LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

George Saunders. LINCOLN IN THE BARDO. Bloomsbury, 2018.

Finished reading this experimental novel, winner of the Man Booker Prize, 2017,  on August 26, 2024. Sought it out because I've been following Saunders' Substack column Story Club, on reading and writing, and because Abraham Lincoln has always been my favourite famous American. The first time I ever had to give a speech in school, I spoke about him. It was back during the Civil War centennial, and all the media in our home, Readers Digest and National Geographic, were full of it.

I had to look up the meaning of "bardo"--which seems to be not a building but rather a Buddhist tradition of a transitional state where souls await their final placement.

I love the experimental nature of the style of this book. The "damn the rules" attitude. The presentation of voices as if they are dialogue in a stage play. The presentation of citations as if nothing more need be said of the jaundiced view of people and politics then and now. 

I love the idea of exploring attitudes towards death, burial, and the afterlife. Not one who is too interested in abstractions myself, and not of a faith group which puts much stress on an afterlife, I have not thought much about what happens after death. Our family prefers cremation; we have chosen a return to nature rather than solid physical memorializing of lost loved ones. So Saunders' imaging of Lincoln's dilemma is interesting. Visiting the mausoleum in private. Opening the coffin. Holding the body. Believing his son is still present; feeling when the soul departs. Very affecting, as is the juxtaposition of the president's grief with the grieving of families having lost and doomed to lose more loved ones in the years of civil war yet to come. 

A sad story leavened by the delusions and denial of several waiting souls, and the devious nature of one group, mostly impoverished and/or lower class, destined for the other place.