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BOOK CLUB Selection #2: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
367 pages
In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.
Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
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Let's try to read this in November; we'll push it out into December if need be. Let's be intentional and determined with our reading pace but also logical and reasonable. We'll feel it out to determine what our pace together will be, find our groove and discuss accordingly!
Let's read!!
Halfway through the month, halfway through the book; let's have a PART ONE DISCUSSION! I reckon it's only us participating in this one, ladies? No one else has said anything or joined, so I think we have just been waiting on me and I caught up to my goal today. Here are some discussion questions from LitLovers relevant to Part One of the book! Let's discuss.
2. Talk about the various denizens of the cemetery, the ghosts who narrate and the chatter among themselves. Which ghost stories did you find particularly engaging...funny...moving...sad...maybe even irritable? Were you disoriented, even put off, by the multiplicity of voices, or were you able to maintain your footing? Was there a point at which the ghosts took on a "life" of their own...where their actions developed into a cohesive plot?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: All of the ghosts seem to hang on to their anger and resentments, desires and feelings---the emotions they felt during their lives?
4. Why are the ghosts so stunned by Lincoln's cradling his son in his arms. What does that signify to the ghosts?
5. What does Lincoln come to understand, through his own personal loss, about the carnage of the war and the cost in lives and misery for an entire nation?
PT. 2/ Final Discussion Questions:
6. Talk about the two old codgers, Hans Vollman and Roger Bevins III. Would you consider them the "heroes" of the novel? Why are they so eager to have Will leave the cemetery? Where do they want him to go? What will happen should he "tarry"?
8. In what way does the cemetery reflect the class structure of the 19th Century? What do you make of the Rev. Thomas' explanation: "It is not about wealth. It is about comportment. It is about, let us say, being "wealthy in spirit"?
9. Although the preponderant mood of the novel is dark, there is also a fair amount of hilarity. Can you point to some passages/episodes that you found particularly funny? The bachelor ghosts, for instance?
JUST FOR FUN:
What do you think you will take away the most from this book, or how has it made you think differently?
The Byrons, man. The fucking Byrons! I want to see them on the screen.
”I once made the beast with Benjy!” – Betsy Byron
Hahaha. I’m going to start using that, “make the beast”. There are really too many great Byron quotes. They were ridiculous and hilarious.
“Fuck off, I said. I know what I’m about.” – Eddie Byron
1. What is the bardo, and how does it function in George Saunders' book? In what way does the bardo apply to those who are living as well as the dead?
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The bardo is such an odd place. Thoughts trail off, others are caught and/or spoken by other characters. Characters take turns narrating the "action" that is taking place. It's hard to follow at times. It's a waiting place of sorts, but only for emotional processing and acceptance it seems. The dead don't seem to want to admit that they are dead or guilty of any wrong doing in life, referring to it as "that other place".
Lincoln is in his own living form of bardo. Still actively grieving and adjusting to not seeing his son daily. In a weird state of leadership as the country is engaged in civil war.
Ghosts seem to interact with the living by going inside them, and they can influence them as Bevins and Vollman try, so the ghosts are kind of thought forms that influence the minds of the living, like how just having Bevins enter him made Lincoln remember the girl who was "more beast than lady" because it was something from his youth. It seems to be completely up to the ghosts themselves how long they "tarry" here. Interesting how the hunter was forced to work his way through comforting all of the animals he killed? I wonder if that was self-induced punishment because no other ghost seemed to have a penance like that but rather mostly some form of denial about being dead. Also, the Captain that transitioned like a champ, writing his wife letters. He was onto something...TRUTH, he said. As soon as he had admitted his wrong against his wife, POOF, he was gone. Because of this, he seemed the most self-aware ghost in the place? A lot of things I wonder if I'm missing by not having finished the book yet. More I'm sure in discussion 2!
2. Talk about the various denizens of the cemetery, the ghosts who narrate and the chatter among themselves. Which ghost stories did you find particularly engaging...funny...moving...sad...maybe even irritable? Were you disoriented, even put off, by the multiplicity of voices, or were you able to maintain your footing? Was there a point at which the ghosts took on a "life" of their own...where their actions developed into a cohesive plot?
