Semplica Girl Diaries Reaction

Saunders' The Semplica Girl Diaries deals with a father's struggle to make his family happy. He feels the pressure of "limitations" that result from his lack of money and privilege. Attending the birthday party of his daughter's friend makes him depressed because of the extreme wealth on display at the other family's home. It's all relative in this story. The father feels his own middle to lower-class lifestyle is lacking in relation to the lifestyle of a much wealthier family. Lily, the narrator's youngest daughter, feels this the most. Lily seems ingrained to think that not having a disposable income means your life is deficient and not worth living. Why does she feel this way? Saunders thinks that society is responsible for glamorizing wealth and making people always aware of how others perceive them. More than anything else, money reminds us of who we are.

I found this story more engaging than most of the other Saunders' stories. Coming in at sixty pages, The Semplica Girl Diaries is more novella than short fiction. The narrator's voice was immediately engaging for me. Some of Saunders' other stories feel like they're coming straight from the mind of a psychopath. This story did not feel like this. The voice is clear and deliberate. The story is told in the form of journal entries that the father has jotted down before going to bed. He hopes to preserve his experiences for future readers. From what I can tell, the father is down to earth family man whose main wish is to make his family happy. When he wins ten grand on a scratch ticket, he decides to invest this money into his yard, buying a pond, hot tub, flowers, and three girls from Asia and Africa tied together by a microline inserted into their heads. In this fictional world, buying live humans a yard ornaments is the latest trend. The semplica girl element elevates this story to sci-fi and adds some horror to the mix. It's unsettling how comfortable the narrator is with using other human beings as decorations on his lawn.

One note on craft. I enjoyed Saunders' prose style in this story. He omits the use of "to be" verbs and words like "the" and "a". The result is a more minimalist story that makes it feel more like reading someone's journal. It's a very personal story that divulges the narrator's emotional and intellectual activities often. Another thing I appreciate about the journal format is the use of dates to separate the story into consumable chunks.

This story made me think about how identity is formed by other's perceptions. Especially in American culture, one's life is judged in relation to the lives of others. This is a sad truth that can invade your mind consume your activity. It can turn your life into a struggle to create meaningless status. This is the message I extracted from this story.

Puppy

"Puppy" by George Saunders alternates between the perspectives of two women, Marie and Callie. It's a simple story structure. The story's divided into four equal sized portions. Marie and Callie both get two. I guess each of these portions can be called a vignette. Saunders provides one informative scene from each woman's life before allowing the women to interact.

Each scene is told in the third person and feels like its coming from the character's mind. The first scene focuses on Marie, a mother of two children who has some problems but still lives a pretty good life. Her son Josh is prone to violent outburst but has mellowed out since playing a video game called Italian Loaves. This game simulates the life of a baker who must prepare his bread while avoiding the onslaught of animals such as wolves with distended stomachs and birds that drop rocks. Josh plays this game nonstop and it has mellowed him out. Marie is in control of her life and appears to be happy. The context of her life is strange but things seem to be going okay for her family. Marie has a fascination with bringing home strange things which is what leads her to contact Callie to purchase her dog.

Like Marie, Callie is a mother of a strange child. Callie's son has a habit of darting between cars on the interstate. Callie fears for her son's safety so she makes his take medication, but it makes him grind his teeth and lose control of his body. Like Marie, Callie has a plethora of problems but she is tough and appears to be relatively happy.

Callie and Marie are similar but have different lifestyles. Marie loves bringing home new animals to surprise her husband while Callie has too many animals.

Consequently, Callie's husband feels a need to kill the various animals because he grew up on a farm and understands the reality that the best way to get rid of animals is to kill them. This is what motivates Callie to post an ad in the paper to sell her dog ergo her husband won't have to kill it. For Callie, a lot depends on whether or not Marie buys her dog. 

So Marie arrives at Callie's house and intends to purchase the dog. Everything is going smoothly until Marie looks out the window and sees Bo, Callie's son, chained to a tree. It's the funniest moment of the story. After seeing this boy chained to a tree, Marie assumes that this is child abuse. She flashbacks to her own painful upbringing and changes her mind about buying the dog. Little does she know that this boy is chained up for his own good. Its possible that this chain is keeping the boy alive but Marie sees it in a different light.

Both women love their children but experience love in a different way. Marie can manipulate her son's behavior by getting him a video game but Callie's situation is more difficult. Bo is a danger to himself when given free roam outdoors but hates being kept indoors. Callie's solution is to chain him to a tree. This is how love exists in Callie's world. Loving those around you for who they are and trying to make them realize their full potential. I believe this is the ultimate message of Saunders' "Puppy". 

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Victory Lap by George Saunders

I recently picked up George Saunders' new short story collection, "Tenth of December". I was so impressed by his story "Sea Oak" that I decided to check his most recent collection of stories. If you've never read "Sea Oak" you should. It's awesome.

The first story in Saunders' new book is "Victory Lap", a story told from three different perspectives. "Victory Lap" is obviously a story written by the Saunders. The language, sense of humor, and general style is unmistakably Saunders. I was immediately drawn in by Saunders' vocabulary and fascinating characters. While both "Victory Lap" and "Sea Oak" feature third person narration, "Victory Lap" has much more interiority with its characters. The voice of the story feels like it comes directly from the mind of its characters. Saunders does this convincingly making each character's segment feel unique with all kinds of different details bubbling beneath the surface alluding to each character's past. Ok, that's enough about fancy stylistic stuff.

"Victory Lap" is a crazy story. The characters are hilarious and fascinating but it doesn't feel like anythings really happening until wham! One of the characters Allison is kidnapped by some guy named Melvin and taken into his van to be raped and killed.  Its a weird gut punch in the middle of a story that doesn't feel like it should involve rape, murder, or kidnapping. The story does end on a happy note though (happy for me at least).

As much as this story weirded me out and made me feel like I barely understood its three characters, I still enjoyed reading it. Saunders keeps things interesting and proves that he knows how to make readers unsure whether they should be laughing or crying.

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