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by Rae Padilla Francoeur, More Content Now

Short stories that take you where you never expected to go

“a swim in a Pond in the Rain in Which four Russians Give a Master

class on Writing, Reading, and life,” By George Saunders. Random House, January 2021. 410 pages.

I am reading George Saunders’ “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain in Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life” with 15 other people, mostly on the West Coast, mostly strangers. Our MeetUp group chose this book on a whim while still reading contemporary short stories from collections like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s “The Best American Short Stories.”

Who would have thought that working through Ivan Turgenev’s “The Singers,” written in 1852, would be exhilarating? Good short stories are hard to write and often quite hard to fully appreciate; more so when stylized according to norms that seem archaic to us. A short story is a world unto itself, full of life, or as Saunders says, a ceremony. Central to that ceremony is the heart of the story. Entering a story, a world, when you are open and curious may well take you places you never expected.

This book is a master class in reading and writing short stories, over which Saunders presides. It’s modeled after a workshop he’s taught at Syracuse University for his top writing students. In this book, the masterclass is abbreviated and delivered to the rest of us. And it seems the audience for this unusual work of nonfiction is vast and eager. The book has made an appearance on the New York Times bestseller list for three weeks.

Saunders, author of the critically acclaimed novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” and short story collection “Tenth of December,” wrote that he’s talked with many readers he thought would appreciate a book like this one. There is, he writes, “a web of people who’ve put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more expansive, generous people and makes their lives more interesting.”

What he didn’t mention is that people don’t stop learning when they leave school. Nor do they want to stop learning. Having someone like Saunders - a nice guy with a lot of knowledge - as a reading guide is ... well ... thrilling.

For this book, Saunders selected seven stories: “In the Cart,” “The Darling” and “Gooseberries” by Anton Chekhov; “Master and Man” and “Alyosha the Pot” by Leo Tolstoy; “The Singers” by Ivan Turgenev; and “The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol. He also includes his own commentary for each story. His commentary is casual, instructive and full of insight. He’s been reading and teaching these stories for 20 years yet he’s still moved and awed by them.

As Saunders says, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world.” These stories pose big questions, he writes, such as “How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyways, and how might we recognize it?” Key, he says, is this question: “What did we feel ...?” Imagine. A teacher who doesn’t shy away from feelings. “All coherent intellectual work begins with a genuine reaction,” Saunders says.

The Russians he features were progressive reformers working in a repressive culture. They were, because of their work, imperiled, “under constant threat of censorship, in a time when a writer’s politics could lead to exile, imprisonment, and execution.” Russians regarded works of fiction as a “vital moral-ethical tool. They changed you when you read them.”

Not everyone in my reading group liked all parts of Ivan Turgenev’s “The Singers” but I found myself stunned when I arrived at and read the last paragraphs. The heart of the story - a singing contest in a pub between two working class men - is beautifully described and reflected back to us by the various peasants who gather for what they expect will be a thrilling experience. It is. “During the contest,” says Saunders, “we watched the tavern morph into a church. A holy thing happened there: these rough people (peasants, poor men, worked nearly to death in this sweltering, oppressive setting) were uplifted and transformed through art.”

In my own work as a museum consultant, that transformation Saunders describes is what we strive to facilitate, what we value. But, writes Saunders, “Overflowing with loveliness, (the witnesses and the singers) got totally wasted.” The energy building up to the contest and the energy generated by the contest itself had to discharge itself somewhere, somehow.

Saunders and the Russian writers have our group reading closely and thinking hard. We show up, books and notes within reach, ready to discuss. By the end of the hour and a half, we finish by spontaneously expressing our gratitude for the experience that is both stimulating and affecting. Like so many meetings these days, we gather via Zoom. When it’s time to sign off, we “leave meeting” changed, not just by the story but by the way our group has worked together to get as much from the story as time and stamina allow.

Together, those Russian authors, Saunders’ inspired book and the members of our group gathered in the presence of art transcend COVID-19′s dismal pall and re-ignite the human spirit. If there’s any doubt about human spirit, read those Russian stories.

Rae Padilla Francoeur can be reached at rae.francoeur@gmail.com.