Roger Brunyate's Reviews > Lincoln in the Bardo

 
Read It Again!

There is something to be said, I think, for reading this four times. Not that I have done so, but two and a bit, and very glad I did. My first time was just a matter of figuring out how the thing works; my four-star account of this experience last year is reprinted below. The second—in my case incomplete—was listening to the CD audiobook, which treats the whole thing as a playscript, with the participation of a large number of actors, famous or otherwise. My third was to read it quite quickly, though slowing down for the denser passages; I found this immensely helpful, lifting me to five stars without shadow of doubt. The fourth, if I ever get to it, would be a slow reading throughout, to marvel at Saunders' language, sense of detail, and minor plot points that one tends to miss in the midst of so much richness.

Stage Four must come later, but for now, I will give my original review (Stage One), followed by a brief report on Stages Two and Three.

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Stage One: Original Review

A Choral Requiem

An exceedingly tall and unkempt fellow was making his way toward us through the darkness.

This was highly irregular. It was after hours; the front gate would be locked.

The boy had been delivered only that day. That is to say, the man has most likely been here—

Quite recently.

That afternoon.

Highly irregular.

The gentleman seemed lost. Several time he stopped, looked about, retraced his steps, reversed course.

He was softly sobbing.

George Saunders' extraordinary book reads more like a verse drama or musical score than a conventional novel. It is a symphony of voices, both real and imagined, a choral requiem. They are acknowledged in small print after each paragraph; this particular conversation involves a middle-aged master printer (Hans Vollman), a gay printer's apprentice (Roger Bevins III), and the Reverend Everly Thomas. All three are dead, ghosts in a limbo occupied by spirits who have not allowed themselves, or been allowed, to pass on; Tibetans call this the "Bardo." The date is February 1862, the setting a cemetery in Georgetown, and the "exceedingly tall and unkempt fellow" is Abraham Lincoln, come to visit the tomb of his eldest son Willie, dead of typhus at eleven years of age.

Saunders' narrative method allows for real voices to be included among the fictional ones; the only distinction is that each actual quotation is given a bibliographical citation.* I found these parts of the story quietly powerful. We get glimpses of the boy lying sick upstairs at the White House while a gala reception goes on below. We hear from butlers, maids, grooms, and graveyard keepers as the funeral takes place, and later as the President returns alone at night. We get hints of the horror as Americans on both sides recognize the likely scale of the new Civil War and (surprisingly to me) raise their voices against "America's most reviled President." And finally, Saunders suggests that Lincoln's experience in the graveyard might have made him a stronger and more compassionate leader. Virtually none of the words in these sections are Saunders' own, but he proves himself a master orchestrator of borrowed voices.

I only wish I had liked the fictional voices more. Vollman, Bevins, and Thomas remain the principal commentators, but there are a score of others, male and female, white and black, violent or pathetic, gentle, aggressive, racist, or obscene. They are confusing at first, as we don't know how long each has been there, or what it will take to have them released. Gradually, we do discover the back-stories of several of these beings, and even glean some shreds of character. But too few of them are rounded out, too many are mere types; too often the chorus can become cacophony. And while the swift repartee keeps the book moving swiftly, its underlying humor verges more than once on camp.

So how to rate this? I read with admiration throughout, and with wonder at Saunders' originality and skill: five stars. But I was often confused, occasionally impatient, and seldom emotionally engaged: three stars at best. On the other hand, both the historical and imagined scenes involving Abraham Lincoln were consistently strong, and there were passages towards the end where the always-good writing rose to true excellence. So let me end with one of these, from the farewell of Roger Bevins, to justify my rating of four stars, indeed a high four:

    Though the things of the world were strong with me still.
    Such as, for example: a gaggle of children trudging through a side-blown December flurry; a friendly match-share beneath some collision-tilted streetlight; a frozen closk, bird-visited within its high tower; cold water from a tin jug; toweling off one's clinging shirt post-June rain.
    Pearls, rags, buttons, rug-tuft, beer-froth.
    Someone's kind wishes for you; someone remembering to write; someone noticing that you are not at all at ease.
    A bloody roast death-red on a platter; a hedgetop under-hand as you flee late to some chalk-and-woodfire-smelling schoolhouse.
    Geese above, clover below, the sound of one's own breath when winded.
    The way a moistness in the eye will blur a field of stars; the sore place on the shoulder a resting toboggan makes; writing one's beloved's name upon a frosted window with a gloved finger.
    Tying a shoe; tying a knot on a package; a mouth on yours; a hand on yours; the ending of the day; the beginning of the day; the feeling that there will always be a day ahead.
    Goodbye, I must now say goodbye to all of it.

*I now learn (from reports of an interview that is not included in my edition) that while all the bibliographical citations I bothered to check are indeed real, Saunders also felt free to insert some quasi-real voices of his own. Which is fine, because they all contributed, and sure fooled me!

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Stage Two: The Audiobook

Unlike any normal audiobook, this is virtually a radio play, with a huge cast of characters. Nick Offerman is Hans Vollman, David Sedaris is Roger Blevins, and the author himself reads Rev. Everly Thomas. Actors of the like of Julianne Moore, Ben Stiller, Susan Sarandon, and Don Cheadle take smaller roles. I assume it was directed by Saunders himself, for the readings made great sense of the occasionally idiosyncratic punctuation and spacing, which sound more natural than it looks on the page. A narrator (Cassandra Campbell) duly announces each new chapter and the bibliographic citations after each speaker, which I suppose is necessary, but it really slows the pace; I was glad she drops out when speakers alternate quickly.

Indeed, it was the question of pace that made me stop my continuous listening, and turn instead to sampling certain chapters. Had this been my only acquaintance with the book, the audio might have worked really well. But already knowing it, and following along with the text, I resented being made to linger over passages that I could already see in front of me, and not being able to pause over new discoveries.

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Stage Three: A Rapid Reading

Reading the book in print for the second time, often quite quickly, gave me a much clearer view of its varied textures and interlacing narrative arcs. There are four main textures: first, the historical sources giving facts about President Lincoln and the death of his son; second, the imagined scenes of Lincoln in the graveyard and his thoughts there; third, the lives (or whatever they are) of the three principal ghosts; and fourth, the chorus of all the other inhabitants. I was struck by how well Saunders varied the pace, alternating blocks of historical citations with sections of sheer invention. Or within the world of the Bardo, how rhythmically he would alternate the principals (Vollman, Blevins, and Thomas) with the chorus. I also noted that, in their role as the principal observers of Abraham and Willie Lincoln, the main ghosts served to link the worlds of the living and the almost-dead.

It's awful to admit it, but the first time I read this, I'm not sure I understood the shape or even all the stories of the various narratives. Looking from more of a distance, I could now see clearly how the novel is articulated by the two visits Lincoln makes to the graveyard after it had officially closed, and the tension involved in stopping him from leaving until Willie's fate was resolved. Against this, there is a shorter arc, which appears late and climaxes quickly; this is his awareness of the African-American people, and the compunction placed upon him to pursue the war.

The longest arcs of all, though, are those of the three main narrators, each of whom reaches a moment of epiphany late in the book. I got the beauty of these at first reading, but I did not fully understand what was keeping each of the three in the Bardo, and what they must do to be released. Now I do. I was also much more aware of the dozen minor characters whose own back-stories, graveyard encounters, and resolutions form little short-story units within the novel as a whole. In short, I began to sense for the first time how intricate yet controlled this structure is. Truly a work of genius!