Civilwarland by George Saunders is a collection of short stories set in a future world where the United States has fallen into anarchy but some people have managed to escape reality by living a life inside an amusement park dedicated to Civil War reenactments to some degree. The premise is rather funny since the Civil War battles took place all across the Southeastern portion of the United States and many of the current National Parks hold battle reenactments. It’s funny not because war is a comedy but because he has exaggerated activity in this area beyond the norm into the land of absurd.

In Civilwarland in Bad Decline, the details says that history has been forgotten, that there is anarchy present in everyday life, that they are on a tight budget and make do –these lead to the final decline of the facility and the character getting what he fears.

In Smorgasbord, the details are of college and being hungry and not having enough money so much so that even a hot girl can’t compete with food, and that pretty much sets up the guys going along and feeling immature about their wants and needs and getting bought and wanting to buy.

Narrator Tone Helps Identify the Point in Time, Now and past

In Civilwarland in Bad Decline, the narrator talks in the immediate time, in a rush of everyday duties,  but it’s clear it’s in a future where they’ve forgotten who built the Erie Canal and assume it was Chinese coolies rather than the Irish.

In Smorgasbord, the tone is immediate too, but it has a feeling of longing in the background of things remembered and appreciated.

How Does the Narrative Voice in Civilwarland in Bad Decline handle the strange time, place and culture?

The narrative voice is one of irreverence that seems to fit the “what the f^^% can I do” mood of a fall into anarchy. It also has some strains of wistfulness, like the ghosts which are discussed as if they were more human than him. He is accepting of all he sees and does, because he’s a smarmy salesman that has to keep his family so the reader doesn’t really mind that he doesn’t make it which is the point that he’s trying to paint, i.e. that nobody cares.

About Technology Support for Credibility

While narrative voice and tone aid credibility of the tale, the use of technology in some places hurts credibility.

The unexpected hits at the start of the story The Unexpected Offloading of Mrs.  Schwartz. Where the narrator talks to a Guilt service, assuming he’ll get relief, which is expected by all, and then is not actually relieved. It provides a sense of humor in contrast with tragedy.

More of the same comes and goes, the narrator cares about people, offers them freebies at his own loss. Everything he does is an exaggeration of guilt looking for relief and the day to day details help to settle the reader into believing.

This is the story that seemed most nearly science fiction, but the unexpected arrives again less positively in the moment where the main character can accidently “offload” memory from an individual, causing the memories to disappear. Product manufacturers would never allow it due to law suits; although it is immediately shown to maybe have benefits.

But, this was the point where I get thrown out of the story because in technology and in biology, memory is very hard to wipe. Erase routines exist that make many passes over hardware to make the data stored go away. When hardware fails, the memory contents are often retained. Most mistakes destroy the copy, not the original. In human brains usually after a stroke, the cells have to die in order for the memories to disappear, and even then, the brain works to reroute the data and restore it. Other causes can be traumatic head injury. Furthermore, if so many brain cells die, how does the person keep living?

So I start wondering how everything works. The equipment is described as a module – which typically refers to a software routine, is showcased like a virtual reality machine attached to a treadmill, and no explanation of how the owner is seeing what the customer is seeing at the same time or why someone would expose themselves knowing he could see or even why pads are attached to the customer. Then the owner hand carries some of it (undefined) to the side of Mrs. Schwartz). Other pieces and parts expected to make it work, never exist.

One of the roles of science fiction and Utopias is to question where science is going. Definitely, if we attach electronic parts to our brain, there is a chance that we can cause damage as well as provide relief. All of the questioning part of Civilwarland in Bad Decline occurs in the white space which is also part of voice and depends a great deal on the knowledge level of the reader. Most of it disappears but some questions linger on, like how do you endlessly supply food in an amusement park where society has failed?

No matter, most readers will find this collection food for the brain, humor, with some unusual characters that make us look closely at who our society is.

Grace Paley’s collection of short stories titled The Little Disturbances of Man bears the subtitle Stories of Women andMen at Love. Love is one of the most complicated relationships people encounter during their lives. A relationship that works well isn’t always guaranteed as some of these stories illustrate. At the time these stories were written, divorce made one unacceptable in society to a greater extent than today. Other stories are equally challenging in portraying unusual relationships i.e. the mistress, the young girl infatuated, the divorcees, a young girl whose voice is too loud, the man duped, the woman dumped, the man forced into marriage to avoid statuatory rape charges, etc. The stories were of modern American life when television shows were offering up the perfect marriage so these must have appeared startling. The also contain references to class, religion, culture that tends to complicate relationships.

In “Goodbye and Goodluck”, Grace Paley discusses a young girl who is so awestruck by the theatre, she takes a first job there and falls for a famous actor who is already married. Her long term relationship with him leads her into a lifestyle that is nontraditional. What’s fun about this story is how clearly the character states her contentment and enjoyment of a life which others find scandalous; the character Rose doesn’t cave to societal expectations.

Like several other stories, the character Rose betrays a determination to get what she wants that transcends societal norms, class, and religion. A second character in this collection, Virginia, also has a primarily sexual relationship with the hero of the story, “The Contest”. For her, the deciding factor in whether they continue to live together occurs when the narrator, Fred, avoids taking a job. They remain friends, especially since Virginia wants to win a prize and she has connections, Fred’s writing ability, her mother’s language skills and she steadfastly goes forward, while Fred ponders the meaning of her appearance in his life.

Grace Paley’s sense of humor comes out in these stories in a subtle fashion. Hidden behind the story of “The Contest” is the question, did this woman make a fool out of me? In “An Interest in Life”, the tables are turned. The story starts out with the penultimate insults of married life, the personal gift of an item that is impersonal and probably a statement of how the husband views the wife he is about to desert, a broom.

One of her best stories for capturing an oddball character is “Floating Truth”. The narrator is a young woman looking for her first job when her only skills are typing. To get a job, she meets up with a man living in his car that she hires to write her resume. The opening lines, “Where are you Lionel? In the do-funny?” establishes a street tone to the story.  Some of the funny lines in the story come about as a result of the job search like, “I didn’t know I was paying him by the hour.” The resume Eddie provides is a hoot, and provides a great contrast to the story title provided by Eddie when he tells her truth floats at the right level.

One of the heart warming and heart tearing moments in the collection come in the story “A Subject of Childhood” when a confrontation occurs between a single mother and her boyfriend over the behavior of her two children. “No doubt about it, Faith, you’ve done a rotten job,” says he. She repeats his insult several time as if astounded and each time, he reiterates his claim. Her response is not spoken, “For I have raised these kids, one hand typing behind my back to earn a living. I have raised them alone without a father…” The end result is almost expected because Grace Paley then turns the story on its head by making it a statement about what love really is.

Some of the techniques she uses in writing that provide humor as well as short-hand insight include:

• Exaggeration in a character’s thoughts i.e. “The list when complete could have brought tears to the eye of God if He had a minute.
• Details of an incident that renders it specific, unique, even if emotionally charged i.e. “I bought real butter for the holiday and its rancid, I cried into the secretary’s half-hearted ear.”
• Odd juxtaposition i.e. “Under the narrow sky of God’s great wisdom, she wore a strawberry-blond wig
• Fun use of naming i.e. “You certainly observed her, said Pallid. I have a functioning retina, said Livid.”

Her portrayal of children is also good, offering concrete ways children behave that provides a connection in reader’s experience.

I just finished two different short story collections, Imaginings by Dean Warren and Recapture by Erica Olsen. Some of the differences between the two collections include :