Lincoln in the Bardo

Finished it a few days ago. I've read everything by him but "Phil," and was hyped as fuck for this one.

I thought it was really creative, like you said, but I kind of wanted more. It felt a bit imcomplete. That said, I still think he's a great writer. Tenth of December and Pastoralia (the collections) did more for me, I'd say.

I loved him riffing on the afterlife in those stories/collections when he had to (somebody dying), but I almost think I've seen too much of that from him after reading Bardo. Does that make sense at all?

>>9374190
Incomplete* on my phone, my b.

>>9373819
>really great read. Very creative in its form, and beautifully sentimental.
I would say it is none of these, I hated it. Especially about being "beautifully sentimental". He fails here the hardest. It was an extremely interesting idea that he didn't even flub spectacularly. It's tepid and unimaginative, and I haven't been so disappointed in so long.
He really should have spent more on this.
Saunders aims far above his ability. What we receive isn't a failure of ambition (because Saunders doesn't even seem to have any, this work seems as perfunctorily written as anything I've ever read) but a failure of effort or even a failure to care.
It's dead, it's boring, it's soulless. Maybe next time, George.

Anything about Lincoln or Civil War era stuff, I find incredibly hard to get interested in.

>>9373819
I enjoyed a lot of it and am glad I read it, but was disappointed by some things near the end. Overall I'd say it's a good book, and I did really like a lot of the characters and the interactions.
The very last chapter was strange to me, why focus on the slave riding with Lincoln? I understand the meaning of Lincoln riding off in the end with a dead person, but that message might get kinda muddied by the obvious focus on Slavery, which was not a large issue in the novel, really it's a pretty small issue in the novel. That isn't that bad though.
My biggest problem is with the chapter after Willie moves on, where he is flying and shit. Why the fuck is that in there? That doesn't happen for anyone else, so why give us that scene for Willie? It undercuts the fear and uncertainty of the whole thing, and lessens the impact of Lincoln's sadness to know for sure that Willie is happy, doesn't it? I really wish he had left that ambiguous.
Overall, still really enjoyed it.

>>9374341
OP here. I'll concur with you that the third act is the weakest for essentially the same reasons you listed; the addressing of slavery feels like the culmination of a subplot that hasn't actually existed in the novel and the last few pages feel oddly placed. But as you said, I still overall enjoyed it a great deal.

Some production company has already bought the rights to a movie for it

and the author is going on a worldwide book-tour

sorry but its genrefiction posing as literary