#the semplica girl diaries

[warningsine]

The land of the short story is a brutal land, a land very similar, in its strictness, to the land of the joke.” George Saunders was writing about the unforgiving nature of the short form, but he might as well have been referring to the worlds in which his characters are trapped. Why is such a nice man so mean to the nice people he invents?

In interviews, Saunders comes across as a benignly thoughtful regular guy, a practising Buddhist who constantly tries for kindness. Some part of his writing day, however, is spent imagining complex and original ways to punish the people he has created. They are trapped by their own foolishness, or by the dreams of hyper-capitalism. They are also sometimes locked up underground, or suspended in intriguing configurations. “Suspended” here does not just mean “existing between one state and another” – though they are also that. It means hung up and left dangling, like abandoned puppets.

The 2012 story The Semplica Girl Diaries was a kind of signature piece for Saunders in his more speculative mode. In it, a man buys an “SG” lawn decoration which, we slowly discover, is made by stringing up immigrant women, as though on a washing line, by means of a micro-fibre inserted through their brains.

In this new collection, the eponymous story Liberation Day explores a similar conceit from the inside. In this case, the narrator himself is pinioned on a non-specific “wall” waiting to become an orchestrated voice in an evening concert conducted by his owner. As with the washing line, the reader is not invited to believe the hokum science; the explanation is kept loose. We do, however, keenly understand the sense of suspension, of a waking sleep or living death that this amnesiac chorus represents.

Saunders’ characters are happy in their difficulty, at least at first. In Ghoul, they are performers in a huge theme park that seems to have no limits, and they love their stupid jobs. These happy prisoners endure cheery degradations while holding outlandish props and, as in other stories, they are plucky, hopeful and hugely anxious to please. Their creator subjects these lovely, fretful people to pratfall and disaster, all of it brilliantly escalated, in order to show us lives made antic by denial. The result is both tragic and lighthearted. Even pinned to a wall and with their memories wiped, they are so darn proud and self-improving and willing to be good, you might say they are the best of America.

Saunders invents these joke prisons in order to remind the reader of the various prisons – economic, psychological and spiritual – which we build for ourselves. The first and last is the prison of the self: “You are trapped in you,” a voice says to the protagonist of The Mom of Bold Action, after an ordinary woman’s moral outrage goes awry. Even in this naturalistic piece, however, the voice enters her car as an imagined “beam of forgiveness” that is “green” and which lands “near the glove compartment”. When you are in the habit of making the allegorical physical, it is a simple step to hanging the poor and indebted on washing lines and walls.

Saunders characteristically begins a story with someone mid-thought, their diction fragmented, like jottings or notes made before their purpose becomes clear.

Why was she holding a can opener? Hmm. That could be something.

It’s as if the characters are making their lives up as they go along. Many are talking to themselves, their cadences running close to internal chatter, that repetitive self‑talking monologue that can be hard to shake out of your head. This sense of enclosure slows the reveal, both to the character and (at a wilful stretch) to the reader, of the conditions they must escape. On the way, there are vaudevillian bursts of delight, reverses, surprises and romance. These stories are not afraid of plot. Much of the pleasure of reading them comes from watching Saunders take an outrageous premise and resolve it by the rules of old-fashioned fiction in a bravura, high-wire act.

A pleasing thing about the characters in Liberation Day is how many of them are, in one way or another, artists and creators. They write emails or provoking essays; their fictions and opinions have an effect in the world. Some exist in the space between performance and creation and they love their work because it makes new meanings, and is sometimes beautiful. Liberation Day involves a runaway choral interpretation of Custer’s last stand, which remakes the myth of the lonely hero on the hill.

A nostalgia for American optimism runs through these pages, and this includes a nostalgia for half-decent capitalism, one in which the rich held their economic fodder in something like affection. Saunders is never less than political; he seems to say it is no longer possible to be otherwise. Love Letter, the simplest and most chilling story here, is dated 202-, and it shows the slide into an authoritarian society, as seen from a suburban front porch. No one seems to notice; they just feel a mild discomfort, like the slowly boiled frog.

In these punitive worlds in which people fail further, by choice and by misadventure, it seems impossible that they will find a way forward, but they do. By the end of a Saunders story, the characters know what is going on; they see their condition, and this awareness is a gift and the possible beginning of change. The resolutions are sometimes tiny. “What she had to do now,” thinks the mom of bold action, “was reach over, pick up the bag, open the car door, drop one foot into the grey slush.” That much she can do.

These characters are not redeemed or saved, they do not transcend: the hint is in the title – these stories are about liberation. In Mother’s Day a character dies right there on the page, and she finds wisdom and relief in the idea that she can now, finally, stop being who she is.

