A Mixed Bag

I found the audiobook to be frustrating, to say the least. I love Saunders' work and know that the printed version of this novel is likely much better than this audiobook version indicates. As is, there are some good narrators (Nick Offerman), some decent ones (David Sedaris), and some utterly terrible ones, who feel like they are reading their lines with a gun to their heads. I think the stilted language of the 1860s was too much an impediment to some of these voices. Another problem is that the actors were not recording a shared experience - in other words, they were not together at the time and were not able to fully feed off each other's lines and work as a true ensemble. Few actors enjoy working under those conditions. The story rambles and ambles about, speakers are interrupted, and there is no cohesive emotional center sustained throughout. I felt at times that I was in the audience of a bad high school play. That said, there are some beautiful moments and funny moments, too. Too bad they're buried amidst the mess.

202 people found this helpful

Hard to follow

This narration was hard to follow. It jumped from story to story with chapter title and author

19 people found this helpful

Difficult

There are just too many characters voiced by too many people and burdened by too many footnotes to follow. I found my attention wandering.

91 people found this helpful

Disappointment!

I wanted so much more from this book than I received. If I had known what “Bardo” meant prior to picking this up at Audible, I may have enjoyed the listen better. On many reviews of the book on-line, people state that it is not for all tastes. I can agree that it was not for me.

Centered around a cemetery, spirits, and Lincoln mourning the loss of his young son, the story is filled with what was and what could be. In between the spaces, multitude of period quotes are intertwined with the story to interject relevance, experience and fact. Characters, and there are many of them, narrate their own lives and how and why they seem to be trapped in this limbo state. Many fear the next state – moving on. All this can get quite confusing.

The production of this book is awful. There are long gaps of silence between some of the chapters that makes you think the audio has stopped working. It is almost impossible to know when a quote is delivered versus the actual narrative of a character. And there are so many readers. Its absurdly confusing.

How this won the Booker is a mystery to me.

67 people found this helpful

A first-rate radio drama, not a mere audiobook

Would you consider the audio edition of Lincoln in the Bardo to be better than the print version?

Yes! Not that I've seen the print version, but the different voices for each character are a huge enhancement to a book with so many characters. Some chapters are composed of excerpts from historical sources, often from firsthand accounts, and these were also enhanced by being read in different voices.

What did you like best about this story?

The connection between Lincoln's personal grief and his empathy for the grief being faced by the nation, culminating in the epiphany that despite seeing this grief it was his duty to continue on with whatever brutality was required to win the war. His struggle, in turn, connects with that of the other characters, who are ghosts living in a form of purgatory, unable to move past life's disappointments into the "next place"; they are all helped along both by the president and his son.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Really, this is more a first-rate radio drama than an audiobook. The actors make each character unique and relatable.

Who was the most memorable character of Lincoln in the Bardo and why?

I wouldn't want to pick one. The lead "ghosts" portrayed by Nick Offerman and David Sedaris were excellent. Probably the central portrait was of Lincoln himself, which we saw from many different perspectives including his own, his son's, and the ghosts (most of whom don't know at first that he is president.)

14 people found this helpful

George Saunders answer to Dante's Inferno

I've not listened to many books but it's hard to imagine one that could be more entertaining than Lincoln. The actors speaking for the characters make the story seem more like a play. A truly wonderful play.
The images that are conjured up by George Saunders are so vivid ,heartbreaking , and comical at the same time. This book found me when I was beginning my journey of grief over the sudden loss of my 35 year old disabled daughter. The scene in the beginning where the spirit of Willy is standing with his father with his arm around his him comforting him gave me comfort and made me feel that my daughter was sitting close to me with her arm around me.
It also gave me a glimmer of hope that if President Lincoln could endure this terrible loss and go on eventually with his life maybe so could I. It's been 6 months now and I've listened to the book gradually during these months and just finished it tonight. This book has been one of the most important pieces of my healing. My deepest thanks to George Saunders for this precious gift.
Betty Reardon Vance

178 people found this helpful

Not Great in Audio

I love George Saunders' stories, but I couldn't manage to get through more than 30 minutes of this audiobook. Having never seen it in hardcopy, I can only assume large parts of it are printed in snippets, perhaps with offset bits of text, each with in-line citations, which, when read aloud, makes the audiobook version interminable. The audio-narrative is staccato and hard to follow. As I said - I couldn't get through more than 30 minutes of it. Perhaps later in the book, it becomes more of a narrative stream? I don't know ... looking forward to the hardcopy, abandoning the audiobook.

10 people found this helpful

Creative

I enjoyed the creativity of this book. I did not enjoy the constant interruptions citing references.

28 people found this helpful

Provocative and engaging...

Listening to this novel is highly recommended.

It is a provocative, well-told, engaging story. It was written to be read aloud.

Listening to it brings the characters to life - the life after they died – and enables us to reflect on our own lives and on our own choices we have made and are making while there is still time left.

And what better period in history for George Saunders to write about than one that resembles the 1860s.

Saunders give us the pleasure of a beautifully written, emotionally charged story needed for the tumultuous times we're living -- muddling-- through.

Sean Gresh

8 people found this helpful

Utterly beautiful

For some time at the beginning I felt a little lost, but the writing was so beautiful and the narrations so compelling, I stuck with it. Eventually the fog lifted and I came to (somewhat) understand the activities in this netherworld. It seemed like maybe Richard Brautigan stumbled into "Our Town" tossing strange, deep, poetic, goof balls throughout.

6 people found this helpful