![]() ![]() ![]() Slaves are brought together with slave owners, wealthy are brought face to face with the poor and the young with the old. They are brought together by the entry of Will, although they are not in agreement about his ultimate disposition. There are so many characters, including former soldiers, former slaves, criminals, young people, old people, religious people, wealthy people, poor people, good people and bad people. The passages from the in between state are fascinating. The historic passages also offer us a glimpse of the differing perspectives on Lincoln as a man, a father and a President. In this way we learn about the death of Will, the grief of his parents and the struggle President Lincoln felt over the Civil War and resultant loss of life. The book moves back and forth between historic passages and the bardo activities, including life and death recollections. The novel starts out with brief passages from two key gentlemen in the “in between” state, reminiscing about how they got there, then switches to passages from various historic publications ostensibly telling the story of the death of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Will, of typhoid. ![]() ![]() “Lincoln in the Bardo” is simply an extraordinary work of fiction, unlike anything else I have read. “’bardo’ (noun) (in Tibetan Buddhism) 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.” English Oxford Living Dictionaries. ![]()
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