Daily: Read fiction to save democracy, with writer George Saunders

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics, Government

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The American writer George Saunders won the 2017 Booker Prize with Lincoln In The Bardo and is an award-winning author of short stories. His new book A Swim In A Pond In The Rain explains how short stories work with the aid of Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dorian Lynskey is a fan. George Saunders talks to Dorian about his “shovel in the fictive graveyard”, being a working class writer in a middle class world, the value of “looming catastrophe” in life and art… and why reading fiction is the best training for spotting lies in loved ones, colleagues and politicians. “I had the idea that literature was a beautiful gilded mansion and I had to leave all my real shit at the door. And it’s not true.” “Our basic storytelling gland has to do with curiosity” “My job as a writer is to get to a place where the world doesn’t surprise me.” “A story isn’t a monolithic whole that comes from the writer’s moral qualities. It’s a magic trick made out of fragments of language.” “When you’ve got an administration that rejects enlightenment values they’re not susceptible to satire. And I found that with Trump.” Presented by Dorian Lynskey. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
0:14.0	It's good you can retrain and do something.
0:16.0	Yeah, yeah.
0:17.0	Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.
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0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker daily I'm Dorian Linsky. My guest today is one of the great
1:12.1	living American writers.
1:13.4	25 years ago he published his first collection of short stories, Civil Warland in bad decline.
1:18.0	He has since won the folio prize for 10th of December, the book a prize for his debut novel,
1:21.3	Lincoln in the Bardo, and a MacArthur Fellowship. His latest book, A Book of Prize for his debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, and a MacArthur Fellowship.
1:24.1	His latest book, A Swimming in the Rain, stems from his creative writing class at Syracuse University.
1:28.7	It takes seven short stories by Chekhov, Tolstoy, Google and Turgenov, and Turgenev, and uses them to examine the art of storytelling.
1:34.3	George Saunders, thanks for joining me.
1:36.3	Thank you for having me.
1:37.3	Pleasure to be here.
	...

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