Another collection of short stories, this time by George Saunders, in the form of Liberation Day. It’s been illuminating reading some reviews of Liberation Day, seeing what other people have taken from it. There’s a presumption of a deliberate thematic link, of the destruction of the systems around us and how we react. Sure, I guess. What struck me as a more prominent theme was the discomfort of wanting something, the guilt of desiring, the self-correction and reasoning. In The Mom Of Bold Action, the protagonist talks herself up into frenzies of revenge fantasies before talking herself down, down, deeper and down into self-flagellating forgiveness, a constant course correction and inability to find the medium. Some stories are perhaps a bit too on the nose - see Love Letter, barely disguising its Trump allegory. Some stories are perhaps not on the nose enough - the title story meanders through its premise of brainwashed people being used as programmable storytellers for 60 odd pages without ever quite letting you parse what, if any, subtextual point is being made. The same basic premise reoccurs throughout, of people with memories wiped and forced into vaguely spec-fic scenarios, offering little additional value. The writing is a ride, but I remain unsure of the destination.