The braindead megaphone. George Saunders 2022-10-12
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The Braindead Megaphone is a collection of essays written by George Saunders and published in 2007. The book is named after the first essay in the collection, in which Saunders compares the media to a "braindead megaphone" that amplifies and distorts the voices and messages of those who use it.
Throughout the book, Saunders explores the role of media in shaping our perceptions and understanding of the world. He discusses how the media can be used to manipulate public opinion and create echo chambers, where people only hear and believe ideas that align with their own views. Saunders also highlights the dangers of this echo chamber effect, arguing that it can lead to a lack of critical thinking and a narrow perspective on important issues.
Saunders also writes about the power of language and how it can be used to shape reality. He argues that words have the ability to create meaning and influence our thoughts and actions. Saunders believes that language has the power to both harm and heal, and that it is important for writers and journalists to use language responsibly and ethically.
In addition to discussing the media and language, Saunders also touches on themes of politics, consumerism, and social justice. He writes about the influence of corporate interests on politics and the ways in which consumerism can distract us from the important issues of the world. Saunders also tackles issues of inequality and injustice, and encourages readers to consider their own role in creating a more just and compassionate society.
Overall, The Braindead Megaphone is a thought-provoking and timely collection of essays that encourages readers to think critically about the role of media in shaping our understanding of the world and to consider their own responsibilities as citizens and consumers.
The Braindead Megaphone Quotes by George Saunders
Then I was pretty confused by the Dubai essay The New Mecca - I'm not sure if I misunderstood it but his take on Dubai seemed not very Saunders-like to me?! The best stuff in it besides maybe the reportage stuff he did for GQ in Dubai, Nepal, and along the U. A fairly simple sentiment; but the implications of wh I thought this collection was going to kick so much ass, because the first story was so witty and in-your-face. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Emblazoned with his trademark wit and singular vision, Saunders's endeavor into the art of the essay is testament to his exceptional range and ability as a writer and thinker. From the 1 New York Timesbestsellingauthor of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardoand the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia.
Original music by Isaac Jones. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. Whenever someone seems so singularly brilliant, in any field, I forget they're just one person who doesn't possess all the answers. An Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone. It was Saunders who received backlash and questions for asserting on national television that we ought to be kinder to Donald Trump. Taken as a whole, the collection exhorts us all to reflect more and to challenge the forces that would keep us fragmented and fearful--not a bad message, I'd say. Yes, give this one a go, why not : This is, hands down, the worst book of essays that I have ever read.
He spots a yellow quiff on the horizon though he can't quite make out its owner. This happened several years ago, and I vaguely remember it being reported in the media. Not politically or religiously, but radical in his everyday posture that insists we all lose when we choose to remain guarded, cold, and sequestered. Great to get more insight into Saunders' style and his teaching method. One really awesome moment of symmetry, maybe, comes later in the book, where Saunders is reporting on a demonstration in Texas between the Minutemen and the Unión de Trabajadores del Suroeste, in which the latter have megaphones of their own and are chanting loud enough for the former's own "Deport them now! As an essayist, Saunders is engaging and conversational, and not afraid to interrogate his own assumptions for example, when meeting the border-patrolling Minutemen in "The Great Divider," or when observing Ram Bahadur Bomjon in "Buddha Boy". Perhaps the most conventional essay here, and one of the most powerful, is the title piece that opens the collection. There are nuggets of insight, but I found my mind wandering.
One day, the Gappers decided for a good reason to concentrate on Capable's goats. We adore artistic stylings of coldness, distance, and soft-elitism. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. Totally worth it, but maybe best not to read it all at one time. A lot of them are okay. Dubai, through a ton of oil money, has grown into an oddly capitalist and touristy city in the middle of the desert.
"The Braindead Megaphone" by George Saunders Essay Example
. . Allow his playfulness to wash over your disbelief and he'll enamor you with his words. Smart, sharp, compassionate and sly, George Saunders is not to be missed. Two of the best journalists of the last 50 years are Norman Mailer and David Foster Wallace; their literary nonfiction is jaw-droppingly good, the equal of their fiction.
‎The Ezra Klein Show: George Saunders on the ‘Braindead Megaphone’ That Makes Our Politics So Awful on Apple Podcasts
Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the reader across the rocky political landscape of modern America. This braindead tendency is viral and manifests intermittently; while it is the blood in the veins of some of our media figures, it flickers on and off in others. . The necessity of profit is now assumed for our mass-media activities. Plus, as a fan of edgy and strange work, I'm thrilled that a guy like Saunders is out there, serving as a gateway of sorts between mainstream society and an entire rabbithole of basement-press bizarro titles that's just waiting for newly inspired fans to tumble down. Publisher Riverhead The title essay of George Saunders' non-fiction collection The Braindead Megaphone calmly and clearly rails against broadcast news' abject failure to keep the public properly informed. The discussion was so perfunctory and the style such poorly adapted Vonnegut that I felt insulted that I was even expected to finish it which I did, assuming that, surely, it had to get better.
The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders, Paperback
Not the case for Saunders. It is, in a sense, a holy impulse. Skip the rest, you won't miss anything. The key to Saunders, and something I find absent in many writers I admire, is how optimism-forward he is. Allow his playfulness to wash over your disbelief and he'll enamor you with his words. . They exist side by side in every American and every American action.
So I had never read GS before, neither his fiction nor non-fiction, and DFW is a hard act to follow, let me tell you. Not exactly novel suggestions. Harnessing indignation and making it funny, showing a world turned on its head and suggesting that instead of all of us standing on our heads to make sense of it, we should flip the world over. In war, love is outed as an insane, insupportable emotion, a kind of luxury emotion, because everywhere you look, someone beloved to someone is being slaughtered, by someone whose own beloved has been slaughtered, or will be, or could be. He begins by illustrating a scene in which a man disrupts a party and drowns out all voices with a megaphone. But those are all small quibbles, of course; Saunders' bread and butter is in his short fiction, and I'm convinced that he will eventually be known as one of the best short-fiction authors in history, joining a surprisingly small list that includes such luminaries as Cheever, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, GK Chesterton and more.
There are some terrific pieces - the title essay, in particular, is a tour de force. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. As it turns out, these comparisons are a crime. Ultimately, an excess of cleverness marred 'In Persuasion Nation' for me, and the same is true of this collection. The state of things is almost always what you make of things. I still l This book is like a summary of how I feel about George Saunders: sometimes hilarious, insightful, moving, surprising, and sometimes just gimmicky and self-indulgent and annoying.
The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders: 9781594482564
While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. While there, Saunders is both thrilled and disgusted by the sense of opulence that divides rich and poor. The key to Saunders, and something I find absent in many writers I admire, is how optimism-forward he is. His piece The United States of Huck: Introduction to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was excellent. A fairly simple sentiment; but the implications of which I believe have important and troubling political and social effects. He contends that we are products of what the media presents to us, and that there is little intellect remaining in our society.
