Imagine walking around Times Square and being visually assaulted by advertisements that are tailored to your age, sex, previous purchases and personal preferences. Grandfathers see Gene Kelly advertising the latest amenities while 5-year-olds see Babar. George Saunders takes the principles of consumerism that are already deeply rooted in the American consciousness and amplifies them in his novel "In Persuasion Nation." Paying close attention to the trajectory of American dependence on material goods, he follows it upward with comic results. But within these illustrations of American absurdity lies a terrifying truth about the proximity of a world in which the only mode of existence is in compliance with the manipulative extremes of consumerism.
Saunders's collection of eerily jocular short stories runs so quickly and is written in such plain language that it is very easy to miss the warped atrocities with which the author washes these pages. This tone complies with a jaded view that prevents normal, empathetic human reactions to the upsetting aspects of life that have become everyday events. Saunders does not write seriously and this serves to emphasize the ease with which his audience stomachs the corpses and severed appendages that so regularly appear between commercial breaks in his stories.
Although these vignettes are never inflected with the severity of George Orwell's "1984," they are nevertheless built upon the same foundation of mass manipulation and control. In one story, the reader enters a facility where orphaned children lead contextually happy lives as highly medicated product testers. In another, the stars of a reality TV show use any sensation, no matter how disturbing, to keep their audience hooked on their imitations of real life. While the worlds Saunders gives his readers are frightening, filled with material obsession and consumer manipulation, Saunders's stories have within each one of them someone who is resisting. Loyal Bowdoin fans will be happy to hear that one of the heroic characters who rejects the constraints of his role in the consumer machine is a polar bear. With the recurrence of those who are willing to step outside the comforts provided by living an insular consumer life, even if it means a gaping though not fatal hole in the neck, the reader is left with the sentiment that doom is forthcoming but not inevitable.
These stories are deeply rooted in the truth of American dependence on material goods. Despite the grandiose techniques of exaggeration Saunders employs, the fundamentals of every bizarre story are glaringly familiar. Through his satirical engagement with his subject, Saunders brings into focus the weirdness of a pervasive obsession with advertisement, material pleasure and the way these things become more important to a person than human connections. While he does not provide his readers with an "easy" button, he does tune them in to some of the absurdities of modern life that have visible comforts but carry with them discreet subversions of freedom through their ability to enslave one to a certain brand or a persistent want for more.