A Swim in a Pond in the Rain A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

    • 4.5 • 79 Ratings
    • $12.99
    • $12.99

Publisher Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Town & Country, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, Thrillist, BookPage • “[A] worship song to writers and readers.”—Oprah Daily

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2021
January 12
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
432
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
19.2
MB

Customer Reviews

Scott's take on things ,

Stories and Comments

In the past I might have read these Russian short stories and been underwhelmed. In his characteristic style, Saunders’ provides a funny, beautiful, and comprehensive analysis of why he loves these stories and how they work as exceptional examples of short story writing. It will change how I read short stories in the future.

More Books by George Saunders

Tenth of December Tenth of December
2013
Lincoln in the Bardo Lincoln in the Bardo
2017
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
1996
Pastoralia Pastoralia
2000
Fox 8 Fox 8
2013
Liberation Day Liberation Day
2022

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