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Civilwarland in Bad Decline
 
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Civilwarland in Bad Decline (Paperback)

by George Saunders (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Civilwarland in Bad Decline + Pastoralia + The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil: (Includes the 'In Persuasion Nation' Collection)
Price For All Three: £18.97

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Product details

  • Paperback: 244 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (6 Feb 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099595818
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099595816
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 1.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 190,596 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
Six short stories and a novella. Set in a dystopian near-future in which America has become little more than a theme park in terminal disrepair, they constitute a searching and bitterly humorous commentary on the current state of the American Dream.

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Civilwarland in Bad Decline
51% buy the item featured on this page:
Civilwarland in Bad Decline 4.3 out of 5 stars (3)
£6.99
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil: (Includes the 'In Persuasion Nation' Collection)
16% buy
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil: (Includes the 'In Persuasion Nation' Collection) 4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
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Pastoralia
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9% buy
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars sublime short story writing, 15 Mar 2004
By A Customer
George Saunders is that rarest of things -- a writer of fractured, strange, speculative fiction, driven almost entirely by heart and compassion, with an exquisite prose style that leaves most 'literary' writers in the shade. A synopsis of any one of the stories in this volume would make them sound 'wacky' or self-consciously weird, but this is not at all the experience of reading them. they are heart-breaking stories of down-trodden lives, minimum wage drones in marginalised jobs (the guy who operates the wave-maker machine at a simulated indoors nature park for example), of the new and unusual cruelties that modern life uses to mash up your soul. They are also very, very funny.

For my money, Saunders is one of the current masters of the short story. His prose is flawlessly paced and beautifully wrought. File next to Kurt Vonnegut, if you're in need of some kind of comparison. Or Kafka. Or Chekhov. Or Alice Munro or Grace Paley or Maupassant or or or....

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars terrific but unsettling, 9 Jun 2008
By Sparky (Kent) - See all my reviews
Every bit as good as Saunders' other collections. The recurrent themes and style of his writing sometimes make his stories feel as if they are all part of one gigantic novel about the American Dream gone sour. There's a real sense of humanity here, too -- like the best satirists, Saunders is angry beause he cares.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Well written short stories, 9 Mar 2004
By D. Bowtell (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I didn't know when I bought this book that it was a collection of short stories, in fact I was under the impression that it was supposed to be funny. All the stories are all well written, but written with a dry quirky wit which doesn't generate many smiles or laughs. I did find myself taken along with the stories, they are engrossing, largely because Saunders creates worlds and characters of such a strange genus riding between real and unreal that you wonder where it's all going (like an amusement park that uses it's employees to shot unwanted gangs of youths). The versimilitude of his writing rides a fine line and I think I found the chopping between the reality of each story irritating and not to my taste. I was also disappointed that there wasn't more to the book, which I finished easily without any effort made on my part. If I had a teenage son, or a bright kid I might recommend this to him.

Harsh, but I'm disappointed.

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