Saturday, February 16, 2008

god is a brainless dad

from George Saunders, "The 400-Pound CEO":

I have a sense that God is unfair and preferentially punishes his weak, his dumb, his fat, his lazy. I believe he takes more pleasure in his perfect creatures, and cheers them on like a barinless dad as they run roughshod over the rest of us. He gives us a a need for love, and no way to get any. He gives us a desire to be liked, and personal attributes that make us utterly unlikable. Having placed his flawed and needy children in a world of exacting specifications, he deducts the difference between what we have and what we need from our hearts and our self-esteem and our mental health.

6 comments:

the bres said...

posting from Costa Rica! i bet you didn't see that one coming! this is from saunders' collection "civilwarland in bad disrepair," most of which i read during a very long day of travel yesterday. you can't stop the gallimaufry, though.

the commonwealth said...

"...in bad decline," methinks. Glad hear that Saunders coudl see you through your travels. His Pastoralia did the same thing for me years ago in London.

Po Campo said...

And a good day to you, sir! It's stuff like this that prompted me to make you my "Advance Scout for Life" back '03.

My neighbor loaned me that book and I read the title story. (Eh.) Doing so required me to extinguish my choler from Saunders' New Yorker critique of Borat.

Anyway, I prefer to "in bad disrepair" to "in bad decline."

the commonwealth said...

Then you sir prefer the incorrect to the correct, though to humorous effect. And I see no reason for surprise as this is exactly your approach to women.

Po Campo said...

The incorrect approach to the incorrect women. Bad disrepair run amok.

the bres said...

in completely unrelated news, the hostel i'm in is filled with twenty-somethings staring glossy-eyed for hours at facebook. makes sense, doesn't it? flying to within 200 miles of south america so you can look at pictures of your friends from their last night out at the bar?

of course, perhaps the gallimaufry is no better. but i think george saunders would point out a distinction between pastimes of our own creation and corporate-sponsored simulations of friendship. perhaps this comment is not so unrelated after all?

coming up tonight (maybe)-- the first drunken post, wherein i come home from the bar and find a random page from one of the paperbacks lying around the hostel.