A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders Review

Old man Saunders likes soaking in gross ponds during inclement weather - and wrote a book about his demented hobby?! Or, y’know, it’s about literary criticism on some Ruskie short story writers or summat.

George, himself an award-winning short story writer, teaches a class on the 19th century Russian short story masters in translation at Syracuse University and this book is a truncated version of that class, focusing on four writers and seven stories: Anton Chekhov’s In the Cart, The Darling, and Gooseberries; Leo Tolstoy’s Master and Man and Alyosha the Pot; Ivan Turgenev’s The Singers; and Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose. All stories are reprinted in full with an accompanying commentary from Saunders as he breaks down each story, highlighting what he liked about them and why they’re worth studying.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain was pretty good. Whether you’re a writer or a reader, there’s something to be learned in here on how to be better at both, though I do think that it’s only going to be of interest if you enjoy literary criticism. Nor is it something you can approach as a relaxing read - to get the most out of this one, you have to be alert and paying attention, as you would in any class.

With Chekhov’s In the Cart, he shows how Chekhov executes rising action well. The Darling shows how a pattern story is written. Master and Man is an example of how a character changes convincingly. The Singers shows how a great writer can write a bad story but that there can still be something worthwhile about failures. Alyosha the Pot highlights the art of omission.

Saunders argues his points convincingly and the stories back these up as fine examples of what he’s trying to put across. Regardless: I still don’t like Chekhov! It’s a core belief of mine: it doesn’t matter how technically proficient or artistic a story is - if it’s boring, it’s a bad story, and, to me, Chekhov’s stories are so boring. But Saunders did reveal to me why Chekhov is considered so highly, so, although I am still not a fan, I appreciate his stories a great deal more than I did before.

Saunders’ commentaries are good for the most part so even if I didn’t like five out of the seven stories here I usually found something in the following essay to be compelling. Turgidnev is unbelievably tedious - I’d never read him before and don’t know if I ever will again! Similarly, I’d never read the world-famous Tolstoy before and found Master and Man coma-inducing, although Alyosha the Pot is one of the two stories I genuinely enjoyed so there’s a higher chance I’ll read more Tolstoy at some point rather than Turgenev.

The other great story is Gogol’s The Nose. I read this one when I was a kid and loved it so I was pleased to find that, years later, it still holds up. Gogol was so far ahead of his time. The Nose is a story that could have been written today, it’s so fresh and contemporary in its ideas and approach, and yet it was published nearly 200 years ago!

I found Saunders’ commentary though surprisingly dull. He was telling me what I already knew about Gogol’s work - that he was a genius and his stories superlative - so I wasn’t that engaged with what he was saying. Knowing that Gogol was using a Russian form of unreliable first person narration (“skaz”) doesn’t really add anything, though I thought his framing of Gogol as a supreme realist - considering his story is by far the most fantastical here - to be a good and thoughtful point.

He includes a short “Afterthought” essay after each commentary that’s more geared to writers and the craft of writing. These were easily the best parts of the book and I would’ve been fine if these had been the whole thing. It’s interesting to note that Saunders is a pantser - that is, a writer who writes by the seat of their pants; they make no plans, they just write and see where it takes them (Stephen King and Haruki Murakami are pantsers too so mebbe there’s something to it).

Knowing that makes his point that the bulk of writing is done in rewriting/editing more understandable. I can see pros and cons to that - it makes each day you sit down to write interesting for you, but then you’re going to rewrite a helluva lot if you don’t make any sort of plan beforehand in order to make your story cohesive.

While he makes some good points about writing, he does make some inane ones too - ie. Turgenev’s failure - and takes a time doing it too, which makes for some dull reading. He also repeats himself towards the end, making similar points about a character in Gooseberries that he did, better, in Master and Man.

The book is mostly beneficial to wannabe writers, though it’s not a “how to” book - it just contains strong examples of valuable lessons to benefit your work (and some practical and challenging exercises you can try for yourself in the appendices). It can be useful for just readers too - if you’re not a confident classics reader and/or didn’t take to English in school and want to now learn how to critically read and dissect layered storytelling, Saunders’ words will help make you a better reader in those regards.

There’s obviously a lot more to the book but I’ll start to wrap up the review here. While he meant it in a narrative sense, let’s follow Chekhov’s advice: “The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything”.

I quite liked A Swim in a Pond in the Rain because I like literary criticism (much more than 19th century Russian short fiction, it turns out!) - if that doesn’t apply to you, I wouldn’t bother with this one. Some of the essays are genuinely fascinating and insightful; some less so, taking a long time to make some ordinary points, repeat others, and occasionally become the worst of what people who hate literature think of the subject: a load of useless old waffle!

Definitely worth picking up and working your way through if you’re inclined to write as Saunders is a brilliant teacher and an even better short story writer whose own experience only adds to the work he’s assessing. If you’ve not read his fiction before, see why he’s also up there with the Russian masters (though he would never consider himself to be) in books like Civilwarland in Bad Decline and Pastoralia. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain isn’t up there with those great Saunders books but, like nearly everything this inspiring artist writes, good or bad, it’s different, unusual and creative - George Saunders remains an enduring exemplar of the literary arts.