The Braindead Megaphone

Fülszöveg

^^^ eorge Saunders has been greatly celebrated—including a 2006 MacArthur "genius grant"—for his startlingly imaginative, sharply observant, hilarious fiction. But in this first collection of essays, Saunders trains his lens on the real world, and shows that it too is brimming with wonderful, marvelous strangeness—in VJ^F the surreal opulence of Dubai, in the mind-bending self-denial of the Buddha Boy of Nepal (who has been meditating without food or water for months on end), and in the seemingly mundane transactions of everyday American life. In the face of a political and cultural reality saturated with lazy media, false promises, and political doublespeak, Saunders invokes the wisdom of American literary heroes such as Twain and Vonnegut. Wielding sharp and incisive humor, Saunders transforms a world that is absurd and sometimes cruel into something more knowable, and ultimately workable.
Here, Saunders reveals himself to be a highly entertaining and compassionate guide, a... Tovább

Fülszöveg

^^^ eorge Saunders has been greatly celebrated—including a 2006 MacArthur "genius grant"—for his startlingly imaginative, sharply observant, hilarious fiction. But in this first collection of essays, Saunders trains his lens on the real world, and shows that it too is brimming with wonderful, marvelous strangeness—in VJ^F the surreal opulence of Dubai, in the mind-bending self-denial of the Buddha Boy of Nepal (who has been meditating without food or water for months on end), and in the seemingly mundane transactions of everyday American life. In the face of a political and cultural reality saturated with lazy media, false promises, and political doublespeak, Saunders invokes the wisdom of American literary heroes such as Twain and Vonnegut. Wielding sharp and incisive humor, Saunders transforms a world that is absurd and sometimes cruel into something more knowable, and ultimately workable.
Here, Saunders reveals himself to be a highly entertaining and compassionate guide, a warm and wise reader, and a brilliant reporter with an eye for the surprising and revealing. He makes us see things in the world we have trained ourselves to ignore, to look beyond, what we consider self-evident and to see what is really there.
"Again and again, Saunders demonstrates that wacky, subversive, formally strange writing is not only not contrary to our nation's capitalist spirit, it's the most natural and effective of responses to it. He makes the all-but-impossible look effortless. We're lucky to have him." —Jonathan Franzen
"George Saunders is so funny and inventive he makes you love words and so wide-eyed wistful he talks you into loving people." —Sarah Vowell
"Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny." —Zadie Smith
"An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times."
—Thomas Pynchon
"Mr. Saunders's satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it's also ferocious and very funny." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
George Saunders is the author of In Persuasion Nation, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, Pastoralia, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and a children's book, The Very Persistent Cappers of Frip. He was named one of the "Best American Writers Under 40" by the New Yorker and one of Entertainment Weekly's "Most Creative People." In 2006, he was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He writes for the New Yorker, Harper's, and GO, and is the recipient of multiple National Magazine Awards. He teaches at Syracuse University, Vissza