The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

De: George Saunders

Narrado por: George Saunders

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

In a profoundly strange country called Inner Horner, large enough for only one resident at a time, citizens waiting to enter the country fall under the rule of the power-hungry and tyrannical Phil, setting off a chain of injustice and mass hysteria.

An Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone. Over six years in the writing, and brilliantly and beautifully packaged, this novella is Saunders' first stand-alone, book-length work—and his first book for adults in five years.

Includes an original song by the author.
“The Phil Stomp” was written and performed by George Saunders, and recorded, mixed, and mastered by Peter Coleman at Indigital Studios in Santa Cruz, California.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Praise for George Saunders:

"An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times."—Thomas Pynchon

"Mr. Saunders writes like the illegitimate offspring of Nathanael West and Kurt Vonnegut. His satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it is also ferocious and very funny."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A master of distilling the disorders of our time into fiction."—Salon.com

loved it!

Loved it! Saunders' inimitable voice puts me in mind of Mark Twain and
James Thurber.

Odd and interesting

This is my second read by George Saunders and I loved it. His imagination is wild and he plays with time in an interesting way. I love his minimalist word choice. I have just enough information to picture these bizarre worlds he creates.

Gogol and Lewis Carroll and Saunders Hold Hands...

...and pass through the Looking Glass...into a strange, strangely invented world. We know this at the very outset, from an absurd first paragraph that tells us what we most need to know about this world. "It’s one thing to be a small country, but the country of Inner Horner was so small only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of Outer Horner."

Saunders' Inner and Outer Horner is cluttered with absurdities, absurdities that, as we go along, with its absurd citizenry and its absurd President and its absurdly ambitious Phil of the title, take shape as a parable for our times, a parable of political power gone absolute and thus mad, written by Saunders 11 years earlier than the reality that descended on the world's greatest Democracy...a quick, satisfying novella that should stimulate some readerly thought along one or more of several paths.

Excellent story

it's a story about real life even though it seems so strange at first. amazing how barbaric humans can be. read for a class, required. really enjoyed. gets people to think, I hope. love the author narrating

Wow! Great Short Story About Geopolitical Relations!

A short, absurdist, funny/sad, modern day parable about international affairs, war, political corruption, oppression, genocide, and tyranny. How is it even possible to write something funny about those subjects? So much was communicated about the stupidity of bigotry in such a short and powerful story! The characters were interesting and strange. The reality in which this book takes place is very strange and not like our own, but it's similar to our world in how the people of the various nations within the story might interact with each other. The coffee drinking outsiders were a great development and a needed 3rd perspective to complete the story for me. Their culture made me laugh and I felt like it really completed the worldviews being critiqued by this otherworldly parable. This was a wild and absurd ride. And it was occasionally deeply troubling and sad. Using such absurdist characters to tell such a harrowing story was an interesting literary device to make this sunject matter more accessible. A great introduction to an author I've heard many good things about! Really looking forward to reading more by George Saunders.