The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

The skewed world of George Saunders is a strangely wonderful place, an alternative but frighteningly feasible universe in which advertising and wonky syntax have smothered the life out of normal discourse and free will.

Saunders' first two collections (CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia) pilloried the cultural and intellectual vacuum that seems to be taking over the United States, notably satirizing the nation as a failing theme park. In his new book, the novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is an angry if obvious denunciation of governments that cook up spurious reasons for invading other countries (for which read Iraq, or any other illegal invasion).

The In Perusasion Nation collection, which accompanies Phil, is much more interesting. Saunders’ interest in alternative presents rather than possible futures is expressed both oddly - in ‘I CAN SPEAK! TM a company employee writes to a disgruntled customer to persuade her not to return a baby mask that speaks – and sympathetically – in ‘My Flamboyant Grandson’ a grandfather is ‘written up’ by a Citizen Helper for removing his shoes, rendering his Everly Strips inoperative and ‘thus sacrificing a terrific opportunity to Celebrate My Preferences’ via the personalised advertising holograms all around him.

This theme reaches its moving climax in ‘jon’. Essentially this is a love story about two institutionalised teenagers whose emotions have been learned solely through the adverts that are transmitted into their brains via a feed in the back of their necks. When Carolyn becomes pregnant, she decides to leave the institute and fend for herself, but Jon struggles with the idea of leaving behind all that he knows.

‘jon’ also highlights Saunders’ nuanced ear for modern speech patterns. He has said that he works at the level of the sentence, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the dialogue he writes. When a character in the story ‘commcomm’ says ‘“I have to do my Situational Follow-Up. What in your view is the reason for the discontinued nature of that crappo smell you all previously had?”’ Saunders manages to mock not only the convoluted verbiage and inflexions of modern American English, but also the vacuity of business-talk.

There is plenty more in this book, both funny and angry. Saunders believes that language becomes more opaque in times of fear, and that we are currently witnessing a retreat into meaninglessness as a result of the uncertainty that affects our everyday lives. Entertaining as they are, his books are a heartfelt plea for clarity in a world of spin.