Sunday, October 2

dispatch from Saundersland

I just finished George Saunders' new novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. Here's my mini-review:
A fable about the dangers of power in the hands of the brainless, Reign of Phil at first seems at first like a thinly-veiled critique of the Bush administration. But actually it goes deeper than that, and deals with people's fears in the face of oppression, and how they seek happiness. I like some of Saunder's other stuff better (see my earlier post on some of his New Yorker stories), but Reign of Phil is still worth a read.

Read excerpts from the book, from the publisher's website on the book.

In other news on the Saunders front, the main story from his collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is in the process of being adapted to film by none other than Ben Stiller, and is due out in 2007. (I found this out on the obsessive fansite, George Saunders Land.)

And from the latest New Yorker's Goings On About Town: The Theatre:
PASTORALIA
George Saunders’s story about a man and a woman whose day job is playing Neanderthals in a theme park has been adapted for the stage by Yehuda Duenyas. (P.S. 122, 150 First Ave., at 9th St. 212-352-3101. Through Oct. 9.)

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