As it turns out, it was also lucky for them. For Saunders manages to be, of all things, a kind satirist, and he finds that he kind of likes these would-be macho defenders of all things American; he considers them nice guys. He enjoys their company, even as he tosses their illusions and delusions into his Osterizer and punches frappe.
"Suddenly, weirdly, I find my eyes tearing up: How many times, through the long centuries of life on Earth, has one group of men sneaked armed into the woods, hoping to surprise a second group not expecting them? And where has this gotten us? I feel sad for whomever we might catch (some little family even now timidly approaching us in the dark?) and sad for the Minutemen, plodding forward like ghosts doomed to hunt That Which Causes Them Anxiety through all eternity."
That's from "The Great Divider," one of the reportage-leaning essays in Saunders' "The Braindead Megaphone." The other here-I-am piece, "The New Mecca," is a dizzying, near-psychedelic trip to the Disneyesque land of Dubai, where our quivering correspondent at one point finds himself, improbably and uproariously, staying in a seven-star (yep) hotel without access to funds. Saunders' manic, panicked frenzy is an instantly classic postmodern update of the guy-who-can't-find-his-wallet bit.
The title essay is a hard think about information streaming - on just what is being blasted through our heads 24/7: "Is some of our media very stupid? Hoo boy. Does stupid, near-omnipresent media make us more tolerant toward stupidity in general? It would be surprising if it didn't."
The standout is "The United States of Huck," as complete, and as heartfelt, and as wise an introduction to that greatest of American novels as you're likely to find anywhere:
"America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it is the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at iniquity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get to where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies."
I've long thought of essays as alcoves, hidey-holes where you can pay a visit to someone else's mind. But I think now, after an extraordinary year featuring stunning collections by Rebecca Solnit, Joan Acocella and now Saunders, with Umberto Ecco and Houghton Mifflin's annual "Best American Essays" - 2007 is edited by David Foster Wallace - still to come, they're more like promontories on which you can stand, take a deep breath and peer out at the world through another's presbyopic eyes. When the air is clear, you can see to the horizon. And somehow, beyond.
- Arthur Salm
