Lincoln in the Bardo, A Review

by Pa Rock
Reader

(In Tibetan Buddhism, the Bardo is a state of existence between death and rebirth varying in length according to a person's conduct in life and manner of, or age at, death.)

William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln was eleven-years-old when he passed away in the White House after suffering a protracted bout of typhoid fever.  His younger brother, Tad, also had the fever but survived.  Willie's funeral was at the White House and he was then temporarily interred  in the Carroll family vault at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown.  The Lincoln family anticipated  eventually interring Willie at a cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.  When Abe Lincoln was murdered three years later, Willie's casket accompanied that of his father on the train to their final resting place in Illinois.

Willie Lincoln reportedly had an exuberant personality and appeared to be the favored child of both parents.  His death seems to have hastened Mary Lincoln's slide into mental distress, and it had a pronounced emotional impact on his father.

In his novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders presents a fictionalized account of how Willie Lincoln's death might possibly have influenced the course of social advancement in the United States.

The "bardo" envisioned by George Saunders was the Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown where Willie was laid to rest.   By day it was just an ordinary cemetery whose oldest burial dated back to the Revolutionary War, but by night it was a spirit-infested gathering place for many of the tormented souls whose bodies were interred there.  The spirits would rise from their graves at dusk and spend the nighttime visiting among themselves and re-living their past lives, often giving the same speeches night after night.  When daylight approached they went back underground and rested in their "sick boxes" with eyes closed so that they did not see the putrid remains that stayed within the boxes

The residents of the cemetery or bardo did not realize they were dead.   Many knew that they had been brought to this place while convalescing in their "sick boxes" by multitudes of relatives and friends.  The boxes had been buried, with the patients inside, and the arrivals waited patiently for their loved ones to return or for their circumstances to change.   There was something beyond, and occasionally people would explode in a burst of light and noise and move to the next destination, but most were afraid of that transition and struggled to remain where they were.  Infants and young children usually left immediately, but older individuals would either grow tired and disillusioned and give up, or they would be talked into leaving by visiting apparitions - or they reluctantly stayed put.

Things began to change when young Willie Lincoln arrived at the cemetery.   Willie's spirit was sitting atop the Carroll family vault the night after his funeral, and the adult spirits were assuming that he would soon be taking flight to the next place, but then something odd happened.  Willie's father showed up at the cemetery riding a horse so short that the rider's feet almost touched the ground.  The father entered the vault, pulled his son's casket out from where it was shelved, opened it and began to mourn his lost son.

The visit was highly unusual and it caught the attention of all of the spirits.  When the President left later that night he said aloud that he would return.  Many of the residents thought that might bring about some changes in their circumstances.

As the tale plays out, Willie and his father have an impact on one another as well as on the spirits of the bardo, and some of those spirits manage to impart their thoughts into the mind of Abraham Lincoln.

The author, George Saunders, has penned a very unique book that draws upon multiple styles of writing.   One reviewer went so far as to state that the author may have engineered a whole new writing genre with this effort.  

Saunder's "bardo," while closely following the Tibetan model, is also somewhat reminiscent of the Grover's Corners Cemetery residents of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," although those envisioned by Saunders sometimes have grotesque appearances that do not resemble their earthly bodies.  The historical depictions, such as one set describing a White House holiday party, are pieced-together snippets from various diaries, historical journals, books, etc, in much the same manner as  those made famous by Ken Burns.  The fictional residents of the bardo also speak in snippets that gradually reveal their past lives and concerns.   

The writing can seem fragmented, but sticking with the award-winning choppy tale results is a most satisfying reading experience.  

I recommend Lincoln in the Bardo without reservation!