Pastoralia by George Saunders. Possibly my favorite book. Its one of the weirdest books Ive ever read. If Monty Python and Thomas Pynchon had a love child, and it was raised by Frank Zappa on a weird commune, that would be this book.
Libba BrayWe're in English class, which for most of us is an excruciating exercise in staying awake through the great classics of literature. These works - groundbreaking, incendiary, timeless - have been pureed by the curriculum monsters into a digestible pabulum of themes and factoids we can spew back on a test. Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are secondary.
Libba BrayI can see his pain, see it in the way he runs his fingers through his hair, over and over, and I understand what it costs him to hide it all.
Libba BrayThere's a lot about discovering who you are and how difficult that is. And it never stops.
Libba BrayEvie hadnโt always felt that way. For a year after James had died, sheโd cupped his half-dollar pendant between her pressed palms and prayed fervently for a miracle, for a telegram that would say GOOD NEWS! IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, AND PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER OโNEILL HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE, IN A FARMHOUSE IN FRANCE. But no such telegram ever arrived, and whatever possible faith might have bloomed in Evie withered and died. Now she saw it as just another advertisement for a life that belonged to a previous generation and held no meaning for hers.
Libba Bray