9/2/15
What I got out of Saunders' sparse, somewhat easy little vignette of a narrative was an animalistic/evolutionary portrayal of human beings, plus a distinct style reminiscent of Holden Caulfield. To the latter point, have I just not read enough contemporary fiction? I saw quite an obvious relationship between the blunt language and small, left-field vocabulary of Caulfield and Saunders' similar S-O-C writing of his narrator; perhaps this is a style widely-used. One thing I appreciated was the suppression of horror through simple language. Back to the first point, I think that human beings in this short portrait are closely-tied to their animal nature and ancestry. It is animal instinct that drives the narrator to commit most of his actions, including the decisive final one. His primary motive is the protection of self, and looser versions of self, namely families. This is a distinctly evolutionary drive, and beyond this, Saunders writes these situations as if he is a nature-documentary narrator, describing the interactions of two rival groups of orangutans. Violence is inflicted quickly and machine-like. "I am what I am" and "Because that's the kind of guy he is" imply genetic dominance over the self.
I really enjoyed the writing, which was blunt and sometimes comically over-the-top. I had to stretch a bit for themes, but it was a great exercise. I could read another.
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