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I think the way it was written required me to picture it in my head, more and it would make an outrageous play. The dialogue was hard to follow as characters were introduced, requiring me to flip ahead and see who it was, but became somewhat easier as I learned their speech/thought patterns and was less put off by it.
Some of the stories were so tragic and moving. Poor Hans and his member, finally was gonna get some and that beam fell? Bevins and his "predilection". It wasn't until all of the ghosts came out of the woodwork that it made more sense and was more fun. The ghosts were all pretty interesting characters.
3. Follow-up to Question 2: All of the ghosts seem to hang on to their anger and resentments, desires and feelings---the emotions they felt during their lives?
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The majority of them seem to. However, I find it interesting how Trevor Williams, the hunter, "must" deal with his pile of animals. And is, how Hans Vollman states, "a good sort, never unhappy, always cheerful since his conversion to gentleness" seems to have changed once he entered the bardo? Bevins, also, who committed suicide is filled with an appreciation for the beauty of life that Hans experiences himself when they both enter Lincoln together. Also, at one point, Bevins says "you know I can't help it!" almost like there is an emotional penance to be paid or experienced or learned in the bardo having to do with the way they died or lived?
4. Why are the ghosts so stunned by Lincoln's cradling his son in his arms. What does that signify to the ghosts?
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They had come to believe that they were unlovable. It wasn't just the touching, but the way in which Lincoln had cradled him lovingly and whispered into his ear as if he were still alive. I think it made them emotional because he was treating the body like an alive human, and it made them hopeful that they weren't just "sick" forms, but beings still deserving of love and respect.
5. What does Lincoln come to understand, through his own personal loss, about the carnage of the war and the cost in lives and misery for an entire nation?
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He learns first hand what the loss of a son feels like, and finds himself sharing in the grief that the war has caused so many. I think a part 2 discussion will be fruitful for working out more parallels but I never got it before now, how the loss of Willie was felt as an energetic or emotional penance by Lincoln for the Civil War carnage. It's pretty fucked up, I actually never knew Willie died while Lincoln was in office. This is informative and amusing.
Missie Sue
6. Talk about the two old codgers, Hans Vollman and Roger Bevins III. Would you consider them the "heroes" of the novel? Why are they so eager to have Will leave the cemetery? Where do they want him to go? What will happen should he "tarry"?
I loved these guys. Their personalities were so endearing and their characters showed a lot of growth, as well. They were like the odd couple. I loved how they reinforced each other’s denial and tolerated the other’s idiosyncrasies. “Friend…” got me every time. I am not sure if I would consider Hans Vollman and Bevins the heroes, though? While they underwent a good amount of growth through tribulations, the Reverend Everly Thomas was also a lead character that played a very vital part and could be considered the hero, himself.
These guys know that Willie Lincoln will become a weird shape-shifting sub-creature just as the Treynor girl did if he does not move on out of the bardo and into the real afterlife. For some reason, children aren’t meant for this place. They usually transition quickly and do not tarry. Maybe because they don’t have such a strong sense of self to stay in the thought patterns that lock them into the denial that perpetuates their tarrying? They grow, what Saunders calls, carapaces. I think that’s an interesting way to look at a child that lingers in the depressive stagnant mental bardo of life, growing a shell of sorts over them, nothing but their eyes peering through…”blinking twice.” They want him to go into the “matterlightblooming phenomenon” place, to be judged or whatever truly happens there (but no one really knows what happens there except possibly the Reverend Everly Thomas). If he tarries, he will be trapped in the bardo in a self-limiting form. For children, the bardo is a form of Hell. They are cemented by carapaces to the cemetery.
7. Why is the Reverend, unlike all the other spirits, willing to admit he is dead? And why is he convinced he will be excluded from heaven?
