“Is human nature such that, under certain conditions, stupidity can come to dominate, infecting the brighter quadrants, dragging everybody down with it?”(Saunders 7)
If you are interested in reading a good collection of essays, I have just the selection for you.
For my blog this week, I decided to do somewhat of an excerpt from a larger work. I’ve selected to review the first “chapter” of essays within the book written by George Saunders, which is a collection of essays. The book is entitled, The Braindead Megaphone and the layout of it itself is quite interesting. The essay themselves are separated as somewhat chapters; however, some of the essays have subtopics. The chapter my blog focuses mainly on is the first one, “The Braindead Megaphone”. The chapter is broken into individual subtext that are divided in numeric order from one to nine. The subtext itself is somewhat confusing when you first begin because at first glance, it doesn’t seem as though they correlate to each other than the fact that they are works based on hypotheticals and internal thoughts.
My two favorites would have to be number two and number six. They both link to each other, and the philosophy of the “Megaphone Man” is truly something brilliant. It is very difficult to explain the clever analysis of the situation within the writing without going in-depth and explaining the entire essay.
This first collection, in particular, does not necessarily lay out a full start to finish storyline; however, each does deliver a message that may or may not tie into another subtext within the essays. The works are written in what I can only explain as a thought process form. To elaborate on that, a few of them drift between thoughts, some follow a distinct line of ideas that drive the work to a specific conclusion, and in others, Saunders lays out information and plainly talks to the readers about a topic that interests him.
The positives I received reading these works are that the works each have some very interesting logic to them. After each of them, they left me with something to think about as I went into the next piece, and a thought-provoking essay is always a good thing. The only negatives I can give are that this book judging from the first chapter that it is not a collection of essays for the feeble-minded and that the layout of the book, taking the numbering and divided sections into consideration, can be somewhat confusing for the reader. However, I do not believe that a book being for an intellectual audience is negative. I am simply stating that the book follows a very complex and creative mind that dissects the boundaries of social living and an individuals purpose in life.
Although this review is only for the first “chapter” of essays, I do not doubt that the writing will be phenomenal. George Saunders has a very distinct voice within his writing that pulls you into a view of the world from an overview. In conclusion, the writing is most definitely worth a read.
