George Saunders' return to literary, comedic short fiction further essays our basic selfishness George Saunders' early stories came, in part, out of a deep feeling that there was something radically wrong with corporate capitalism. He had this feeling even in the exuberant 1990s and 2000s, when so many people were losing their minds over the possibilities of the ever-growing, everybody-wins, borderless, digital, amazing new economy. But in stories such as 'Pastoralia' and 'In Persuasion Nation', Saunders found ways to show what the possibilities were actually making on the ground: a kind of terrible lurid sameness; a world of artificial, for-profit environments; places where everything had to be recognisable, branded, barcoded – and where there had to be a manic effort to entertain within the sameness, keep it all somehow 'fun'.

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2022/october/sean-o-beirne/liberation-day

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