The Reverend went into the “matterlightblooming phenomenon” after his death. He climbed the mountain and descended into the valley of the king with two men he understood to have died just before him, and watched as both, before him, were judged. His soul was then to be judged and he saw that he was going to be sent to Hell and so he ran. (…he ran so far away…couldn’t get away…) He is an escapee, afraid of eternity in Hell. He believes he has seen where he will go so he is secretly prolonging his existence, and so he tarries. The Reverend says he actually passed “simultaneously becoming cause and (awed) observer (from within) of the bone-chilling firesound associated with the matterlightblooming phenomenon (an experience I shall not even attempt to describe), I went.” I love how they describe this thing. It’s a blundering way to describe something indescribable that almost describes it perfectly. Some great BIG BANG of sorts, they are describing. What happened to the Reverend is a little confusing, though. Whereas everyone else seemed to hear the firesound and the whole matterlightblooming phenomenon happened and they were gone and that was that. The Reverend describes simultaneously falling out of that place and being still in the graveyard, and at one point being back in the graveyard and wanting nothing more than to be back on the mountain with his friends and found the bardo entirely unappealing. He had the thought that the bardo was “…a sad remnant of a discouraging and grossly material nightmare from which I was only just waking” and with that thought, he was instantaneously back on the mountain with his traveling friends, nearing their destination. This was after he indicated to the other two men that they should continue on into the valley they saw below, after they paused and almost asked if they should proceed, seeing he was a man of God, having been buried in his vestments. The description of the Reverend in the Bardo, mouth agape in the shape of an O, hair on end, he was a caricature of fear. He seems unable to determine his life’s sin, but I feel his test in the bardo was to truly learn faith and that his lack of faith was, in fact, his life’s sin. Although a man of religion, he was never fully faithful in what he was preaching, and that is what came through when his heart was weighed. In a way, in the bardo he was an escapee running from eternity in Hell, but maybe in Life, in being a Reverend, he was really just running away from eternity in Hell and did not really have true faith in what he was preaching or doing. It seems to be what you place on your own heart to learn, your own hang ups that keep you from moving on.
THE REVEREND: I feel like the Reverend is, perhaps, more so the hero of the book. He is the one the entire time that has had this secret, the secret of the only other “scene” or place of the book, the afterlife. He is the only one that actually knows that they all await judgment if they shed the self imposed shackles of the bardo and he has been charged with keeping this secret. He doubly fears hell, because he was already sentenced to hell and fled, but now if he speaks of his experience, he surely would be judged even harsher upon his return? One would think. I think there was growth in his beliefs during this and he essentially saved the boy by transitioning, in the end, and going into the matterlightblooming phenomenon and creating a “temporary vacuity” that they used to break Willie free of the carapace. So he displayed an immense deal of courage in the face of burning in Hell for all eternity and essentially sacrificed himself for the soul of the boy, but also himself, because if he were not to transition he would be trapped in the carapace forever. In the end, though, I think The Reverend transitioned well, no longer in the state of fear, because they said about seeing his facial imprint in the carapace after breaking Willie free and were happy to say it wasn’t the face of terror that they had known.
The entire time, also, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Reverend’s experience going into the matterlightblooming phenomenon wasn’t just a personalized experience because of his fear of judgment at the time of his death? So, it’s really still so intriguing how the bardo works. In the end, there really is no judgment awaiting them. The only judgment is self-judgment, and they await whatever they project or manifest. Just like the real afterlife, I’m still a little confused as to what happens and I guess we all are. We won’t know what awaits us until our time comes to hear the “familiar, yet always bone-chilling fire-sound associated with the matterlightblooming phenomenon”
Missie Sue
8. In what way does the cemetery reflect the class structure of the 19th Century? What do you make of the Rev. Thomas' explanation: "It is not about wealth. It is about comportment. It is about, let us say, being "wealthy in spirit"?
The cemetery is set up to hold the higher class or those with money. The spirits or “shards” that inhabit the cemetery, including the poor Barons, come from a common cemetery pit located outside of the fence I believe. They mingle, but don’t have sick boxes like the rest of them. The Barons are piled on top of the slave Ellis. They also, are some of the more crude characters in the book. The one slave, however, that was also buried in this hole, his butt was in their faces. He was happy with his servitude, but had a bit of resentment for having never been free, or rather, having never fought for his freedom. He felt ashamed for almost trying to acquiesce and fit in with his owners during his servitude. Never having been able to choose where to go whenever he wanted. This character, especially, made you think a lot about what it really meant to be a slave even if one was treated reasonably well.
