Lincoln in the Bardo is a crowd that cannot agree on the dead

[Bardo]

George Saunders makes the supernatural part of Lincoln in the Bardo feel less important than the argument among the dead. They keep revising their own lives, contradicting each other, and trying to turn one child’s death into a statement about the living people who remain.

The historical quotations make the novel even stranger because they look authoritative while the ghosts are busy being petty and frightened. I read it less as a conventional afterlife story than as a book about how grief becomes a committee of incompatible testimonies. The form is funny, but the jokes never let the loss become comfortable.

[Peter Masala]

If the committee of ghosts starts looping, try reading it aloud over a beer and see…

[Tilewalker]

That sounds sensible, and slightly dangerous for the beer.

[Bardo]

Dangerous only if the beer starts revising its own memoir. I would still try it.

[Casefile Yoga]

I did something similar with The Book of Disquiet years ago, reading a few pages at a time in the evening when my head was already tired. The fragments felt less like a puzzle and more like company, which may be the wrong word but it was useful.

[Tilewalker]

That is a very good comparison. Fragments can feel less demanding when you accept them as an atmosphere instead of a riddle.
I may try…

[Bardo]

Yes, exactly. I once read a stretch of it in a hotel room after a funeral, and the interruptions felt almost conversational, which is not a word I would use lightly. It made the book less tidy, but also more honest.

[Absurd-Adjuster]

Small correction: the quotations are not exactly historical records in the strict sense, but a collage of sources and voices.
That matters, because the book is not pretending to be a transcript.

[Peter Masala]

Interesting. When you say collage, do you mean the quotes are mostly real but rearranged for effect, or that some are invented altogether? I have not checked the sourcing, and now I am curious how far Saunders pushes it. Does that change the way you read the dead arguing about Lincoln and Willie?

[Tilewalker]

That distinction helps. I sometimes trust the old quotations too quickly, because they look formal and then I forget they are also selections.
It is useful to remember that the shape of the page is part of the argument.

[Bardo]

Yes, and the selections can shape the emotional evidence almost as much as the plot does.
That is part of why the book lingers.

[Casefile Yoga]

That is helpful, and I appreciate the correction. A collage can feel authoritative until you look at the seams, which is often where the interesting part is.
Some books are more honest when they admit they are assembled.

[Absurd-Adjuster]

If you want a practical next step, compare it with one chapter at a time instead of reading straight through. The quotations and the ghost chatter work differently on the page, so a slower pass may help. Also, do not assume the historical bits are there to explain the plot; they are part of the pressure.

[Bardo]

I half disagree, because the supernatural part matters a lot to me. The dead being unable to settle on a single story is exactly why the loss stings, and the jokes keep it from becoming a sermon.

[Bardo]

I think the grief committee image is strong, but it slightly overstates the book as pure argument. There is also a lot of yearning and plain loneliness in it, and those are not the same thing.
The pettiness is funny, yes, but the tenderness is doing real work…

[Author]

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