What might the chief architect of the oil and gas industry think about on his deathbed, as the effects of climate change only worsen and his lobbying prove even more effective?
That’s the setup of Vigil, the new satirical novel by George Saunders, the celebrated American writer. It’s a magical device to explore regret, comfort and legacy.
A few friends and I have admired and followed George for close to 20 years. We’ve discussed his short stories, attended his talks bought his collections and more recently his longer works. He helped me understand what writing can be.
Those friends and I were divided on Vigil. Two friends feel he’s narrowed too much into one voice that came from his short stories, into Lincoln in the Bardo and returned for this one. In contrast, I view this as a defining style — the incomplete sentences, particular pacing and sparing coarse language and themes — and I love it. I found it comforting, and thought-provoking, visual and world-making.
I always remember George talking about how every writer “climbs the mountain” of another writer’s voice, before finding their own. He’s done it, and I’m on a lifelong journey to do the same.
Below, I have a few notes I wrote down memorably from the book for my future reference.
- One of the dying man’s old business associates named Mel R, who one half of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-like pairing. advises him to not regret his supposed sins on his deathbed, advising: “Leave with thy victory intact”
- “Who brought harm to birds” the narrator asks herself while reflecting on the manners of her “charge”
- The twinkling stars over a wealthy neighborhood “seemed to shine upon the neighborhood by compunction, as if hired for the evening yesterday do so”
- “Greed, greed, one could taste it in the air”
- “And yet here I was again, as in life: held in place by politeness”
- “Who else could you have been but exactly who you are?”asks the narrator while embodying the one who killed her… “if your worth depends on your glories, it must also depend on your sins”
- Of KJ Boone who keeps explaining himself away on his deathbed: “ he was like a deflated balloon in which, despite all external appearances, they remained one last bit of air”
- “Inevitable occurrence” we all