It is probably a mistake to try to write about Lincoln in the Bardo after completing it only last night. But, since my book reviews are never confused with actual literary criticism what’s the harm.

It is hard to know quite where to start. This book is both beautiful and revolting. It is heavy with grief. It presents a worldview that I fundamentally disagree with.

And I loved it.

The scene is set in a graveyard after young Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son has passed away. The historical record tells us that after Willie was laid to rest in the tomb, his father came to visit the tomb in the middle of the night. George Saunders takes it from there.

Saunders invents a cast of characters, including Willie, who are trapped in the Bardo (think purgatory). The story is told almost in screenplay style through the eyes of various persons – living and dead. Intermixed with these scenes are excerpts of historical record providing insight to what is happening outside the graveyard. The style is a little jarring at first, but once you catch Saunders rhythm it becomes very engaging.

I have a special place in my heart for Lincoln. To see this portrait of him racked with love and grief and burdened with the weight of a nation was at times too much. I had to put the book down for a minute and find one of my kids to hug.

Saunders weaves all these threads together to tell a story of what matters most in life and why we linger behind.

My Three Favorite Scenes

A Father/President’s Grief

The souls stuck in the Bardo are not able to communicate with the living, but they can enter into a living person’s body to feel what the living are experiencing. One of the ghosts, Hans Vollman, enters Lincoln and gains access to his thoughts as he dwells on the death all around him.

“What am I doing.

What am I doing here.

Everything nonsense now. Those mourners came up. Hand extended. Sons intact. Wearing on their faces enforced sadness-masks to hide any sign of their happiness, which – which went on. they could not hide how alive they yet were with it., with their happiness at the potential of their still-living sons. Until lately I was one of them. Strolling whistling through the slaughterhouse, averting my eyes from the carnage, able to laugh and dream and hope because it had not yet happened to me.

To us.” p. 155

Memories of a World Lost

A main character realizes that it is time to go on and met his ultimate fate. Saunders captures in this passage so well the million little seemingly insignificant things that go into making a life.

“There was nothing left for me to do, but go.

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-titled streetlight; a frozen clock, a bird visited within its high tower; cold water from a tin jug; towering 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 ross death-red on a platter; a headgetop 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.

Loon-call in the dark; calf-cramp in the spring; neck-rub in the parlour; milk-sip at end of day.

Some brandy-legged dog proudly back-ploughs the grass to cover its modest shit; a cloud-mass down-valley breaks apart over the course of a brandy-deepened hour; louvered blinds yield dusty beneath your dragging finger, and it is nearly noon and you must decide; you have seen what you have seen, and it has wounded you, and it seems you have only one choice left.

Blood-stained porcelain bowl wobbles face down on wood floor; orange peel not at all stirred by disbelieving last breath there among that fine summer dust-layer, fatal knife set down in pass-panic on familiar wobbly banister, later dropped (thrown) by Mother (dear Mother) (heartsick) into the slow-flowing, chocolate-brown Potomac.

None of it was real; nothing was real.

Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear.

These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and in this way, brought them forth.

And now we must lose them.

I send this out to you, dear friends, before I go, in this instantaneous thought-burst, from a place where time slows and then stops and we may live forever in a single instant.

Goodbye goodbye good-” pp. 334-335

Willie’s Departure

I will not quote it here because I feel that doing so would give away to much, except that I will say the way that Saunders describes it nearly brought me to tears. I read it twice and then found Jennifer and read it to her. It was almost perfect to me. You can find it on p. 301 if you want to read ahead.

While I really enjoyed this book it is fair to say that not all probably will. Portions of this story are crass and vulgar. There is a reason many tarry in this cemetery delaying their final judgment. What will most likely await them is unpleasant. The way that Saunders depicts the final judgment of souls is wonderful and monstrous.

While it is not light beach reading, I really would like some of you to read it. I feel the need to discuss it!