"What you need to do," said someone with great authority from over by the Cafe, "is tax them."George Saunders should be commended for his incredible elan when it comes to explanations. If he chooses to say that his characters were strange amalgamations of metal brackets and livers he is allowed to do so blissfully and without descending into any of the nitty gritty of just how this might come to pass. His Reign of Phil startles you by the ease with which you can accept its outrageousness. When presented with the strange and very thinly veiled allegories of Inner and Outer Horner, I notably did not stop and wonder how the hell the Former President of Outer Horner came to have 18 mustaches and three legs. This is part of the beauty of Saunders's writing as I have discovered it thus far.
But when we turn to the allegorical aspect of the novel, I am not as sure that I can compliment Mr. Saunders. While I myself enjoy a good solid ideological tour de force, I could not help but feel that the idea was the only thing driving this book and that Saunders used a good bit of absurdity to hide what is otherwise an absence of depth. It was a fast read.
If you are someone who enjoys the more flippant conversational tone of modern fiction, this may be a book for you, otherwise it is something to put further down the reading list. 6/10
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