Lincoln in the Bardo

Author: George Saunders

Just when I thought I'd seen it all, there’s another crazy writer's artifice that pops up from an unexpected corner. First let’s get a definition out of the way. Bardo is apparently a Tibetan word that refers to the intermediate state between death and re-incarnation. 

Willie Lincoln, the third son of Abraham Lincoln died unexpectedly at the age of 11 from Typhoid. He was temporarily interred at the Oak Hill cemetery where apparently President Lincoln visited him a couple of times. Out of this little thread of story, George Sanders weaves a magical tale that is told by no less than 166 ghosts who are in the bardo. The beauty of this setting is that George is able to summon a huge cast of characters who must have been present during Lincoln’s time to provide us with a good rendering of what life must have been like then. 

If this was set as a conventional novel, he would have had to create a whole lot of fictional settings to bring these 166 characters together. However, using his bardo trick, he is able to have them all at his beck and call. They are a varied bunch and do come from all walks of life. Since most of them have been plucked out of their lives, it is interesting to learn about how each of them died.

It seemed like some of them had been in the bardo for a long period of time. I couldn’t quite figure out what triggered their re-incarnation, but did see that it was punctuated by the “matterlightblooming” phenomenon.  All of this serves as a backdrop for President Lincoln’s grieving over his loss and the influence of the varied cast of characters in the bardo have on him.