Plus, the wonderful thing about Saunders’ approach is that he’s utterly nonjudgmental. His prodding and jabbing after every page or two in the first story blew some dust from some unused connectors in my brain. In hindsight, though, I believe it was a great choice for a reader like me someone unaccustomed to stopping so often to think about a story while still in the middle of reading it. But I admit that, at that moment, I flipped ahead to the other stories to see if Saunders interjected like that every time. His insight was fascinating and helped me prepare for the discussions after later stories. Right away, we are launched into Chekhov’s 'In the Cart.' And then, a page later, Saunders interjects with his thoughts about our expectations as readers and what Chekhov as writer could do with those expectations. And with its warm and inviting tone, I was the lucky recipient who finally got to attend a class with one of my favorite writers. He intended A Swim in a Pond in the Rain to serve as, above all, a sort of record of what he and his students had discovered over the years. In the wonderfully conversational opening to the book, he describes his realization that 'some of the best moments of my life, the moments during which I've really felt myself offering something of value to the world, have been spent teaching that Russian class.' Saunders has taught a class on the 19th-century Russian short story for the last 20 years. And since I was going into this endeavor feeling woefully deficient in my reading choices over the years, this seemed like a great opportunity to catch up. He also includes seven complete stories for us to judge for ourselves. Sanders doesn't only discuss these four writers and what made them great. Not only have I never read a single thing by the Russian greats spotlighted - Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, and Nikolai Gogol - I don't really gravitate toward craft books in general.īut this is not a normal craft book it's structured as a conversation. I am also perhaps the most imperfect audience for this book. Not only am I a huge fan of Saunders’ fiction, but I’ve applied to - and been rejected multiple times from - the Syracuse University MFA program where he teaches in hopes of working with him. I am perhaps the perfect audience for George Saunders' new book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.

Book a swim in the pond in the rain