I’ve been on a George Saunders jag. I’ve now read almost everything he’s written, and will go on to read the things he’s read, too.

In his essay “Mr. Vonnegut in Sumatra,” he comes to a new definition of art after reading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five:

“I’d understood the function of art to be primarily descriptive: a book was a kind of scale model of life, intended to make the reader feel and hear and taste and think just what the reader had. Now I begand to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind and exits in another. The writer gets no points just because what’s inside the box bears some linear resemblance to ‘real life’ — he can put whatever he wants in there. What’s important is that something undeniable and nontrivial happens to the reader between entry and exit.”

The essay is in a collection called The Braindead Megaphone. If you’re interested in him, I would NOT start there. I’d start with In Persuasion Nation, but hell, this isn’t a book club.

Still, I recommend him, no matter what art you are pursuing.

George Saunders site: http://www.saunderssaunderssaunders.com/

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