Lincon in the Bardo - George Saunders

Man Booker Award - 2017
Nominated for the Golden Booker Award

For any parent, his or her children holds their point of vulnerability too. I have to confess that there are two Sinhala novels that I've been postponing reading for years, for I've heard that in them are deaths of children, and some detail of how it is been borne by the unfortunate fictitious parents ( The books are අස්වැන්න and හැන්දෑව ). But then I was somewhat forced to read "Lincoln in the Bardo". It is one of the most beautiful, sorrowful, calamitous books I've read. It was nominated for the Golden Booker award, and to me it certainly deserves that recognition. There are many a part which I reckon to be similar to that of a sharp knife penetrating one's heart. One example would suffice.



“When a child is lost there is no end to the self-torment a parent may inflict. When we love, and the object of our love is small, weak, and vulnerable, and has looked to us and us alone for protection; and when such protection, for whatever reason, has failed, what consolation (what justification, what defense) may there possibly be?”

The book is set on an environment where Willie Lincoln is in the company of the departed, who have still not come to terms with their end. This part of the book is composed fully of the "talk of the dead", other than for a few lines of speech by the living ( including that of the President). The way that the author manages to convey the strong impression of the very human anticipation that all hope isn't yet lost, that they are still in their "sick boxes", and that they'd be fine - any day now - is brilliant. Dialogues between the dead at the start of the narration is so riddled with hope and anticipation, that it takes a while to comprehend the "true situation".


On a parallel narration, we have the Lincoln the politician - the president of the United States of America - and this narration, is composed in total of extracts from historical texts - "That terrible Glory: A Collection of Civil War Letters from the Men Who Fought It" and "Letters of an Illinois Soldier", for example. It paints the hard times that the civil war stricken country was going through, and Lincoln was not always quite loved, for his decisions, the extracts goes to prove. The times would've been so tough for poor Lincoln that it is not unjust to say that he himself may have been in a state of "Bardo", given the trauma in personal life and the troubled times of the country.


The whole narration style, as well as the setting in which more than half of the novel is written in, is possibly new, hence creative mastery and may need some getting used to for certain readers ( luckily it didn't affect me ). As such, it is a master work in my humble opinion - brilliant story line, a tragedy that a historical character faced presented at its deepest remorse, experiments in form, in two styles for the two parallel halves of the book. As a reader, the undeniable pain of reading the despondency that a parent felt, was possibly a little too difficult to stomach; it is not a failing of the book, but it speaks of its success - what cruelty is that? One of the best books of our times, easily !