George Saunders

In a piece of writing, truth is what works.

So if a certain, and of course it's all by your standards as the writer, but if a certain part of the prose comes alive, there's truth in it.

Yeah, I know people like that too.

And I've heard it described as basic sanity.

Like, are you in relation to what actually is that?

Yeah, I'm not sure I feel that question.

No, I mean, it's got a concept thing that I don't, so I think if you could put anybody in this book in that bed, you know, but I think the reason it's him is because he's almost cartoonishly sinful.

You know, he's done some, and I just, you know, I was back in maybe 2022, there was a,

a string of weather disasters, you know, and I was watching it.

It was funny.

Like, what would a climate change denier make of this?

Could they still say nothing's happening?

So it's really just an attempt to put somebody exaggeratedly, quote unquote, evil into the book and let the world work on him.

So I don't know.

A person's ability in a given moment to be open to what's actually happening.

Yeah.

Oh, I think it's beautiful.

There's no problem.

It's the...

The thing that makes him problematic is that he did that with something under his cloak.