This article is from B02-B03 of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's January 7, 2022 feature "Investigation of Good and Evil: George Sanders".
"Theme" B01丨 Investigation of Good and Evil: George Sanders
"Theme" B02-03丨Jorge Sanders The working mechanism of good and evil
Theme B04-05 | George Saunders Interview "Now or Never"
"Social Science" B06-07 丨 "Ants in the Elephant Herd": The "Untouchable" in Indian Society
"Vision" B08 丨Zhu Tianxin and the cat
Chronology of writers
Born on December 2, 1958 in Amarillo, Texas, USA.
Graduated from Colorado School of Mines in 1981.
In 1982, he joined an oil exploration company.
In 1989, he worked as a technical consultant and environmental engineer at a company called Radian International in New York. Until 1996.
In 1996, the first collection of short stories, The Territory of the Civil War in The Age of Decline, was published.
In 1997, he began teaching creative writing courses at Syracuse University.
In 2006, he received the MacArthur Genius Award and the Guggenheim Scholar Award.
In 2013, the short story collection December 10 was shortlisted for the National Book Awards and was named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times.
In 2017, the novel "Lincoln in the Bardo" won the Booker Literary Prize.
The beginning of the scene without explanation
If you only look at a few words and sentences, George Sanders' work can easily be misconceived as coming from the pen of his predecessor Vonnegut. He created a large number of futuristic fantasy scenes, but the tools used were usually artifacts from the last century or even before the Middle Ages, such as in "Sea Oak", the pilots controlled the "happy joystick" to make female customers pay for it, which sounds like using modern technology to have an impact on human nerves, but in fact these pilots are flying only a bunch of P-51s (the main propeller fighter of the US Air Force during World War II, long retired).
The paradise in Paradise Theme Park is obviously a workplace composed of fax machines, networks, and surveillance cameras, but the protagonist's job is to play the role of a cave dweller in it, without language, unable to speak, and roast lamb every day. This contrast gives Sanders's novel a particularly strong sense of disconnection, neither pointing to the future nor dystopian society, nor hovering in the pioneering lyrical era of America by Vera Kaiser and Thomas Wolfe. As a person who is full of science fiction elements in the novel, George Sanders seems to be expressing his resistance to the "era of artificial intelligence".
In fact, the writing of the theme of the era and future of artificial intelligence is really much easier - excluding hardcore science fiction based on physical possibilities and the kind of huge work that can create a Klingon language. Most of the future writing of the soft science fiction genre now is just a new theme, and then the core wrapped in the story is the estrangement between people (or existence and existence), the sense of alienation brought about by the material world, the betrayal of emotions, the rebellion against established identities, and so on. Looking at it too much, it will be very boring. Moreover, the seemingly diverse imagination makes the boundaries of the novel richer, but in fact, it is just the opposite, it is more narrow.
This is not only because human nature is not thematic, real life is difficult to define a person with simple concepts and setting labels, and the futuristic style novel is mainly facing the anxiety of the current people about the future, people do not know whether the social environment in which we live today will continue to exist after a hundred years, we do not know how much human emotions can occupy in the future life ruled by technology. But in fact, in the better future novels, complex human emotions are not lacking.
George Sanders's novel sets the science fiction background, there is no transition and foreshadowing, most of the time it is up and directly presented to the reader. For example, take a look at the beginning of these novels.
The beginning of Paradise Theme Park:
"I squatted down on the ground, waiting for someone to stick their heads in, even though no one had reached their heads for thirteen days; and Janet spoke to me more and more often, and that was one of the reasons I didn't feel good... We're living a good time now: every morning a freshly slaughtered goat is placed in our big trough with a box of matches. ”
The beginning of "Wink":
"Eighty people were waiting in a dimly lit conference room at the Hyatt, all wearing mass-produced paper hats on their heads." The white hat is 'ready to start', the 'pink hat' is the 'start forward', the 'green hat' is the 'firm start', all the way to the 'golden hat' that has the ability to 'control life'. At this moment, the 'golden hats' are standing around the table, and whenever a low-level hat passes by, they will whisper something and stab each other with their elbows. ”
The beginning of Escape from the Spider's Head:
"Ernezius used a remote control. My action pack whistled. Soon, the indoor garden became very beautiful, and everything seemed particularly clear. ”
In the Diary of a Semprika Girl, when the term "SG" first appears, the reader will not know what "SG" refers to:
"I don't hate going to work, and I'm glad I have classes to go to. I don't hate rich people, and I myself aspire to make a lot of money. One day, our family will have its own small bridge, trout, tree house, SG, etc., with at least the money we earned by working hard, unlike the Torrini family. I think they must have inherited a large inheritance. ”
If you pick it out alone, it will also make people curious to understand what kind of setting these strange terms are conceived by the writer, but in fact, in the process of reading novels, the experience it brings is mostly confused. Why not explain the future scenarios of the characters' lives at the beginning, as writers of semi-futuristic themes such as Vonnegut, Kazuo Ishiguro, and McEwan did? I asked George Sanders the question, and his answer was that he didn't feel necessary. Just as we now write about "mobile phones" in novels, we don't explain such superfluous words as "mobile phones have touch screens and wireless signals, and are tools used by humans to communicate and publish information on social platforms." After reading it, I also found that this is true, and even if some scenes are still vague after reading it once, it does not affect the understanding of the novel at all. The most important part of Sanders's novel is undoubtedly the choices made by the characters in the moments of good and evil, and the real environment that invisibly guides the characters' actions.
The primordial nature of the future world
The setting of the "caveman" at the beginning of "Paradise Theme Park", in fact, after reading the whole article, there is not much sense of separation, but it will feel very fit. The pattern of human existence does not seem to have changed radically in the past two thousand years of development. Humans during the primitive caveman period lived in a wilderness environment in which to face unknown threats, tribal rivalries, and so on. Modern society has simply changed the environment from the wilderness to the workplace, but the pattern has not changed.
Paradise Theme Park, by George Sanders, translated by Zhang Weihong and Chen Nannan, Edition: Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2021
The British psychologist Dexter Díaz has written a book on the negative psychology of human beings, "Ten Kinds of Human Nature", and in the chapter "Expulsion", he contrasts the living conditions of modern humans with the natural sardines in the wild — why humans in the workplace always like to exclude new people, there are small groups and marginalized colleagues. This pattern is not unique to humans, and in nature, the sardine group ensures the sense of security of the core old members by marginalizing the new members (of course, the final battle of these sardine groups is inevitably swallowed by whales, which is also quite ridiculous).
The book "Ten Kinds of Human Nature" lists many comparisons between humans and animals and primitive societies, which roughly means that the way modern society operates is not actually the original sin of institutions and so on, and these psychologies have existed since the primitive wilderness period. However, with the development of civilization, human nature should develop in a more modern direction away from primitiveness, unfortunately, human beings have not yet been able to possess such a mind, and today's people still inherit the cave wisdom of the ancestors who drank blood from Ru Mao three thousand years ago.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, biologists Dana Holly and Julia Barker found a balance of risk and sociality in animals, with lobsters infected with a virus isolated from other members of the colony, fungal-infected black-haired ants actively staying away from the colony, but also the heavily dependent on collective life of the musticks who would live together knowing that a member was infected with the disease. The pattern of choice is far from being unique to modern society, and the principles of nature have long existed, the point being that human beings do not live purely by instinct, but that human beings make choices and have a psychological and logical hesitation process in them. Many of Sanders' novels recount in a similar way how human primitive nature unfolds in a way that seems modern.
The working atmosphere in Paradise Theme Park is like this - "I" play a caveman in the park with a woman named Janet, who simulates human life in primitive times for tourists, roasts lamb according to the habits of primitive people, cannot talk to each other in English or it will be regarded as a major work mistake, and at the end of each day, "I" have to fill out a form to observe the performance of colleagues today, including "whether I notice any misbehavior", "how to evaluate my peers as a whole", "whether there is anything that needs to be coordinated". Wait, because the manager has always been dissatisfied with Janet's performance, so he sent a person named Northstone to instruct "I" to write more bad things about Janet in the "Classmate Daily Performance Evaluation Form". The story's human evolution is perhaps one of the richest of Sanders' short stories.
It is clear that the park's operations have become so diminished that the repetitive daily performances are so innovative that at the beginning of the novel, it is no longer possible to provide a whole goat for the staff in some days. The reason managers want to fire Janet is apparently because she's been working for years, is "too old", and has lost its appeal to tourists — a reason that looks a bit like the layoffs of current Internet companies and is seen in many of Sanders' works.
Janet is certainly not as bad as Northton says, and overall she is a dedicated employee, but one of the reasons she is not so good is that she is too old and has lost her attractiveness, and the second reason is that she is not emotionally stable, she is not a robot who demonstrates the way of life of a caveman every day, she has her own moods and sorrows, she is a person. Because of this, she sometimes makes mistakes at work. Especially when Janet's unsuccessful son came to ask for money, "the two of them talked dirty many times, and she cried in her own independent area all afternoon." However, "I" did not betray Janet.
In the novel, "I" think of my father's experience in helping a colleague in a beef factory to cover up his work mistakes, and when his father died, he received a check from the colleague and a note of gratitude. In part for this reason, "I" also hid mistakes in her work for Janet. At the same time, the "I" in the story also maintains a well-intentioned fantasy, if he and Northstone continue to tell Janet's excellence, perhaps the above will change Janet, and will not lay off Janet.
The human goodwill that finally dies
However, goodwill needs to be tested by the environment. The "I" at the beginning of the story may also help Janet hide a lot of things, but as Sanders continues to deteriorate the environment in which the characters live— if even we are affected by the wave of layoffs, are we willing to take this risk when we are unable to protect ourselves? More and more people were laid off around, and "I" began to feel uneasy and uneasy in my heart. In the end, the novel's "I" eventually expose Janet's incompetence at work on the watchlist, leading to her dismissal. With the psychological foreshadowing of the previous narrative, the choices that "I" were forced to make in the end by reality, although there is a dark psychology, but the reader's self-questioning seems to be understandable.
At the same time, after Janet learned of this matter, "I" had been helping to conceal the good words for the past few years was also written off, and she directly scolded the protagonist. In the novel, "I" is not a persecutor, but a persecuted person who is forced to transfer pressure to others, and most of Sanders's stories depict this type of person- which is also a big difference between his novels that are more American than the Russian novels that the writer himself is obsessed with, and the characters in Russian novels are very hot-hearted, have a charlatan spirit, and are kind enough to sacrifice themselves; and most of Sanders's novels are ordinary people with good nature. This is actually more appropriate for most people in real life, who are good by nature, but not enough to sacrifice themselves for others.
The other side of life is the opposite. Many times people will have dark and even violent thoughts in their hearts, and these thoughts are close to being conceived, but at the moment of final action, out of a trace of goodness in the essence of human nature - or congenital hesitation before doing evil, so that these dark thoughts only stay on the inner level. There are also several works of this type, such as Wink. "Wink" is also about a very fantasy scene. In a place known as the "Center for Personal Change," several so-called professionals come to provide solutions to life distress for counselors in the crowd.
In fact, many of the troubles in life, in terms of essence, are really very simple to solve.
What kind of people are most troubled in life? Well-meaning people. What kind of people are the least troubled? Evil people.
Evil people only need to start from the actual interests of everything, do not consider the feelings and troubles of others, and indifferently reject the demands of others. Therefore, if you just want to get rid of the troubles alone, you just need to erase your own goodness and be a person who starts from the actual interests of everything.
That's exactly how the professionals in Wink guided. The paper hats they wear have a hierarchy, the highest of which is "control of life" – but if you think about it, where can anyone take full control of their own life? In their speech, they told the audience, "Today, I will lead you through the 'three basic steps' of my design: identification, shielding, and resistance. First, let's get to know Gene in your life. We'll then help you ideologically install a metaphorical protective screen above your symbolic oatmeal bowl. Finally, we will teach you how to rebel against your own Jean, and clearly tell the other party that from now on, your oatmeal is forbidden to come closer."
Faced with the specific helper of distress, Nell Janik, the staff first asked Nair to write down several characteristics of the person he hated the most, Wink, including ugly looks, religious fanaticism, and the need for her own accommodation. He then induces him to ask him if Vink has his own residence, whether religious fanaticism is still important, etc., and finally leads to the conclusion that the root cause of Nair's dislike of her sister Wink is that she has been spending time in her own residence. The advice given by the staff is to resist and blast your sister out, so that you are completely in control of your life and no longer have the corresponding troubles.
The joy of reading Sanders' novels lies in the guiding nature that the author displays in his narrative. The first half of Sanders' narrative always guides the reader with the presentation of the logic of human behavior, whether to the benign side or the malicious side, and the behavioral logic presented in the dialogue seems convincing enough. In this kind of guided narrative, the reader can very naturally get rid of his position and make himself part of the conspiracy with the fictional characters, one of which is to stand on the dividing line of awkward dilemmas with the fictional characters. The same goes for Wink.
But logic is not the ultimate solution to a human problem. Even though Nair had made up his mind, after returning home, seeing his sister appear at the door with a warm "welcome home" quickly dissipated the negative energy in his body. "The words he practiced repeatedly on the way home now seem to have nothing to do with this girl standing on the porch with tears in her eyes and her bald head... He tried to beat her, scold her, say nasty things to sober her up, but he just went straight to his room, whispering in his heart the most filthy words to curse her."
Similar to the ending, there is Ruston in "Ruston Rhapsody", full of resentment and wanting to beat the old man to vent his anger, but only grudgingly smiled after the face. The grumbling bastard man in "Waterfall" who finally decides to go into the water to save people. An experiment in Escape from the Spider's Head that abandons the idea of killing. Of course, we can't expect the novel to change anything, and in the case of our own water nature is not good, the choice to jump into the water to rescue the strange girl is not only too demanding on human nature, but also the decision is not smart in terms of reality. But the process shown in the novel through the characters' extremely struggling inner activities can play a little role in prying, making us hesitate for a while before making a decision, and hesitation is usually more than the direct indifference ideal.
A critical satire of the corporate system
After completing a series of short stories, the biggest work of George Sanders's writing career is the novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Although Sanders himself hesitated before writing, he suspected that the novel, which depicted Lincoln's relationship with his family, was too far removed from his previous writing style to be controlled. But in fact, the human thoughts hidden in his work are enough to support the completion of this work, and all he needs is to read the relevant historical materials. Lincoln in the Bardo is almost entirely composed of character dialogue, in which the reader needs to distinguish between reality and the voice of the dead, and there are more than a hundred characters on the scene. Some of these dialogues are from historical records, and some are fictionalized by Sanders, and it is extremely difficult to organize them together to form a dramatic tension, but "Lincoln in the Bardo" still does a good job of expressing the narrative expression of sincere family affection.
Sanders is undoubtedly a well-intentioned writer in his bones. The dilemma of human nature in his novels, no matter how the parties choose, the situation described by the writer has room for interpretation, and it is not suffocating to read. At the same time, in the novel, Sanders often ends with reverie blanks — but most of these blanks and hints are tragic. For example, at the end of Paradise Theme Park, after reporting Janet, the park upper echelons send a new partner for "me", Linda, a young woman with a more serious work attitude, but there are few moments of frank communication between the two people in English, and the park's layoff plan continues. In a few years, will "I" be the next Janet, to be deported by a peer report? As far as the hints of the ending are concerned, this is almost inevitable. In addition to human nature, Sanders also describes in the novel in a fantasy and side blank way that the reason that will make people's hearts tend to evil from a state of vacillation and hesitation - the corporate system.
This is the source of stress for a large number of characters in Sanders's novels, who are in a precarious position in a company, and there are still family members to support behind them, and the inner choices of these characters are often contradictory--if you want to continue to maintain your love for your family, you need to do something against your heart in the company; if you maintain goodwill at work, then you are an incompetent betrayer in terms of family responsibilities. The corporate system provides an environment for fictional characters to temporarily violate your conscience in full accordance with a reasonable system. Most of the characters in the novel don't end up doing this, maintaining a contradictory dramatic tension that prevents the novel from becoming a flat critical work, but in real life, there are very few who don't.
"December 10th", by George Sanders, translated by Song Yingtang, edition: Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2021.
Whether it's Paradise Theme Park or Wink or Sea Oak, in the context of the corporate and corporate system, the struggle between good and evil is almost inevitably biased toward the latter in reality. In novels that do not have a background related to the corporate system, Sanders's characters show pure goodness, such as "December 10th", in terms of the description of the character's heart and soul, this novel has the Russian style that Sanders aspires to, in which the characters can sacrifice themselves for each other. Moreover, the goodness of human nature that Sanders shows in his novels, even if it is very exaggerated, does not produce a defiant psychology, it is not a guide to the good deeds of saints, but a guide to good and evil, through the increase in details and the inner attention of the characters, in the process of narrative in the process of excavation to peel off the cold shell in reality, while warning us that this shell is not innate for most people, but gradually formed in a strange institutional atmosphere.
Written by | Miyako
Editor| Zhang Jin and Shang Chongming
Proofreading | Xue Jingning