Saturday Show #100: Bohemians by George Saunders
Summary: The Austin Writing Workshop met at the Westin at the Domain in Austin, Texas, to discuss literature and philosophy. This is the result. This is the 100th episode of Saturday Show. If you enjoy this podcast, please use the Amazon.com portal on this page to support us and help ensure we can keep producing these podcasts.<br> 1) Intro by <a href="http://amzn.to/1ebEvYh" target="_blank">Zeus</a><br> 2) Group discussion of “Bohemians” by <a href="http://amzn.to/1GIcgrC" target="_blank">George Saunders</a>, including not hating it as much as the other ones, being too cute, writing siding with the absurd, over-the-top language, intentional, tying into the theme, justifying a mistake, subtlety, finding the middle ground, the raccoon, explaining the raccoon, style issue, dry realism, surprising phrasing, slipstream, Halloweenification, science fiction, reality but weirder, writing genre versus literary fiction, what makes literary fiction literary?, making the case for the theme working, natural theme and feeling organic, presupposing the stupidity of Zeus, emphasis on schtick, Chuck Pahlaniuk, Clint Eastwood, details working, interesting absurdity, roles switching, M. Night Shamalan, Stephen King, story not working but being interesting, Cory being drunk, being immersed in the story, drunk dads, Lord of the Flies, gangs of kids doing shit, society of losers, Of Mice and Men, Lenny, plot summary, surrealism, story being two or three vignettes, unreliable narrators, focus, immature writing, prosthetic legs, plants, little kid narrator and seeming surreal, arguing about the realism of the story, the lady who pretended to be black, readers losing, discursiveness, narrowing down, defending the writer, the plotlessness of the story, style issues, cutting too much, Wiffle ball and bat, over-editing, speculation, excellent details, analyzing the ending to get the theme of the story, the turd boat, obviousness of theme, good readability, having literary merit, Silo Apparent, guessing the author, moral and theme, subtlety, Spring in Fialta by Vladimir Nabokov, Kundera, Pahlaniuk, George Saunders, BINGO, Tenth of December, Thomas McGuane, Steven Hawking, being broadly categorical, Democrats, Republicans, and Sam Harris.<br> 3) Interjection by <a href="http://amzn.to/1Lvj9Ch" target="_blank">Zeus</a> re: Ann Coulter digression<br> 4) Group discussion continues, including <a href="http://amzn.to/1Ki7Lsq" target="_blank">Ann Coulter</a>, America going to crap, Christians, Larry Flynting people, Bill Maher, <a href="http://amzn.to/1Ki7OVc" target="_blank">Rush Limbaugh</a>, two languages per country, and World War II.<br> 5) Interjection by <a href="http://amzn.to/1CBIfIn" target="_blank">Zeus</a> re: member-submitted story.<br> 6) Group discussion of the member-submitted story, including extra lines, the jokes, descriptions, lavendar shirts, plot summary, and uploading the WRONG file.<br>
