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Interview
with
George Saunders
 
It
was with his 1996 debut collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,
that George Saunders arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, to begin an
utterance that has become one of the most invigorating and original in
modern American fiction. His second collection, Pastoralia,
continued in the spirit of his debut, giving us characters that are both
truly unique and far too close to home. For the world that Saunders knows
is both familiar and strange, funny and haunting, orbiting somewhere
between those of Barry Hannah and Diane Arbus. He is a frequent
contributor to The New Yorker, and among other honors, has received
three National Magazine Awards. His work is important to, and reflective
upon, this world he did not create. Recently, Mr. Saunders gave failbetter
a bit of his time and mind which we pass along to you now....
failbetter: Much has been made of
the "theme park" settings in your stories. Perhaps, even more
universal to your work is the fact that the majority of your characters
are stuck in some sort of insufferable job—the narrator in "Sea
Oak" or Jeffrey in "The 400-Pound CEO" are prime examples
of this. We know you were a geophysical engineer by trade, but what kind
of odd jobs have you had in your lifetime? Have any of these experiences
provided you with fodder for your stories?
Saunders: In my twenties I did a bunch of
non-glamorous jobs, mainly because I couldn't do any better—worked
in a slaughterhouse, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, writing up animal
tests for a pharmaceutical company, as a roofer, a convenience store clerk
etc., etc. The main thing these jobs taught me was 1) what it feels like
to be a bottom-feeder in a capitalist society and 2) we are only not
bottom-feeders by the grace of God and the good luck of a fortunate birth,
decent education, etc. In other words, capitalism works in such a way that
the people at the bottom pay with their grace and their bodies and their
self-image, while those at the top chortle about how their virtue put them
where they are.
But having said all that, I'll also say that I write about the things I
write about, in the way I write about them, because those subjects and
approaches seem intense and interesting at the time. The rest of
this stuff is mostly made up after the fact. Theme parks are fun because
they produce odd language and (for some reason) a more honest moral
reckoning of the world. I would write about fish tanks if writing about
fish tanks made me feel I was simultaneously out-of-control and honest,
which is the feeling I am always looking for.
failbetter: I believe all of the stories that
appear in Pastoralia were previously published in The New Yorker,
as well as a story from your first collection, CivilWarLand in Bad
Decline. How did this productive relationship come about? And how has
it continued to work during the changing of editors?
Saunders: I started sending stories to The New
Yorker in 1986 and on my first try got one of those coveted Actual
Letters of Rejection. There followed a period of six years, during which
the rejections got progressively shorter, until they were just postcards
with an editor's initials, after which they became postcards without an
editor's initials, and I was well on my way to getting a postcard without
any writing on them at all when, in 1992, the magazine accepted a story of
mine called "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz.." For all of my New
Yorker stories but that first one, my editor has been Bill Buford, who
is a genius. He always helps me find the story-inside-the-story, via
cutting and compression. The magazine has been a great friend to me, as
has Bill, and has Meghan O'Rourke, an Assistant Editor there.
failbetter: The short story has made quite a
comeback in recent years, not only in terms of critical notice, but in
sales as well. With the exception of your children’s book, The Very
Persistent Gappers of Frip, much if not all of your skill and
attention as a writer has been devoted to the short story… Thus, the
obvious question: Does a novel lay in your not-so-distant future? What
challenges to your skills as a writer (or perhaps self identifiable
weaknesses) would a novel provide? Or, is there a part of you that tells
yourself, "I’m am a successful short story writer – be happy with
that!"???
Saunders: I guess my feeling is this: Every story
has a preferred length programmed into it, like DNA. If you honor that,
then you have a chance of getting an intense product, and that is the most
important thing. I am afraid of bloat, boredom, conventionality, and am
more than happy to forgo ever writing a novel in order to avoid these. Or
to put it another way, I think novel writing is about having a Worldview
and Expounding upon it. My worldview changes every ten seconds and even
then I don't have much confidence in it. Seems to me the world is a
billion instantaneously changing, fluid minds or perceptions all acting at
once, and somehow stories seem more in line with that view of things.
