A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

George Saunders is a writer of surreal, often dystopian fiction. His stories frequently explore the effects of capitalism on contemporary American life, and are set in worlds that are only slightly exaggerated versions of reality. His story “Pastoralia,” for example (the title story from his 2000 collection) is set in a prehistoric-themed park, with one of the cavemen actors in the park doing the narrating. Another story that was made into a 2022 film, “Escape from Spiderhead” (from his 2010 Tenth of December collection) is about prisoners serving as guinea pigs in an experimental science program.

Although the plots and settings of his stories are often bleak, Saunders is both parodic and funny and also, at the same time, earnestly interested in themes of faith and redemption in his work. At the end of “Escape from Spiderhead,” the teenaged narrator manages to escape his prison by deliberately overdosing a drug that he has been given, one intended to produce psychotic, violent feelings. Yet in dying, the narrator is flooded with sensations of love and tenderness for the world. The scene has an almost religious aura, as an omniscient benevolent force seems to be speaking through the narrator.