Saunders is the all-American Buddhist whose novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, described something that had never been written before: the release of the dead from the strictures of self. The same fusion of spirituality and patriotism makes Liberation Day a unique read. Saunders is funny and kind as ever, and his narrative virtuosity puts him up there with the best. I just hope he doesn’t feel too trapped by the perils and pleasures of the desk.

[biboocat]

What, me worry? My dystopian and post- apocalyptic library:

1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Semplica Girl Diaries (a short story in Tenth of December) by George Saunders, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, Zero K by Don Delillo, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Neuromancer by William Gibson, Station Eleven by Elizabeth St. John Mandel, Children of Men by P.D. James, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, On the Beach by Nevil Shute, Liberation Day, Ghoul, Elliot Spencer (short stories in Liberation Day) by George Saunders.

[panelshowsource]

richard's new film is giving...lanthimos! i can't wait to see him on screen with lydia too 🥹 wow, has it really been 10 years since the double...

[iphigeniacomplex]

short works i've been thinking about lately (with the exception of the first, all are fiction)

friendship by alysia li ying sawchyn

recitatif by toni morrison (please also buy or check out from the library; it has recently been republished on its own for the first time with an excellent foreword by zadie smith, which can also be read on the new yorker)

the house of asterion by jorge luis borges

lucy by jamaica kincaid

the semplica-girl diaries by george saunders

alien virus love disaster by abbey mei otis

[mimikyufriend]

6 13 and 14!!

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

dracula... couldn't keep up with the emails >_< I was gonna read the book in its intended order after and everything, maybe in the future

13. What were your least favorite books of the year?

THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, ok like I did hear it was bad before reading but I wanted to see for myself and... it really did handle depression so shallowly it's so frustrating

just ella by margaret peterson haddix is supposed to be a more realistic retelling of cinderella but it was just stupid edgy I think and the love interests had no chemistry, they weirdly had conversations offscreen a lot

and the semplica diaries is a short story I first read for a class years ago and I still hate it, the writing style is frustrating to read and criticizing the aspirations of wealth of the middle class by having the family literally own woc as decorations was just so hamfisted and kind of weird for a white man to write

14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

our wives under the sea by julia armfield! I'm very close to being done and I'm so obsessed with it, it's just like written so skillfully

also all the missing girls by megan miranda just because I've been stuck on that one for too long, I need to finish it already

[fruitz]

if richard ayoade being on fox's newest shitty adult animation show means he gets money for the semplica-girl diaries.... then so be it

[gender-snatched]

everyone go read semplica girl diaries right now. dont let me infodump just find a way past the new yorkers paywall and read it

[fantasy-vibes-with-the-magi]

Richard Ayoade to Direct and Star in George Saunders Film Adaptation The Semplica Girl Diaries

The actor and director of countless indie music videos will tackle Saunders’ Tenth of December story, with Ben Stiller in talks to feature from RSS: News https://ift.tt/y8B6AjI

[neonscopecommunity]

Richard Ayoade to Direct and Star in George Saunders Film Adaptation The Semplica Girl Diaries

The actor and director of countless indie music videos will tackle Saunders’ Tenth of December story, with Ben Stiller in talks to feature from RSS: News https://ift.tt/IpMX5Ga via IFTTT

[fornowrecords]

https://ift.tt/SAXlG0g

[bicklandia]

Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.

The Semplica Girl Diaries by George Saunders, in The Tenth of December

[biboocat]

LIBRARY FOR DYSTOPIAN NOVELS List of dystopian novels I have read so far: 1984 - George Orwell, Brave New World - Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury, A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter Miller, The Road - Cormac McCarthy, The Plot Against America - Philip Roth, Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro, The Semplica Girl Diaries (a short story) - George Saunders, Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood, Future Home of the Living God - Louise Erdrich, Zero K - Don Delillo, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick, Lord of the Flies- William Golding, Neuromancer - William Gibson, Station Eleven - Elizabeth St. John Mandel, The Children of Men - PD James, Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro, On the Beach by Nevil Shute, Liberation Day, Ghoul, Elliot Spencer (stories in Liberation Day) - George Saunders

[aardvaark]

what a normal opinion you have there, mr NFT consultant

[pitau]

Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death?

George Saunders; The Semplica Girl Diaries

[mjbookreviews]

Tenth of December by George Saunders

The second book I read this summer: December in June

I’ve been self-interestedly interested in George Saunders since a creative writing teacher told me that a story I wrote reminded him of “Victory Lap.”  I also read some of his work in that class and found Saunders to be a smart, humorous, and warm author, so I’ve been meaning to read Tenth of December for a couple years now.  I should probably have a warning now though: I’m often an inattentive reader, rushing through the pages without pausing to think about what the author or story is trying to say.  It’s something I’m trying to work on, but I’m afraid that these reviews will probably reveal that aspect of my reading.  Hopefully, though, I can use them to do at least a bit more digging.