But in the cemetery the “black folks” didn’t go into the church with the others because “white people are not especially fond of having us in their churches. Unless it is to hold a baby, or prop up or hand-fan some old one.”
The country was in its own bardo, a liminal state, in between allowing slavery and declaring all men created equal. A great sloughing or shedding is symbolic of this stage, a leaving behind of that which will no longer serve us. For the dead, it is their bodies. These empty vessels, bereft of life, will no longer serve their spirits. They must move on and let go in order to continue on their journey. The country must move on. In life, we must move on from one stage of our lives into another, but there is almost always a liminal bardo state, a mourning, for any stage of life. Grief, is, almost always, the outer rim of a stage of life. There is a nostalgic sadness to the acceptance needed in order to let go.
It was beautiful the way Saunders ended it by having the slave Thomas Havens have the final words, having decided to stay in the bardo and stay inside of Lincoln. It’s a beautiful thing to think of the President who ended slavery fighting the good fight with the spirit of an old slave inside of him, their spirits mingling, Lincoln perhaps feeling or responding to Thomas Havens’ inner war cry: “…do something for us, so that we might do something for ourselves. We are ready, sir; are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we a can do.”
This book was so god damned beautiful, man?! I want to see it made into a movie!
I think Saunders did a good job attempting to tap into the inner realm of Abraham Lincoln at this time. The thoughts when the ghosts are inside him seem so intense, with direction. Determined. The passage of thought when he goes through Mrs. Francis Hodge at the end is pretty great. About, God being not a man, but an “IT” that he called a “great beast beyond our understanding” and that it wanted blood. Serious stuff. The stress Lincoln experienced was a bit different than the “stress” that our poor “stable genius” is dealing with currently. That. Is. For. Sure.
9. Although the preponderant mood of the novel is dark, there is also a fair amount of hilarity. Can you point to some passages/episodes that you found particularly funny? The bachelor ghosts, for instance?
A lot of the crude scenes were hilarious because they were so crude.
The ghosts are all trapped in their own perspectives, presenting themselves in the way they found themselves at the time of their death. If they are able to let go of this, they transition with “the matterlightblooming phenomenon and its familiar, but always bone-chilling, firesound”.
Some of the other parts, which were brilliantly woven together from other writings, were also funny, although, they weren’t perhaps meant to be? It was just funny, to me, how rude some of the accounts of Lincoln’s appearance and competence were, some of those comments were so outrageous I can’t believe people were documenting those things or that Saunders dug them out of the pages of history, but I feel the author did a brilliant job of pulling together writings that simultaneously proclaimed his ignorance, and celebrated his brilliance. Some of them are fictional, I believe, but a bit of it is from real accounts. It was a well-balanced account of the President. Those odd motley passages I think I found the saddest, because they were painting the historical backdrop and so much about Willie Lincoln I wasn’t aware of, mostly his death’s proximity to the height of the war. The party they held that night, and the accounts of it. Thinking about having to make the choices Abraham Lincoln had to make during his presidency, crazy. It was a tragic metaphor for Lincoln and it was interesting to see how Saunders believed the inner world of Lincoln would be during this trying time of his life. It’s made creepier by the fact that he actually did go to the graveyard to cradle his dead son’s body and that is what inspired this book to be written, and those are some of the most heartbreaking parts of the book.
JUST FOR FUN:
What do you think you will take away the most from this book, or how has it made you think differently?
YOU ARE A WAVE THAT HAS CRASHED UPON THE SHORE!
“Tell it truthfully!”
QUICK CHECK: Weigh your heart and look in the mirror. God DAMN the metaphor in this book. The afterlife imagery and all of it.
“…the familiar, yet always bone-chilling, fire-sound associated with the matterlightblooming phenomenon…”
The way in which they would be visited by the figures trying to convince them to move on, those same entities becoming frustrated with their stubbornness at times.
