A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

De: George Saunders

Narrado por: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Keith David, Rainn Wilson, BD Wong, Renée Elise Goldsberry

From the New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

*This audiobook includes a PDF of the tables, outlines, figures, and appendices from the book.

Wonderful narration

This felt like taking a Russian lit class and was a great way to learn more about it. I liked the stories that were chosen to dissect and it gave me a greater appreciation for them than when I probably had to read some of them in high school. Also the narration was phenomenal on audio.

Beautiful and Brilliant

Saunders picks Russian short masterpieces and explains them in a way I would not have appreciated without such explanation. In this book, I have found some of my favorite stories I have ever heard, performed by some of the best voice actors of our time. This is truly a book of riches.

A must read for all readers

A must-read for all readers. It's about the art of short stories but has so much more to offer. I love Saunders' style of having us rethink and relearn on how to look at stories.

just perfect

I return to this audio recording regularly. It's so helpful and inspired, and Saunders' voice in your ear is downright restorative.

Excellent analysis and explanation.

I’ve been wanting to understand how to interpret literature better, and this book has really helpful insight to that end. The author does a great job detailing his interpretation of almost every line in all the stories. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommended it.