Tenth of December is made up of ten short stories, all (or most?) of which I believe can be found online for free, so if you just want to get a taste of Saunders’s work without paying for it, that would be the way to go.  My favorite stories were “Victory Lap,” “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” and “Exhortation,” the first two of which are pretty stereotypical I guess, as they’re some of his most popular work.  But hey, they’re popular for a reason.  These three stories all have great humor and great voices, immersing the reader completely in the psychology of the character.

I loved “Victory Lap” mostly for Alison Pope’s voice, one of the few stories where we get a female point of view. The way we are introduced to her character immediately shows the dreamy, imaginative girl that she is: “Three days shy of her fifteenth birthday, Alison Pope paused at the top of the stairs.” She is clearly still a child seeing a rose-colored world, performing for her audience, yet Saunders does not use this aspect of her character against her or deride her.  Alison is instead simply allowed to be herself, and while we the reader may find her worldview naïve and privileged, there is something undeniably charming about her whimsical ways.  Kyle Boot (the other young protagonist) and even the villain of the story have interesting and well-developed motivations and backgrounds as well.  

This is a story of trauma and the choices we make in the defining moments of our lives.  I don’t want to give away too much as it’s a fairly short read, but I found another review of the story a little while ago and I wanted to touch on something they said.  This reviewer wasn’t a fan because they said this was too saccharine and childish of a story for Saunders.  I can see this point of view, but I disagree. *MINOR SPOILERS* Though the story seems to have a happy ending, I think that the trauma of what Alison and Kyle have gone through, obvious in Alison’s dreams at the end, will have lifelong effects on the two teens of the story.  What will this mentally do to the characters as they move on in their lives?  And for Kyle, who is haunted throughout the story by the voices of his excessively strict parents, we don’t get to see what happens to him afterwards: will his parents punish him for “disobeying” them?  Will the thought of what he almost did to the villain change how he sees himself forever?  

*STILL SPOILERS* And going along with this, I’m not sure how to take the last line (“Did beautiful, Dad said”).  I believe the other review pointed to it as sarcasm, Saunders showing how the naiveté of Alison could have been her downfall and how she hasn’t changed.  I personally think it should be taken more seriously; yes, in this statement Alison is reinforcing her worldview and drawing comfort from her father’s words, perhaps as a way to cope with what has happened to her.  But I again don’t think Saunders is mocking her or the trauma she just experienced. Saunders himself has commented on how he used to try to make humor in mocking a character, but now he finds that this tactic doesn’t work, as the character will “slowly gain [his] sympathy” and simple mockery would lead to the “flat-lining” of the story.

At any rate, the stories flowed wonderfully together, shorter and longer pieces providing nice variations in pace and tone.  Many of these stories seem to focus on characters that teeter on the edge of a precipice; their lower middle class status in danger of falling to lower class poverty or an average man is in danger of falling from normal society into insanity or even toeing the line from life to death.  As Saunders says in a conversation with writer David Sedaris, “In the midst of crisis is where we get the true measure of a character, and thus some new feeling about human tendency.”  Some of these stories end happily: others (more often) fall forward over the edge.

This is essentially the case of the narrator in “The Semplica Girl Diaries.”  Through the diary entries of our protagonist, we learn of his family and his life, how they are not exactly poor, but they are a bit “behind” their peers.  He sees the prosperity of his children’s friends, and in an effort to keep up with a popular decorative trend so as to make his family not feel like such “losers,” they end up (potentially) ruined.  I think Saunders’s critique of materialism and the pressures of living in a capitalistic society where you are not on the upper end (and the extremes that people will go to for their family AND the services and trends that appear in a society where money rules all) is really interesting and thought-provoking.  Here and in “Exhortation,” Saunders is a master of slowly revealing his endgame, of keeping the reader guessing and hanging on every word until it becomes clear what the situation of the characters is.

I thought choosing the “Tenth of December” as the last story and as the title of the collection left things on a hopeful note, and I can appreciate that in literature.  I also really liked the interview at the end of this collection with David Sedaris, which I have already quoted from.  Saunders makes some really great statements on his philosophy toward writing and what good writing should do and be.  For Saunders, good writing should “[enliven] the part of us that actually believes we are in this world, right now, and that being here somehow matters.  It reawakens the reader to the fact and the value of her own existence.”  I believe that Saunders accomplishes this in his own work: by looking at the world in a “semi-sacred way,” whether that is through the thoughts of a teenage girl or through examining class struggles in America, Saunders reminds readers of the humanity in each of us and the delicacy of our own lives.