, and he makes the most of it.
The stories Saunders selects—by Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol, and Tolstoy—are extremely well-chosen and moving. It makes me wonder why I ever read anything but Russian literature...although Saunders's friendly, casual prose reminds me of everything I like about American fiction at the turn of the millennium. The juxtaposition between Tolstoy's aristocratic moralism and Saunders's workshop pragmatism works pretty well! The last chapter (the one about "Alyosha the Pot") and the epilogue are worth the price of admission. I definitely recommend this for writers of fiction, for anyone who likes thinking about fiction, and (of course) for anyone who loves the Russians.
But this guide to fiction writing is extremely practical and, I think, more useful than the typical guide. The book is based on Saunders's years of teaching the Russians to creative writing students, and you can tell he has honed his observations over time. Even for those of us who aren't fiction writers or creative writers, this is a great book: it's about creative thinking, really, and relating to other people in more humane ways. Fiction teaches us to understand the complexity of the world and to empathize with other people, Saunders concludes (this is hardly an original conclusion, which he admits), and the Russians are as good as anyone at teaching us to understand complexity and to empathize.
"The closest thing to a method I have to offer is this: go forth and do what you please." The Russians would have vehemently disagreed with this, as Saunders knows. Tolstoy in particular was extremely prescriptive about the function of art, and it had nothing to do with creative freedom (perhaps Chekhov would have felt differently). Tolstoy would have aligned more closely with Socrates in "The Republic," with the view that artistic license and aesthetic freedom are suspect, especially if the artist isn't producing art that edifies us. For the Russians (as for most artists and critics throughout history), art had a definite and normative purpose. Saunders is very much a product of the late-twentieth-century Workshop culture, which emphasizes pragmatism, utility, novelty, and craft over questions of function, purpose, and the ethics of the aesthetic. Consequently, Saunders occasionally strains to make a work like Tolstoy's "Alyosha the Pot" a model for modern short story writers. But his strain is enjoyable to read, and he makes the most of it.
The stories Saunders selects—by Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol, and Tolstoy—are extremely well-chosen and moving. It makes me wonder why I ever read anything but Russian literature...although Saunders's friendly, casual prose reminds me of everything I like about American fiction at the turn of the millennium. The juxtaposition between Tolstoy's aristocratic moralism and Saunders's workshop pragmatism works pretty well! The last chapter (the one about "Alyosha the Pot") and the epilogue are worth the price of admission. I definitely recommend this for writers of fiction, for anyone who likes thinking about fiction, and (of course) for anyone who loves the Russians.