In Persuasion Nation

A fun read, though I can’t say I “got all of the funny things” associated in the short stories of George Saunders in his book In Persuasion Nation.  This reminded me of my old directing days when I was enamored with the absurdist playwright, Eugene Ionesco.  Maybe I liked his work so much because he is a writer/faculty member at Syracuse University… my old stomping ground!  Or maybe his outlandish use of today’s big companies in such a demeaning way hit a chord with me.  Or maybe mixing things that just don’t seem to mix create a visualization that is uncomfortable and at the same time funny.  Whatever the reason, it hit a bone that made me laugh and at times say, wow this is weird, but God this guy can really make me “get it.”  The book is a collection of twelve stories which are kicked off with the letter written by a sales person attempting to respond to the buyer of a machine that would allow her son to speak and respond at age six months.  Reminded me of the RONCO products, like the egg shell cutter, or the lint remover vacuum (you get the idea).  Are we as a society completely consumed with materialism and consumerism? You bet we are! And Saunders doesn’t let us forget it!  While almost all of the stories were witty and left you with an “ahhhh” moment, I did find one or two not “up to par” with the other stories, especially the story titled "93990." This story captures a lab experiment on monkeys describing the death of the monkeys for the sake of science, where one chimp seems to evade all of the medicinal trials yet in the end, after his successful adaptation, is randomly killed and incinerated.  Maybe I lost myself in the other stories too much.  This is a relatively quick read and will give you more laughs than dead blank moments as the story I just referred did for me.  For those who like conventional humor, I’d take a serious pass on this one, otherwise, worth the time.