Pastoralia_(story)

<i>Pastoralia</i>

Pastoralia

Collection by George Saunders published in 2000

Pastoralia is short story writer George Saunders’s second full-length short story collection, published in 2000. The collection received highly positive reviews from book critics and was ranked the fifth-greatest book of the 2000s by literary magazine The Millions.[1] The book consists of stories that appeared (sometimes in different forms) in The New Yorker; most of the stories were O. Henry Prize Stories. The collection was a New York Times Notable Book for 2001.

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Reception

Pastoralia received general acclaim from book critics. Chris Lehmann of Salon praised its relevance, calling Saunders a "master of distilling the disorders of our time into fiction."[2] Lynne Tillman of The New York Times argued the stories "cover larger, more exciting territory" than Saunders' previous works, "with an abundance of ideas, meanings and psychological nuance."[3] Pastoralia is also well-known for its writing style, which has been described as deadpan, realist, and/or postmodern.[4][5] Iranian-American novelist and essayist Porochista Khakpour cited the "seamless coexistence of high and low" in the book's prose.[6] A writer for Nylon argued the book's deadpan delivery and "satiric vision of contemporary America [secures Saunders'] place" as a successor to 20th century literary realists such as Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut.[7]

In 2007, Entertainment Weekly ranked the book #63 on its list of the top 100 works of literature since 1983.[8] The following year, Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club ranked it one of the ten best short story collections of the 2000s.[9]

Contents

More information Story, Originally published in ...

Awards, honors and other appearances

Influence

References

  1. [1]
    Best of the Millennium, Pros vs. Readers
  2. [2]
    "It's a theme-park life". Salon. 2000-04-26. Retrieved 2019-09-11.
  3. [3]
    Tillman, Lynne. "Future Shock: a story collection discovers the future in the present". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  4. [4]
    Rando, David P. (2012). "George Saunders and the Postmodern Working Class". Contemporary Literature. 53 (3): 437–460. doi:10.1353/cli.2012.0024. S2CID 163027910.
  5. [5]
    "Pastoralia — George Saunders". 22 November 2011.
  6. [6]
    Khakpour, Porochista (24 September 2009). "Best of the Millennium #5: Pastoralia by George Saunders". The Millions. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  7. [7]
    "THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL by GEORGE SAUNDERS". www.reignofphil.com. Archived from the original on 2007-03-14.
  8. [8]
    "The New Classics: Books". Entertainment Weekly. 18 June 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  9. [9]
    VanDerWerff, Emily (25 November 2009). "The 10 best short-story collections of the '00s". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  10. [10]
    What gave you that idea


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