This book may contain language, sexual content, and themes of grief and loss, which may be challenging for some readers. Reader caution advised.
Not a Book for Me
by Shane Timson
For High Plains Public Radio’s Readers Club, I’m Shane Timson in Colby, Kansas.
Today we’re talking about the book Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. This book was Saunders’ first book, and it was a New York Times bestseller. This book is a novel that he wrote. Now this is not a true story. This was after he did a lot of research, he created this novel.
This takes place before and after Willie Lincoln’s death. The plot says it takes place one night, so we start out at a dinner at the White House with the Lincolns. They keep checking on the boy during dinner because he’s very sick and then eventually the boy dies. This is where it gets really weird.
So, Willie Lincoln dies, and Abraham Lincoln would often visit the boy’s crypt to hold the boy. That part of the book is true according to George Saunders. It had been reported on several occasions that Mr. Lincoln would, in fact, go to the boy’s crypt and hold the boy’s body.
In the novel, when he picks up the boy’s body, three spirits enter into his body and this is where it gets weird. It’s hard to follow. It’s hard to tell which spirit is speaking. But where I really get put-off is the amount of pornography. Yes, there are several sexual scenes in play and it’s done by the spirits, but it makes no sense. It’s a book supposed to be about dealing with grief, yet there is pornography in here. There is also a lot of swearing and when I say swearing, I don’t mean just a few words sprinkled here and there. I mean these spirits will just go on and it is just a constant stream of swear words.
I just could not get into that. In fact, full disclosure, I didn’t finish the book. I got two and a half hours into reading it and it just got too weird, too much sexual stuff and too much profanity and it didn’t make sense why it had to go down this way, so I didn’t finish the book. If there’s one thing I have to be, it is honest and I could not finish this book.
If this discredits me as a book reviewer, I’m not sorry. It was just too much. Maybe there is some good. I don’t want to have to clamor through all the dark, weird bad stuff to get to the end of the tunnel.
If I were going through grief and I read this book, it would probably make me more depressed than I already was. So, I wouldn’t recommend this book for somebody that is grieving.
Again, I’ll be curious to see what other people think about this book because maybe I missed something. Maybe I should have been brave and read the whole book, but I’m sorry, for two and a half hours. That’s a lot of time. If I can’t get into a book after two and a half hours, I’m probably not going to get into it at all.
So, Mr. Lincoln stays in the “bardo.” This reviewer is not going to free him from the bardo. Hopefully, somebody else will be able to free him.
For High Plains Public Radio Readers Club, this is Shane Timson from Colby, Kansas.
