Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Strange, isn't it? To have dedicated one's life to a certain venture, neglecting other aspects of one's life, only to have that venture, in the end, amount to nothing at all, the products of one's labors ultimately forgotten?”- Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders

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?

Is anyone else tired of hearing glowing review after glowing review of this novel? Indeed, when I picked up Lincoln in the Bardo, after I had been resisting it for so long, my expectations were actually lowered, an attempt to prevent what I figured would be inevitable disappointment. But if you expected a trashing of an overrated novel, turn back now because this is not it.

Honestly, the whole reason I even picked up Lincoln in the Bardo in the first place was because of peer pressure. As much as I love ghosts, the American Civil War and the life of Lincoln has ever interested me. I was always annoyed when my American history classes in elementary, middle, and high school would get stuck in the middle of the 1800s, because we would usually spend two months on the Antebellum, Civil War, and Restoration and I just wanted to get to the 20th century, already. I mean, I don't blame authors and schools for fixating on that time, especially in today's society with race relations being what they are, but all it did was encourage my interest in the Turn of the Century and both WWs, because of how little I was taught about them in a public school setting. And when I read historical fiction for fun, I have a tendency to gravitate towards times that either interest me or I know little about, that basically means that anything that has to do with the Civil War I stay away from.

But Lincoln in the Bardo is a novel that I was completely blown away by. While gimmicky novels have never been my favorite, this one is told in a way that makes its unconventional, even avant-garde, style fun and refreshing instead of bogged down by quirkiness. In fact, I am a little surprised it reached and was liked by such a mainstream audience, or that I see it in places like airport or train station bookstores since it's hard for me to imagine the pop fiction crowd liking such a heavy, strange book.

And I loved the ghosts. I mean, I love ghosts in general, but these ghosts were particularly endearing to me. Their stories were the right amount of sad without feeling overindulgent, and each of their personalities shone through well in their writing. And the humor of the novel perfectly counter-balanced the sadness. And it certainly struck the right note for me. I like absurdist humor, almost as much as I like dark humor, and I could have read ten novels written by Saunders about the antics of various ghosts in many graveyards.

I was also interested in the parts away from the graveyard, with the various quotes from sources (real or fake, I have no idea) discussing Lincoln and Willie. I liked the contradiction in many of them and that not all of them were glowing. It reminded me how much I like oral histories, and was a fascinating mosaic of the time period. 

My only complaint, and it's a relatively minor one, is that I don't really like books written from the point of view of someone who was actually alive. It makes me feel kind of uncomfortable. I don't know why these stories bother me so much, but they do.

So yes, Lincoln in the Bardo. I give it my whole-hearted thumbs up, and I think this is the most I've enjoyed reading a novel this year so far. What else can I say except that I loved it and that Mr Vollman, Mr Bevins (the third) and the Good Reverend will stick around in my head for a long time. Bittersweet perfection.

9 out of 10