George Saunders is really, really funny, and twistedly dark in his writing.  But throughout his short stories in the collection Pastoralia, there runs a thread of light. That thread is the utter humanity of his characters, and that humanity, complex and genuine, is what gives his stories such charm.  Darkly funny, utterly twisted, completely unpredictable, truly genuine, and deeply charming:  it takes a great writer to do all that in a short story.

Saunders’ characters are tortured by how life has not quite panned out so well for them: they are the losers, the bystanders, the family care-takers. They hang in there, sure of a break eventually, or of finding a new way of approaching an old problem, or of finding the right woman or right job.

The stories in Pastoralia are all set in a nightmare America just around the corner, where TV shows like How My Child Died Violently and  The Worst That Could Happen are popular, and men hustle middle-aged women with simulated organs, and historical villages require their employees to really live like cave men, talking only in grunts and living on goat while robotic (but real-looking) sheep graze outside their caves, and high school drop-outs studying for their GED learn that “optometrist” means someone who always looks on the bright side of life.

Throughout the stories Saunders runs a theme of “thinking positive/saying positive” and the power of “positive thinking”: he is making fun of the concept and exposing how it is abused to wield power over the unfortunate and slough off responsibility for their problems.  But Saunders is also valuing the true spirit of optimism — not a false capitalist campaign or a  cynical corporate tactic  — by imbuing his characters with a positivism that gives them dignity.  They are not fools singing about how great life is when it is not: they are just inwardly and deeply sure that things will turn around for them one day.  They do have some inner core of believing in themselves, against all odds and all reality.  In fact, when one super-optimist dies, she comes from the grave all rotting and falling apart to demand some payback:  “Some people get everything and I got nothing.  Why?  Why did that happen?“  That utter refusal to accept that life just sucks for some people is the kind of optimism that keeps real people going.

Only one character, a brother who has taken in his crazy sister to live with him and now only wants her OUT so that he can maybe score with a date and then get married, finally cracks under his burdens and loses all hope of improvement in his life: that story is truly sad, and a send-up of the charlatans who prey on hopeful but desperate souls, the preachers and gurus and “ten-steps to ____ success” writers who pander easy answers and surface repair for what are really problems that require sympathy, support programs, and long-term encouragement. Optimism only goes so far; back-up is needed.

None of Saunders’ characters get much back-up but still they persist. As outsiders looking in we are not optimistic about their chances and we feel for them.  But we do not pity them: they deserve better than that. Even the little kid in “The End of FIRPO in the World” who is not loved enough by anyone except the scrawny guy who runs him over, demands our recognition.  These characters get our respect because they don’t give in; they just keep on trucking.  I loved these guys and I  loved the wildly imaginative  stories Saunders builds around them.