“Love Letter”
by George Saunders
from the April 6, 2020 issue of The New Yorker
Oh boy, I am not sure my mind can handle a George Saunders story this week. His work so often holds a distorting mirror up to us that helps us see just how close we are to a horror story, and I’m just not sure I’m up for one in the midst of this pandemic. At the same time, there’s often something compassionate in his work, some glimmer of hope that is more than just his good humor.
“Love Letter” is, as the title suggests, a letter, one a grandfather is writing to his son, and it makes for a pretty quick story, albeit one I have not read fully yet (tonight!). From his interview (here) I see that Saunders has placed this letter in the context of what is to some, including me, a horrific future where not only was Trump re-elected in 2020 but then Trump’s son follows in his father’s footsteps in 2024.
Here’s how it begins:
Got your e-mail, kid. Sorry for handwriting in reply. Not sure e-mailing is the best move, considering the topic, but, of course (you being nearly six foot now, your mother says?), that’s up to you, dear, although, you know: strange times.
From the looks of it, Saunders wrote this story before the current strange times we’re living in, though that certainly must have come up in the edits and in the decision to publish this now.
So, how is “Love Letter”? I’m always hopeful I’ll love every new Saunders story, so I’m looking forward to reading it tonight. Will it help me take my mind off the pandemic and the terrible headlines that continue to pop up? I’m not sure . . .
Hmm, I maybe need to sit out of this conversation for a bit to see how others respond. I’ve been mostly negative about Saunders’ fiction in the last while, and this . . . well, suffice it to say that no matter how much he and I may agree politically I’m simply not on his wavelength if this is what his fiction is coming to.
I would advise readers to compare with First Daughters by Lucinda Rosenfeld in the February 2019 Harpers.
I believe George Saunders is a great writer. I re-read some of PASTORALIA a while ago, and those wildly inventive and idiosyncratic stories held up. However, there’s a kind of sameness to his style and tone that I think has diluted the impact of his writing over the years. (Side note: it’s interesting that, for me anyway, straight-up realism seems to have a longer shelf-life; I never find William Trevor or Alice Munro repetitive in the same way, though certainly one could say the same about them.) The other thing about Saunders is that he’s spawned a lot of imitators.
Anyway, I read this story, and it’s… not good. It depicts an imaginary (one hopes!) near future where Trump was re-elected in 2020, and one of his sons is elected in 2024. I won’t re-cap the story, since it’s quite short and you can read it yourself. Suffice it to say, it’s about as obvious as it sounds. I was surprised when I realized what he was doing, because there’s basically no subtext or allegory at work here. Saunders’ author interview, which feels almost as long as the story itself, cogently lays out his cautionary fears: that America is creeping toward authoritarianism and we’re all just passively watching it happen, etc. Those fears are real and legitimate, but he fails to dramatize this in an effective way. Also, the epistolary device of a man writing to his grandson, who is seeking advice for his (presumed) girlfriend — an unnamed woman being held by the state for unknown reasons — felt extremely ham-fisted and underdeveloped.
Saunders revealed the limitations of his imagination and intellect when, in his New Yorker non-fiction pieces concerning the 2016 election, he tried to bridge the divide between Trump loyalists and those who prefer sanity. None of Saunders’ fiction after this point may escape his spectacular naivety and shortsightedness.
I am in the same camp with Archer. You all may remember that I am a big George Saunders fan. Yet I found this piece — I won’t all it a story — disappointing. No nuance, no working out of a conflict. I guess that Trump has claimed another victim.
Despite the obviousness of the grandfather’s point of view, one that all current adults will probably share if, God forbid, this comes to pass, the story has a wider theme: what are the truly meaningful moments in life, regardless of whatever suffering one may be experiencing? We have all been deprived of important freedoms recently, even the freedom to hug our loved ones. For the large majority of us, we know this has an end to it. But we are all grieving for the time which will be lost in terms of productivity, doing things we enjoy, not to mention the widespread suffering and ongoing tragedy of a world-wide collapse of the economy. Moments of joy and gratitude are crucial: the replaced scarf, the swinging car keys. The grandfather’s wisdom, humility and deep love for his family truly moved me.
I haven’t read every thing of Saunders’, and have not loved everything I’ve read. But this stood out to me among the recent New Yorker fiction.
Paul —
I tried to read “First Daughters” but there is a firewall.
