While waiting for his celebrated book of stories, ‘Liberation Day’, to be published next year, the considered best American short story writer launches ‘Zorro 8’, an environmental fable disguised as naivety
On the other side of the computer screen, at his home in Los Angeles, George Saunders (63 years old), possibly greatest living american short story writer -a title that can be disputed by no more than three or four of his colleagues- explains the origin of one of the most significant characteristics of his writing: the truth transmitted by the voices and monologues that support his stories, those of those normal people bound to abnormal situations. In his case, everything was born out of necessity, he says. “In the Chicago of my childhood, you could only be cool if you were handsome or sporty. and I was neither of those two things. But there was another way to attract attention: to imitate the famous or even better, to imitate the professor. But the top of that whole process was to invent a character with his biography and his voice. Even today I can’t tell a story if I don’t have a voice. The thing goes like this: someone talks and I let him talk to tell that story & rdquor ;.
With a not very extensive career that includes books of stories as fascinating as ‘Pastoralia’, as perfect as ‘December 10’ and an eccentric novel, the only one for the moment, ‘Lincoln on the Bard’, with which he obtained Bookerthe last voice Saunders has encountered is that of an animal, a good-natured fox, capable of quoting Dickensbut unable to write correctly because he learned the language of ‘humans’ by listening to a mother tell stories to her children.
‘Fox 8’ (Seix Barral) Originally published in the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’, it is an apparently compassionate fable that could be mistaken for a kind story for children if it weren’t for the issues it addresses, our responsibility towards all living beings and the defense of the environment. , they have little naive. Waiting for the book of stories ‘Liberation Day’ that has just come out in the United States -it will do so here next year- and which is arousing rave reviews from colleagues such as Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith, this little book illustrated by Chelsea Cardenal is entertainment in which charm does not exclude social criticism. And there it is very difficult not to think about the ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ by Roald Dahl (and Wes Anderson).
our house falls
“I wasn’t really aware that I was writing an environmental fable until I finished it. I wanted to make this fox who has difficulties with writing talk, and for this reason, instead of lowering the level of communication with the reader, he would amplify it because the result is very funny,” says George Saunders, just getting out of bed. aware that very little progress has been made in the recent climate summit in Egypt. “My feeling is that our house is collapsing while the most beloved member of the family, your mother for example, is in there. So this story has something of a request, of a call. And that’s the only thing I can do: tell a story, but if I manage to transform a human heart, that will already be the beginning of political change.”
Political change is a key concept for an author who is not afraid of the idea. For him any story, even the apparently furthest away, has that reading. Give as an example a story by Chekhov, ‘The sadness’in which a coachman whose son has died wants to transfer his grief to those who rent the sleigh he drives and who do not stop to listen to him. “That story is political, you multiply it by a million and you have the Russian Revolution& rdquor;ditch.
Why did they vote for Trump?
However, Saunders has been much more specific. Especially in the chronicles written for ‘The New Yorker’ in which he has tried understand while rejecting the voters of Trump. “Trump cannot be blamed for everything that happened then. He simply set fire to the discontent of many citizens, something that people on the left did not know how to perceive. Fortunately, I think that we have somewhat repaired the damage that the previous president caused, perhaps because many republicans are fed up with extremism. What worries me the most now is that concept of post-truth that is still with us and that going to be very difficult to eradicate because conspiracy it is very widespread. A writer has to be sensitive to these things.”
This empathic sensitivity that marks his writing is closely linked to the practice of buddhism which he has maintained for 20 years. “Buddhism has taught me that I am linked to all creatures and that for this reason to seclude myself in my space and defend it is just a meaningless illusion & rdquor ;, she explains. The author developed this idea in his now famous speech to the students of Syracuse University, ‘Happiness, by the way’, which went viral, in which he dared to defend a value as simple – and so easy to confuse with the philosophy of Mr. Wonderful – as being kind. Like his fox and just as kind as he is, Saunders wants to understand why we humans do what we do. Why can we be so creative and so bad at the same time? That’s why I use fiction, to ask myself questions, maybe I won’t find the answers, but that’s the magic of fiction. If I can be kind my world will be better, that helps me move away from hopelessness & rdquor ;.