George Saunders: I’m really not sure, to be honest. Find on Brilliant Booksīrianna Di Monda: You say in the introduction of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain that “our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse” what “these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art-namely, to ask the big questions.” How, to you, has the aim of art evolved since the time of these Russian masters? Why does our time (maybe) no longer fully endorse asking the big questions? This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Saunders kindly agreed to an interview with MAYDAY, during which he discussed the lessons to be learned from embracing the “Shit, I’m Not So Sure Anymore” territory, comparing authors’ lesser works, and trusting our thousands of intuitive decisions as writers. Featuring seven short stories by Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Turgenov, as well as accompanying essays offering close line readings and discoveries made by Saunders and his students over the years, the book shows us how far the Russians went to master the short story form and invites us to interrogate what sells us on those stories. With A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, Saunders’ latest book, these university lessons are imparted upon readers across the country. The goal is to understand the short story itself, to learn how a good story works, and discover what you (as a writer) value in fiction. The course is intended not as a survey of the Russian short story, but rather a way to close-read these giants of literature in order to glean lessons of craft. George Saunders has been a professor for Syracuse’s MFA program since 1997, throughout which he’s taught a class on Russian short stories in translation. There’ve been plenty of books on craft published by acclaimed writers before A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but none have been infused with such belief in the capacity of fiction to change its readers, such revelation of the tricks of the craft, or such empathy for future writers.

A swim on the pond in the rain