William If you give me an email address, I’d be happy to email you a copy-paste of the text. (That applies to others on this forum, too.) [I could simply add the story to this thread, but I don’t want to risk the wrath of the publisher].
Thanks Paul.
Checkwa26@gmail.com
Barbara —
Thanks for those positive insights.
I find I’m still thinking about the conundrum that Saunders posed — how much of one’s momentary pleasure in life should one sacrifice to counter threats to the larger values of life
Thanks William. Yes, self-sacrifice is another theme that I didn’t touch on. “In this world, we speak much of courage and not, I feel, enough about discretion and caution. I know how that will sound to you. Let it be. I have lived this long and have the right.”
The voice of maturity. He understood his grandson needed to decide for himself how much to sacrifice. At the same time, he knew the probable futility of it, and the possible effects on the rest of the family. I wonder what Robbie decided to do.
Thanks for sharing your positive response, Barbara. It’s nice to hear and definitely welcome to bring balance to my own perspective!
Few tropes ignite my fiction-reading gag reflex more than characters with just letters instead of names. I get the whole redaction and police-state/surveillance-state neo-Soviet-ism point, but it surely irritates.
Saunders has done plenty of dystopia, and this is a throwback to his pre-novel comfy place maybe, but he’s done the genre better and with much more fluidity and pizzazz in the past.
The paranoia of the grandfather is well conveyed as is the pointlessness of causes and thinking you can change things (not that these are particularly novel insights).
Regret, jigsaw puzzles, dental issues, yes, these are old-people things, but the story doesn’t really move. I get it, it’s political and polemical, but overall it’s just kind of a “meh” (rare in a Saunders piece; he’s essentially a living legend and growing more canonical by the day).
Trump haterade, check, I’m mostly with ya’ here, fella, but I felt like I was being taught a lesson, not usually a sensation I get reading a Saunders piece. I mean, the following here is pretty much straight didactic advice, no? “I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.” And then following that with a mention of “the other side”? Binaries? Really, GS? I understand it’s the character’s opinion, not the author’s, but it was still a querulous moment.
Why not just write an actual scene/character/plot-based story set in a world where the US has become a version of Dirty War-era Argentina instead of doing this epistolary thing?
The scent of that signature blend of speculative fiction and heart is still detectable (the poignancy of the girl who was detained/disappeared and the grandson’s quandary), but this is not going to move into a very high slot at all on most people’s lists of their favorite Saunders stories. That’s my guess anyway.
I think there’s a major distinction in art between enjoyment and quality. I enjoyed this story very much because I felt I understood everything the story was trying to say, and I maintained full flow, never feeling that I had to read the same sentence twice. This is a different experience to reading a great short story which would typically have many different interpretations and ambiguities. I agree with the detractors about the lack of depth etc., but this was not a bar to my enjoyment.
I do hope that others, besides William, can read this story: https://legacy.harpers.org/archive/2019/02/first-daughters-lucinda-rosenfeld/ I think the link should work fine unless readers have stored Harpers cookies on their computers. (It’s possible that work has been done on the website since William’s post).
For the (not unjustified) complainers, the Harpers story shows short fiction with similar themes “done right”. The Harpers story is also about Trump’s rule and also imagines an escalation of Trump’s authoritarianism. (To avoid spoilers, I won’t say exactly what form the escalation takes). However, the scene is portrayed vividly in authentic detail with brilliant understated humour. Lorrie Moore fans should like the Harpers story although the type of humour is quite different.
(I mention Lorrie Moore because she was praised in the thread on Matthew Klam’s “The Liver”.)
I agree with Barbara about the “wider themes” of the story and was also moved by the grandfather/narrator’s “wisdom,” “humility,” also his humor and especially his unconditional love for his grandson. But Saunders’ characterization also exposes the potential failures and liabilities of that fundamentally decent point of view—its passivity, quiescence, and even complicity in the erosion of those freedoms we cherish so dearly. That’s the conflict that the story tries to work out or at least poses for our examination. We see this struggle at the very end of the letter when the narrator/grandfather says that they (he and the grandmother) have a little money saved up, should “push come to shove.” Another part of him identifies with and wants to encourage the grandson’s idealism.
Dealing with a crucial theme in this way is not, in my opinion, very helpful or of merit. Yes….we all wonder what we’d have done in 1930s Germany or debate about a figure like Leni Riefenstahl who claimed she was given a job and thought it honorable to do it well. But…this story doesn’t add much to the debate, it just artlessly reasks the question and allows the writer to vent. I have liked many of Saunders’ stories in the past, by the way, but this was almost irritating.
