A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

In this book, you read short stories from legendary Russian writers, followed by an analysis of the story by George Saunders. What’s cool is that you get great writing from the stories, and then you get great writing about why it’s great, from Saunders.

I only hope that I’m able to apply the lessons learned here to my own writing. I think my biggest takeaway is the idea of ambiguity: inexperienced writers like myself have the tendency to try to make a clear point in their writing, whereas the strength of these stories is their openness to be interpreted in many ways. That’s probably a lesson that I knew before, but it comes through so much brighter here under Saunders’s guidance.

storygraph link