But, as above, the real truth is simply that I understand stories better
and enjoy writing them more, and whenever I decide I'm writing a novel it
always shrinks down.
failbetter: What was the impetus for writing a
children's book? Do you feel that The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip is
Seussian in its approach (ala The Lorax and The Butter Battle
Book) in that the story within the story confronts concerns of the
so-called "real" world ? And do you plan on writing more
children's books in the future?
Saunders: I have kids and so the main reason for
writing that one was to impress them. But it took too long, so by the time
it was done, they were too old for it. Given the rate at which I work, my
best bet is to write a book geared to octogenarians, in the hopes it will
be done when they get there.
failbetter: You’re on record with your
appreciation of such contemporary young writers as Ben Marcus, David
Foster Wallace, Mark Layner and others, but in your capacity as a
professor at Syracuse, you teach more modern classical works like Michael
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita? Are you a fan of Bulgakov’s?
Have you read his smaller works like The Fatal Eggs or Heart of
a Dog? What other writers do you admire who may only been widely known
in academic circles?
Saunders: I haven't read that much Bulgakov, really.
I like the Russians Daniel
Kharms and Isaac Babel. I've also been reading a lot of Orwell
("Homage to Catalonia" and the essays). I re-read Gogol and
Beckett fairly often. I think Henry Green is a great prose stylist. I'm
also a big Michael Herr fan, for his intelligence and intensity.
Whenever I want to remember why I write, I read him. I'm not one of these
people who reads everything ever written. Mostly I read to fire myself up.
failbetter: Do you see teaching as being helpful
to, or as a
hindrance to the writing process? Or do you completely separate the two?
Saunders: I think it's helpful. Our students at
Syracuse are an amazingly talented and energetic bunch and being around
them makes me excited about literature. I've found that the only way I can
teach is to be as open as possible about the doubts, insecurities,
mysteries, and failures involved in the writing process, and so teaching
is a way of avoiding, or at least deferring, becoming a dogmatic old fart.
failbetter: You once said, "When I write I
know that I’m going to produce 40 percent more than I need." How
does the revision process work for you? Do you work from a completed
draft, or revise along the way?
Saunders: I don't think it has ever worked the same
way twice, which is probably why I'm so slow. It feels like every story
has its own everything—its own necessary revision
process, its own annoying sticking places, its own breakthrough moments—with
none of this being directly translatable to the next story. So in a way
that stinks, but in another way it's a constant practice in openness.
One fairly constant element is this thing you alluded to, wherein I have
to write a bunch of so-so stuff to get something maybe a little good, then
cut away the chaff and start over. For me it's a process of letting go of
the stuff that seems obvious or conventional, in the faith that insisting
on something better, over and over, will lead to originality. Which also
means trying to keep myself from being too analytical in advance, trying
to avoid knowing what the story is "about," etc. I don't think
you can really do these things, but delaying the entrance of the conscious
mind seems to be a worthwhile goal.
failbetter: What is the most crucial bit of advice
you give to your students in regards to approaching and following through
with their own works of fiction?
Saunders: Well, I don't know that I would give this
advice directly, but I would
like to somehow communicate art as an essential moral function. It should,
as Chekhov said, prepare us for tenderness. And in this regard it starts,
I think, with intention. If our intention is to be clever, or have a
career, or imitate so- and-so, then, even if you succeed, it's not such a
big deal. But if our intention is to crack life open for just a second,
expose the inherent laziness and habitual energy in our normal thought,
then we almost can't go wrong...even our failures are successes
of a sort. So I try to convey that, by trying to remind myself of that, in
my teaching and my writing. We really don't know anything, and writing and
reading seem to be terrific ways to remind ourselves that nothing—no
worldview, no idea, no thing, no person, no thought—is
permanent. And paradoxically, this belief in impermanence helps us see
life more truly and live more fully and behave better.
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Volume
III Special Issue I