Ken — Wyndham —
“artlessly” — good description.
In rereading all the thoughtful comments, what stands out to me is that there is almost no movement in the story. There are descriptions of past movement: the geese, the hike, the grandson’s visit, but all we are given is a static letter. However, there is a small but important progression: the grandfather’s realization about the possible nature of Robbie’s relationship with J. That it may be romantic, sexual. Something as minuscule and portentous as a sperm cell dances through the piece and reveals itself at the end; reveals the grandfather’s profound wish to cheer it on, against all the odds.
Anyway, just finished listening to this interview of Saunders which may or may not be of interest. Generally encouraging people to write down their stories during difficult times. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TEyJomKpLQNw8niUEeegG?si=R6XGmHyORgyVd376vQ1mhQ
You may hear from me again after I read the Harpers story. I really appreciate these thoughtful discussions!
Is this a reference to “D.B. Wyndham-Lewis” in terms of my last name? Or the hotel chain?
Paul, I think I read the whole story, “The First Daughters,” but it ended on a, to me, inconclusive note, with an encouragement to sign in or subscribe, so I wasn’t sure if there was more. The last sentence was:
“She felt she had things to say about the world and, if immodesty was allowed, an extensive vocabulary with which to say them. n”
The “n” threw me off also.
More commentary once I’m sure I’ve finished it. Thanks for the link!
Hi, Barbara: I think that the “n” is a typo and that the story simply concludes somewhat abruptly but that it is finished as their lunch is finished. I didn’t like this Rosenfeld story much more than the Saunders although it had some levels of character development and complexity which Saunders’ story lacked.
I think if you come at the Saunders story “fresh” without the baggage of his earlier writings (I’ve only read a few of his recent stories and have not liked them) then this comes across as a great piece of topical short writing. I especially liked how Saunders framed the ambiguity of “the important moments in life” as the grandfather calls them, but the reader (and the grandfather as he writes) realizes this is probably exactly wrong: the fluttering of a ribbon, juxtaposed with unjust imprisonment, becomes laughable.
Read “First Daughters.” I found it enjoyable, in the sense that Ken used above. Agree it has more character development, more complexity in the sense that there is more action, but not in the sense that there is nuance. Maybe I missed it, but I did not see any character change in their opinions or perspectives. That’s what I look for in a short story. I did love the comparison of Bianca to a giraffe, and the map turning red like blood on election night.
That’s almost always a good point, mkevane, making sure we come into a work as “fresh” and objectively as possible, neither giving a writer credit for past accomplishments nor unfairly holding him/her up to an unreachably high standard because of previously-acquired acclaim, but honestly, I think if that were the case, if there were no author name even on this story, I would’ve been even harder on this piece. If this were an unknown writer who hadn’t the built-up credit that I afford Saunders, I would have found it to be even more irritatingly didactic and simplistic. It would have read as an attempt at epistolary dystopia that, yes, had a few good ideas & passages that really resounded and “hit” with me, but the “misses” would have piled up even more so and found me, at the end of it, at pretty much the same place I was knowing it was a Saunders joint. It would not have resounded as a “great” piece of topical writing because, really, “topical” is just a nice way of saying “ephemeral”; we all know that the best short stories are timeless, ineffably tied to everything but the fleeting present.
Ken, I’m not sure I’d call the “n” a typo. It seems to be a coding error. The block that normally terminates a Harper’s short story has ASCII value 220 which is 11011100 in binary. The “n” character has ASCII value 110 (in decimal). This value is obtained by chopping off the final 0 in the previous ASCII value to get 1101110. Most usual characters are in the 0 to 127 range but the black block goes outside this range. If some part of the code base assumes that character values are less than 128, then the final 0 would not be read, leading to the block being interpreted as an “n”.
Sean —
I agree that Saunders didn’t add anything lasting to his theme. Thanks for introducing the term “topical” — so much NYer fiction these days fits that label. Also I like your synonym “ephemeral”. That resonated with me ( sorry for the buzzword). I immediately thought of “Cat person”. Even the recent story about the blots is halfway there. At least I hope this business of women whining about how terrible men are is ephemeral.
As an example of a story that rises above the ephemeral — I’m reading Best SS of 2019. One is “Seeing Ershadi”. Now that’s a quality piece of writing.