Retro Review: Lincoln in the Bardo
/When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.
5 stars. Hmmm. Interesting. Amusing. When I shut the cover I found myself saying, “....okay, Lincoln in the Bardo, if you say so.” It’s that kind of book. Creative, of course. Innovative, even. Strong in style and originality. Funny, really funny.
I would say, though, that the whole thing felt kind of like a … graduate course exercise? Or an amateur experiment? It’s difficult to articulate my discomfort with the enormous amount of praise this book has received.
It is certainly something new. And I must commend Saunders for shedding a new light on one of the most studied, read-about, written-about figures in history.
Okay - update - it’s been about a month since I finished this book and I can’t stop thinking about it, or raving about it to my friends. Apparently, I loved it. I think I’m attracted to the risky nature of the writing - I mean, this is a ballsy book. I’m baffled by how Saunders mixed the funny, the odd, and the painful and got such an engaging story. This whole thing is just a giant “....what? ….how?” for me.
In a good way, I think.