The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

Matthew gave me the latest George Saunders book, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. It's a novella, or possibly more correctly, an allegory. It's very cool, and very odd, and yes frightening. There is, however, no satisfying end, or particular point, to the lesson. Not that I could see. Perhaps the point is that it's very difficult to get it right, that there is no conceivable way of not getting it wrong yet again.

The book also includes In Persuasion Nation. A set of short stories which could be renamed The Long and Appalling Reign of Market Forces. These stories are great, and very, very frightening. They're about the world slightly on from now, but scarily close. A grandfather wants to take his grandchild to see a play but is forced to watch a series of ads for "Personal Preferences" on the way to and from the theatre, downtrodden characters from a series of advertisements rise up in revolt, young people are brought up as an in-house focus group. All very peculiar, but too close to the bone.