We are going to fight the Civil War again. Their imaginations are intact, so is his history gets worse every year, but still he loves it he races back and forth in front of the room, sweat stains occasionally flashing under his arms, gesturing in a way that could never be Italian. This is not the adult world it isn’t even high school. He is known, adored, famous equally for getting too much spit in his mouth and being a poet of second-tier cusses – the word ‘crap’ in particular. Perhaps he, though a principled man, is having an after-hours affair with another teacher, called Deborah. Perhaps he, though a level-headed man, has gone somewhat off his nut from knowing so much about American history. He is figuring it out, living in the excitement of it, piling formal solution on formal solution. He is speaking the story, or writing it, or daydreaming it at a desk in an empty classroom. He is not George Saunders exactly – an old version maybe, or a could-have-been. H alfway through my first reading of ‘Liberation Day’, the 63-page title novella of George Saunders’s new collection, a man appears to me.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |