Furthermore, there is both the persistent inclination in the reader to distance him or herself from the pitiful nature of these characters and the cold ache of recognition that these characters represent elements of the reader’s own life: debt, boredom, envy and a long slide of mediocrity, vanity and unattainable wishes. Accompanying these characters, there is a persistent yearning on the part of the reader that the characters in these stories cease being so pitiful.
There is a poor, ghastly overweight mother who chains her young son to a tree. There is a cross-country nerd whose heroic actions are almost precluded by the fear of overbearing parents. There is a prisoner manipulated by experimental pharmaceuticals and ground down to choosing his own death over the injury of others. There is a cancer patient who seeks to commit suicide so as to preempt “all future debasement.” (Saunders, 231) There is a recent war-vet who returns home to violence, exacerbated mental illness and dread in his own family. There is a middle-aged, debt-ridden father who pleads with God to give him what others have. There is no way out for many of these characters. They are pitiful because they are poor, sick, self-absorbed and mired in hopelessness.
Even the manner in they write and speak and punctuate (!) is pitiful. In his collection of short stories, Tenth of December, George Saunders’s characters would all be worthy of Jake’s deadpan irony. Jake answers: Robert Cohn-the name of another character who is pitiful in his self-absorption, self-delusion and failure. Finally, toward the end of the exchange, Bill Gorton asks Jake to say something pitiful.
Jake Barnes has been trying to write fiction, and Bill Gorton is razzing him: “Give me irony and pity, irony and pity.” If you want to be a writer, you must be able to generate irony and pity abundantly and with alacrity. In the midst of Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, a successful novelist, Bill Gorton, demands that his friend, Jake Barnes-the novel’s narrator-give him “irony and pity” one morning in a friendly repartee. Here, again, are some reflections and questions to guide our discussion: Thanks, too, to George Saunders, who graciously answered our questions about his book and about the art of fiction. Thanks to those who have already posted questions on the Catholic Book Club page. Today the Catholic Book Club begins its discussion of Tenth of December by George Saunders.
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