A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is an unusual book, and I’m honestly surprised there are not more like it (or maybe there are and I’m unaware). Essentially it’s a book form of a class Saunders teaches in the MFA program at Syracuse—an exploration of short story craftsmanship via the great Russian short story writers. It’s not so much literary analysis—though there is that—as a probing look at what makes good short stories “work.” As Saunders acknowledges, for many people, there’s something almost gut-level right when literature works: difficult to articulate but moving nonetheless. It’s why it’s easy to write a critical review and so challenging to write about books I love. For that reason, there’s pleasure in witnessing an expert break down the reader's subconscious response and consider how other writers might adopt similar strategies.
Nonetheless, if I wasn’t such a fan of Saunders’ Tenth of December, I certainly wouldn’t have read this book. But now I’ve read six classic Russian short stories, and I can pretend I attended a graduate MFA class (without the work)!
Though the book could have been dry and technical, Saunders keeps the wit and warmth that make his other books engaging. He doesn’t lecture, but rather questions and attempts to answer—sometimes even back tracking on his earlier thoughts. Though some of the "writing advice" in the beginning can feel simplistic—keep escalating, emphasize cause and effect—it’s clear to see how apparently “obvious” truths can be easily forgotten in the immersion in a draft.
In the second half of the book, I found Saunders' advice somewhat more nebulous, the tone a little more didactic. He spends a lot of time on the “skaz” narrative style of Gogol’s surrealist “The Nose,” but I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. Similarly, he enthusiastically explores the potential ambiguity in Tolstoy’s “Alyosha the Pot,” but I didn’t glean much beyond “great writers are great often without even meaning to be so.” A valid point but one perhaps disheartening to emerging writers. Even worse, by the end of his effusive praise of Tolstoy, I got that feeling far too many students get: that their English teacher is making up complicated elements of meaning to justify their ill-chosen career.
Nevertheless, the novel is not a how-to or self-help book, nor is it traditional literary analysis, so inevitably my expectations of either would fall short. Saunders ultimately claims that some writers are great. You might be great too, but if you are, it’ll be because of you, not because you adapted something from the other greats--or even learned from Saunders himself.
So far I’ve neglected the stories themselves, which Saunders includes in their entirety. With the exception of “The Nose,” all are fairly traditional short stories: detailed characters in a detailed world; an escalation; a surprise resolve (of some sort) at the end. My favorite was the longest in the book, Tolstoy’s “Master and Man.” Perhaps because of its length, Tolstoy's able to achieve significant character development, increasing tension, and real "stakes" to the doomed sleigh ride of land owner Vasili and his peasant servant Nikita. Like the Alyosha of a later Tolstoy story (the final entry in the book, "Alyosha the Pot"), Nikita is a quietly-suffering peasant, but his development is more well-rounded than in the latter story, so he avoids being one-dimensional.
Reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain reminds me how much I miss being in school, or even engaging in a vigorous book club (mine has been on pause since March 2020). I read a lot but have few opportunities to discuss what I'm reading, outside the personal reflections I record in this unread blog. Reading Saunders felt like a conversation with someone else smart and book-y (okay, smarter and book-ier). In that way, it was a joy.
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