DISCONNECTION: Their disconnection, living in their own little “denial bubble” is what kept them in the bardo, a place of stagnation and no growth. As The Reverend puts it “…a boneyard, a charnel ground, a garbage dump, a sad remnant of a discouraging and grossly material nightmare from which I was only just waking.” And with that thought he was in the afterlife again. And the part where they were all together inside of Lincoln was great. There was a great realization of the good things. Their union made them realize that they weren’t alone and that they did have good memories, but they had somehow forgotten them. As the Reverend Everly Thomas said “All selfish concerns (of staying, thriving, preserving one’s strength) momentarily set aside.” It was a struggle to stay in the bardo, in that, they had to focus on denying and replaying their story over and over again. “We were normally so alone. Fighting to stay. Afraid to err.” Hans Vollman said.
The bardo, to me, is like a realm of trailing thought-forms and manifestations, hallucinations, much like the depressive state of rumination. Roger Bevins says “To stay, one must deeply and continuously dwell upon one’s primary reason for staying; even to the exclusion of all else.” Just as all of the ghosts have their “stories” that they keep telling themselves, so much so that they all know each other’s stories and will give each other the next “line” in their tales. They are delusions, mere illusions. The bardo is a land of illusion and denial, where you need to be in a selfish bubble in order to perpetuate the state. Narcissism, depression…you are focused on self when you are in those states. There is no altruism in that realm. Just as in spiritual traditions you are taught to transcend the negative thoughts and voices and realize you are the observer behind them, you are a wave that has crashed upon the shore…you are the ocean. Come back home, into the ocean.
The bardo is a stuck place of stagnation, although you can’t say of no growth, because the characters even change presentations as they come out of each other, after having realized all of these good things and not being so stuck in the negative patterns of their deaths. Roger Bevins: “Looking over, I found Mr. Vollman suddenly clad, his member shrunk down to normal size. His clothes were, it is true, decidedly scruffy (printer’s apron, ink-dotted shoes, mismatched socks) but nevertheless: a miracle.” He had somehow changed, yet didn’t This was a huge change after all the years they were in those forms in the bardo. They had, until this point, never commingled, they had all been detached and isolated in that way. And the Reverend no longer looked terrified. His unknown sin was a battle of fear or faith. He was an obedient religious man, but it was done out of fear, more than actual faith, hence the appearance of the first judging being, it looked like his one teacher
CIVIL WAR METAPHOR: the country is in its own bardo, of sorts. Demons of injustice get the country if we do not help her move on into afterlife (new way).
One of the reasons I had such a hard time finishing this book, also, was that it, itself, ended in a “matterlightblooming phenomenon” didn’t it? It went out with a giant bang of all of this magnificent imagery and metaphor and self discovery. It was all so much that I am realizing in reading back through parts to do these questions how much you not so much miss, because I even annotated, but “forgot” because there was SO much neat shit all at once it seemed. I want to see this as a movie. The entire time I was thinking how it would be in a play or movie format. The historical parts are woven together so creatively, though, and that makes this book so fascinating. The portrayal of Lincoln in all of those accounts was astounding on both sides. He did a good job of representing both sides. People were so goddamn cruel at times? Lincoln is fascinating, as a president; he had one of the hardest roles to play for this country. His decisions had a huge impact that we are still only riding the ripples of. But, it caused an undercurrent, of sorts, or a stacking of skeletons. It’s interesting we are reading this at this time, too, because I think that is what we are dealing with a lot today. Our political split on beliefs as a country has a lot to do with the fact that there are still people out there that do not agree with the direction the country took after the Civil War. There are people and there are the ghosts of all of those that died in those gruesome battles. Gettysburg is crazy haunted for a reason. Imagine THAT bardo.
And I just want to add the whole EGO theme, I can't believe I didn't even use that word yet in all of that?? ..where this is essentially the realm where the ego dies?? The land of ego death...They need to give up their individual stories and dramas, their individual egos, and move on, after crashing onto the shore, to be pulled back into source once more. Let it go. Perhaps why their union is what effects them the most in all of their time in the bardo. "Soften, soften..." those entities beckoned to them. They are so held firm in their egoic thought patterns, they can't break free to realize they are dead or ADMIT, rather, because it is like they truly do know...they don't exist...they are a wave that has crashed upon the shore. We are the observer, not our egos. Ahgggh, okay...I'm gonna stop. Haha.
