A Quote by George Saunders
Whole swaths of the book [Lincoln in the Bardo] are made up of verbatim quotes from various historical sources, which I cut up and rearranged to form part of the narrative.
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There was one sequence of days [making Lincoln in the Bardo] when I had halfway decided to use the historical nuggets, but I wasn't quite sure it would work. I'd be in my room for six or seven hours, cutting up bits of paper with quotes and arranging them on the floor, with this little voice in my head saying, "Hey, this isn't writing!" But at the end of that day, I felt that the resulting section was doing important emotional work
What was fun for me with this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] was to start out with the principle that went, "We're going to fight every day to make this not a novel; make it too short to be a novel." And then with that principle in place, the book sort of starts to say, "Okay, but I really need this. I really need some historical nuggets." And you're like, "All right, but keep it under control."
I write narrative nonfiction, creating lively scenes through action and the use of quotes from firsthand accounts, all based on rigorous research. If I say a character leaned against a fence on a windy day, than I have at least two sources to back up these details.
Later, I went one step further, by putting in some invented "historical" bits [into the Lincoln in the Bardo]. And reading those alongside the actual historical bits was like looking into a sort of a painful mirror, because "my" parts were so show-offy at first. They stood out because they were so flamboyant.
It is important to insist on the historical truthfulness of the narrative of the fall of Adam and Eve. Just as the account of the creation of Adam and Eve is tied in with the rest of the historical narrative in the book of Genesis, so also this account of the fall of man, which follows the history of man's creation, is presented by the author as straightforward, narrative history
As the writer of this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], what I loved was the feeling of having so many surprises come at the end that I hadn't really planned or planted.
[Lincoln in the Bardo] is not a long book. And that meant I could obsess over it and live in it both backwards and forwards and hyper-control everything.
While writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], [idea of inclusion] occurred to me, you either believe in the Constitution or you don't. If you do, it's intense in what it wants of us.
George Saunders's 'Lincoln in the Bardo' is a hands-down masterpiece - the subject of Abraham Lincoln and the genius of this author is a perfect union.
Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders'] ghosts was a part of it.
Mental activity in the daytime creates a latent form of habitual thought which again transforms itself at night into various delusory visions sensed by the semi-consciousness. This is called the deceptive and magic-like Bardo of Dream.
One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind.
I'm not thinking in any big thematic or conceptual terms - especially in this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] when I was trying to make the voices more active, more energetic.
The discovery of various phenomena has led to a recognition of the fact that the chemical atom is an individual which again is itself made up of several units into a selfcontained whole.
I would say one thing writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] did for me was underscore the fact that this issue [all men are created equal] has never been properly addressed and it hasn't gone away.
I had to go in and do the work of toning [invented "historical" bits] down in order to make them fit [in Lincoln in the Bardo]. It's like if you're an actor and you're always overacting, well, you're a bad actor. But if you're an actor who subdues yourself to the extent that's necessary, then you're really acting.
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