George Saunders is one of the modern masters of the short story, and his one previous endeavor in the longer form of the novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, is a masterpiece that earned him the Booker Prize in 2017. His second novel, the slight fable Vigil, is just as clever and whimsical and creative, and ultimately a huge disappointment.
Jill Blaine is a spirit, maybe an angel, although I don’t know the hierarchy well enough to say what sort, who is visiting the nearly dead fossil fuel executive KJ Boone on his deathbed and confronting him with the havoc he has wrought on the planet through his successful career in industry. She can do this by revisiting memories upon him, although he will get more of this from his daughter when she visits, as well as some other phantoms, including a never-named French inventor and two former corporate cronies who seem very much like the Marley & Marley of the story. There is no traditional arc of redemption here; Boone will die, and we’ll see how much he’s able to even accept complicity in the destruction of the planet, while Blaine herself has some accepting to do around her death at the hands of her husband’s nemesis.
I wanted to like Vigil, because I have liked everything I’ve read by Saunders, and in interviews he comes across as an earnest humanist and someone deeply in love with the craft of writing. This book ain’t it, to put it mildly. Lincoln had its heart at the center of the book, while Vigil has its heart on its sleeve and can’t stop showing it to you. The characters are not that interesting, even though Saunders makes a real effort to give Boone some depth, while creating some moral complexity by pointing out how much of modern life is possible because of the exploitation of the planet’s petroleum. There’s more gravity here in Boone’s life story, the kind of look back that’s a common trope in fiction from Citizen Kane to The Late George Apley, than there is in the attempt to get some sort of deathbed conversion from him, and that leaves the book feeling maudlin rather than meaningful. What exactly was the point of the exercise here? Are we to empathize with Boone, who had agency and used his resources to debase the planet and silence opposition, if he has a brief moment of clarity before dying? It’s a slice of life story, or perhaps a slice of death, but in the end leaves us no wiser than we were when we began. For a writer of Saunders’ talent and stature to push this wisp of a story into the world, and to do so as his second novel in the wake of a first one that remains one of the best novels of this century, is more confusing than anything that happens in the book itself.
Next up: Changing it up with Anthony Horowitz’ Close to Death.
One of my English professors at Emory turned me onto Saunders right around 1999/2000. Some of his early stuff was so funny and different than anyone else writing. (I credit the professor with several other literary introductions as well) But, as Saunders grew in popularity, I found, as the kids say, I began to vibe with him less and less. I’ve held off reading this and your review doesn’t make me want to push this towards the top of the pile.