Mixedthe title short story is quite good rest of the collection nothing to write home about if you ask me
Pastoralia (2000)
Others: Mixed "If Americans in the future were to try to send us a message about where our culture is heading, they might simply point to the fiction of George Saunders. Living in a world that's both indelibly original and hauntingly familiar, the characters in these stories bring to life our most absurd tendencies, and allow us to see ourselves in a shocking, uproariously funny new light.". "Here you find people who live and work in a simulated, theme-park cave and communicate with their loved ones via fax machine. You encounter a family happily gathered around their favorite form of entertainment, a computer-generated TV show called The Worst That Could Happen. And you hear an upbeat self-help guru sermonize about how figuring out who's been "crapping in your oatmeal" will help raise your self-esteem. With an uncanny sense of how our culture reflects our character, Saunders mixes a deadpan naturalism with a wicked sense of humor to reveal a picture of contemporary America that's both feverishly strange and, through his characters' perseverance, oddly hopeful."--BOOK JACKET.
- ISBN:
- 9781573228725
- Length:
- 198 pages
Lists: …
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The very persistent gappers of Frip
George Saunders
2000 · 84 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeGappers will get your goat. Literally. If You don't brush them off and return them to the ocean, whence they arrive every day, these bright orange, many eyead creatutes will cover your goats, and the goats will stop giving milk. In a village called Frip, goat's milk was the entire economy. Three families lived there — the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl named Capable and her widowed father, who wanted everything to remain the same. It didn't. One day, the gappers, despite an average IQ of 3.7 (±0.2), decided for a good reason to concentrate on Capable's goats. Oh, how the Romos and Ronsens turned their backs on the gapper ridden Capable! Oh, how they indeed lorded it over her! What kinds of creatures are we, one wonders, when such selfishness so often springs up so spontaneously among us? And, given the coldness of her neighbors' shoulders, what will Capable do about her gapper plague, as her share of the economy dries up? Literally, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, with a brilliant story by awar-ridden short-story master George Saunders and fifty-tw ohaunting and hilarious illustrations by bestseller-plagued artist author Lane Smith, answers that question, by telling a tale as ancient as the Bible and as modern, as a memo from the Federal Reserve Board. And funnier than both — which isn't saying all that much, admittedly. You don't get to laugh and gaze in visual awe and pleasure all that often when the Golden Rule comes under such sertous attack and such staunch defense as it did in Frip. An adult story for children, a children's story for adults, an earhlings' story for aliens, an oceanside fable for irremediably landlocked, a capitalist tool for anarchists, a fish story for loaves, The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip represents the classic instant of two young geniuses colliding and colluding. The result is — what else? — an instant classic!
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
A creator reacted alike67%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations33%Catch-22
Joseph Heller
1904 · 463 pages · 1 review
Others: MixedCatch-22 is like no other novel. It has its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality -- a masterpiece of our time. - Back cover.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
A creator reacted alike68%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations32%The Magicians
Lev Grossman
2009 · 496 pages · 10 reviews
Others: Leaning negativeA thrilling and original coming-of- age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real worldQuentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
A creator reacted alike70%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations30%I am Legend
Richard Matheson
1954 · 162 pages · 10 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveSee work: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL64225W
March
John Lewis
2016 · 560 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveSee work: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20115508W
NOS4A2
Joe Hill
2013 · 706 pages · 2 reviews
Others: PositiveSee work: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16802476W
Mixed