Vigil by George Saunders attempts to be profound without actually saying much at all.
As with all my reviews, I’ll be objective about the writing technicalities, and specify where I feel something is valid but not to my taste. My final rating will be an average of my objective score and my personal opinion.
The only spoilers are in the final section, discussion_points.
So what is it?
short_synopsis
A ghostly figure is tasked with comforting an oil billionaire as he lies on his deathbed.
plot
It’s a short book at 172 pages, but even so, there’s not much plot to speak of. It touches on topics such as climate change, fate, agency, regrets, and judgement, but only lightly.
The ghostly main character listens as the tycoon tries to decide whether he should feel regret or not for prioritising his wealth over the wellbeing of the planet. The majority of people will immediately have a clear answer to that question; I get into it in greater depth in the spoiler-filled discussion_points section below.
Other ghosts make appearances without greatly impacting events. Mostly, they interact with the main ghost, who has a subplot of her own that doesn’t feed into the main storyline as I’d expected and feels superfluous.
people
The oil billionaire is lying in bed, dying, from the very beginning, which means everything we learn about him comes from exposition. It’s the least satisfying method of providing character information, and there’s not much beyond the cliché of selfish billionaire.
The main ghostly character is slightly more engaging. The story is told from her point of view, and she flits about having different interactions that tell us some things about her, but not much. It feels like she’s an intentionally blank canvas so as not to judge the dying man; a main character without much to do, or an opinion about what is happening, is inevitably dull.
place
There’s very little in the way of worldbuilding. The story is centred in and around the bedroom where the tycoon is dying, with occasional visits to random places and a wedding next door (no, I don’t know why).
prose
None of the character speech in this book is in quotation marks, which is a stylistic choice I didn’t like in Orbital by Samantha Harvey, and I like it even less here. I can’t see any positive for the reader: there were numerous occasions where it was difficult to discern who was speaking, or even if a conversation was continuing or had finished; and I find it keeps readers at a distance, making it more difficult to connect with the characters.
It might be easier for an author when drafting, particularly if their process is to write a stream of consciousness, but it could (I’d argue should) be fixed in editing.
Had the punctuation been more classical, I would have enjoyed the writing far more. Instead, I disliked it so much, I went through my wishlist and removed any other books that use this style.
I find it difficult to ignore that annoyance because it impacted almost every page, but putting it aside, the writing otherwise was brisk and mildly amusing.
conclusion
With such a short book, and when what little story there is revolves entirely around debatable topics, the feeling the reader is left with will usually be determined by their opinion on those topics. Occasionally, someone’s mind may be changed, but that happens less than many authors would like to believe.
I’m not sure who I’d recommend this to. Perhaps if you haven’t thought at all about any of the topics covered, and enjoy descriptive writing with obtuse grammar, you might like this. Otherwise, the relatively short time it takes to read this would be better spent reading half of a different book.
My score: 2 out of 5
discussion_points(SPOILERS)
Climate change is of course one of the main themes of this book, without any debate about whether or not it’s real. I didn’t have any problem with that, not only because I think there’s enough evidence to prove it is real, but because this book wasn’t focussed on what had been done, or why, or what can be done about it. It’s more interested in whether the oil tycoon should regret his actions, and whether he should be judged by others for them.
The oil tycoon is presented as someone who knew he was causing damage to the environment but decided to do it anyway. Indeed, he deliberately suppressed evidence that made him look bad and actively promoted lies that supported oil use.
He does admit that he did those things with the full knowledge it would benefit himself to the detriment of others. Rather than feeling regret, he wonders whether he should feel regret.
I remain unconvinced that people in his position would make a similar admission, even to themselves, even on their deathbed. It requires a level of self awareness and self reflection many of them seem incapable of, or they surely would never have got where they are.
One idea repeated regularly in the book is that people can’t help who they are or the choices they make – they are the result of their genetics and upbringing. It was inevitable. This comes across as the author making an excuse for the tycoon.
I fundamentally and firmly disagree.
Yes, we are born into certain situations which may limit options available to us. Yes, our parents, peers, the media, and our surroundings influence our outlooks and beliefs.
But, when we get older, we have the ability to think on our own. We can educate ourselves beyond what we were taught as children, and every day we can choose our values and how we choose to act.
This is especially true for people who have wealth and influence.
The tycoon in this story apparently didn’t have anyone telling him how to behave, not when he was making these big decisions that would impact others, and he could have chosen the path that was better for all rather than what was best for himself. That he didn’t is entirely down to him.
The main ghostly character refuses to judge the tycoon. Whilst I don’t think people should be judged too harshly, if at all, for choices that aren’t really choices, given the position they may be in, in this situation, given the position the tycoon was in, I can and will judge him with the utmost severity.
Personally, I don’t think forgiveness should be given without repentance. If someone isn’t sorry, there’s no reason for them to seek forgiveness anyway.
We can move on so we aren’t always harbouring negative feelings, but if we forgive and forget, there’s no incentive for the person to change, and there’s every chance the actions will continue or repeat ad infinitum.
A list of the book reviews posted to my blog is here.
Arrowmaker Books 