Notes on Lincoln in the Bardo

The book is fantastic in its storytelling. I enjoyed it and I thought I’d jot a few notes before I put it back on the shelf. I won’t repeat a bunch of overview pieces. I’m sure Wikipedia already has done a good job of that.

Saunders weaves a magical world out of the historical fact that Lincoln visited his dead child in the crypts twice. That’s it. A grieving father, the President, went to see the body of his dead child. A collection of quotes that describe the facts around Willie’s illness amidst an extravagant party. The quotes are from real non fiction describe the illness, death, burial, impact on the family, reactions to Lincoln’s management of the war.

The book is written like dialogue in a play with dramatic point of view. We’re a fly on the wall of a cemetery in Washington, DC. Well, that’s not all is it. We’re not only a fly in the wall in our dimension, the characters are in the Bardo. A world the Buddhists define to be between death and the next life. It seemed like it was a place a spirit persisted when it was not prepared to move forward to the next life. Basically, I thought of it as were ghosts live though the author never uses the word ghost.

There are an array of characters that inhabit the book. The main ones are:

1. Lincoln at the onset of the civil war.
2. Willie Lincoln who dies
3. Roger Bevins III - ghost killed himself when rejected by a lover (also male)
4. Hans Vollman - ghost died lusting for his young wife
5. The Reverend Everly Thomas - ghost; always frightened. Face of terror.

It’s worth noting that the ghosts seem to reflect the focus of their lives when they died. Vollman has a giant penis. Bevins erupts in eyes. The Reverend full of fear.

Death and What’s a good life?

Throughout the book we get to peer into many different lives. Many of the ghosts come and tell their stories. Normal stories of normal lives. Full of suffering, loss, fleeting joys.

It begs the question, is Saunders saying anything about what a good life is and what it isn’t. Children, including Willie, are seen to be good. Or at least innocent. This being the main reason they don’t spend much time (tarry) in the Bard if at all.

I think Willie is there because he is so attached to his life, his father. Sufficiently long that he is at risk of being there forever as the carapace forms around him. And it’s this carapace that is composed of many lives, being in a different world. Some form of hell that seems well deserved. One killed a child, another sexually abused one, another killed a regiment of soldiers, and her husband. These seem like clear violations of a good life. Hence eternity in hell.

But, it’s not always so clear. That the Reverend sacrifices so much is surely good, but (spoiler here) he seems headed for the other place too. God is apparently capricious. And who is responsible? Where does the proverbial buck ultimately stop for a bad deed? The Reverend is horrified at the passive acceptance to sin. But the question of free will lingers.

Race

Race seems to persist even in the Bardo. You also hear stories of suffering from the black ghosts. Stories of abuse, rape, humiliation. You start to get a sense of what the civil war is about.

The Source of Lincoln’s Resolve to Fight and Win the War

Many people, even in the north, are not convinced the bloodshed is worth it. Not for the sake of the Negroes.

From the death of his son, Lincoln sees the universality of death.

His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it. (p303-304)

This gives him the resolve to wage war even if there is great death. I think this is because he also sees the importance of a way of life that makes death meaningful. He comes to see what the war is about.

Did the thing merit it. Merit the killing. On the surface it was a technicality (mere Union) but seen deeper, it was something more. How should men live? How could men live? Now he recalled the boy he had been (hiding from Father to read Bunyan; raising rabbits to gain a few coins; standing in town as the gaunt daily parade drawled out the hard talk hunger made; having to reel back when one of those more fortunate passed merrily by in a carriage), feeling strange and odd (smart too, superior), long-legged always knocking things over, called named (Ape Lincoln, Spider, Ape-a-ham, Monstrous-Tall), but also thinking, quietly, there inside himself, that he might someday get something for himself. And then, going out to get it, he had found the way clear—his wit was quick, people liked him for his bumbling and his ferocity of purpose, and the peach fields and haystacks and young girls and ancient wild meadows drove him nearly mad with their beauty, and strange animals moved in lazy mobs along muddy rivers, rivers crossable only with the aid of some old rowing hermit who spoke a language barely English , and all of it, all of that bounty, was for everyone, for everyone to use, seemingly put here to teach a man to be free, to teach that a man could be free, than any man, any free white man, could come from as low a place as he had…might rise, here, as high as he was inclined to go…. Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself. Well, the rabble could. The rabble would. He would lead the rabble in managing. The thing would be won. (p307-308)

At the end Thomas Havens a former slave ghost decides to take residence in the departing President. He sees the President taking resolve for justice for all of the suffering his people have undergone. He resolves to pass on what he knows to the President through his merged being. p311-312

Letting Go

Lots of the ghosts basically are not willing to move on to the next world. It seems to require them to face judgment for this one. To be either reborn, or else go to heaven or hell. They would also need to acknowledge they were dead that their previous lives were over. That they could do nothing again to regain it.