Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel

This award-winning, New York Times bestseller is NOT for everyone. It was George Saunders' first full-length novel, published in 2017 and its style is definitely experimental. LINCOLN IN THE BARDO takes place in 1862, the middle of the American Civil War, around the death of 11-year-old William "Willie" Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son. And, for me, the beautifully written passages featuring these two characters were my favorites--Willie trying to understand the very adult concept that he has lost his life and our former President weighed down by incomprehensible grief in the middle of a national crisis. But as the title implies, most of the "action" takes place in the bardo, with many other characters. The bardo -- a Buddhist term referring to the transitional space between death and rebirth -- is populated by many deceased people from different time periods, all having conversations, arguing, and exchanging anecdotes about their lives. These sections of the book read much like a play -- where one character in the Bardo says one thing (followed by the name of who is speaking) and then a second adds detail or opinion and so on. Together, their dialog often tells one story. Juxtaposed to these "Bardo" pieced-together stories, are quotes lifted from actual historic documents, describing events from writers of this era. What's interesting is how much the actual quotes mirror those from the Bardo, in that historical record-keepers are seldom in agreement about what happened, just as people seldom agree on what actually happened during an event they all witnessed. This is one of those books that you will either love or dislike ("hate" seems too strong). I am mostly in the latter category. I appreciated the book's novelty. I found a compelling portrait of parental grief. And it was interesting to contemplate what might exist immediately after death. But I found the style kept me at a distance and the conversations among those in the bardo were much less interesting than the story of Willie and his father. And YES, I do recommend everyone give this one a try.

It is a rare book which is impossible to retell, you need to read it, word by word. The plot is simple but the style...if you found yourself on the cemetery with 200 ghosts standing around of you, speaking the same story all in the same time, that's what it would look like. Reading this book you feel surrounded by the shadows of the past and in your head, it creates both chaos and a very full picture of what was happening. Small details overlap with large events. Breathtaking.

This book is really hard to read because of the way it's written: as a narrative of talking ghosts and quotations from historical sources. If I had wanted to read about historical facts, I wouldn't have chosen a fiction book. There are a couple of things that I like about this book: the ideas about how ghost feel themselves in the Bardo, and the way their lives are judged by God.