The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
| Author | George Saunders |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Political, Satirical |
| Publisher | Riverhead Trade |
Publication date | September 6, 2005 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 130 p. |
| ISBN | ISBN 1594481520 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is short story writer George Saunders’s first full length novel, weighing in at a mere 130 pages. The novel was written at Syracuse University, New York, where Saunders is a creative writing professor.
It is a satire of the Bush administration and policies, creating a surreal fantasy world where people are assembled and disassembled from tuna fish cans and belt buckles, the media talks from mouths under their asses, and kings have multiple white mustaches, which systematically grow in number.
Plot
The story focuses on the border disputes between the countries of Inner and Outer Horner, the former of which is "so small that only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of outer Horner."
Phil, an embittered Outer Hornerite decides that the puny Inner Hornerites do nothing but stand around very close together solving math proofs all day, and have to stretch one at a time every morning, are evil and are a threat to the leisure of the five outer Hornerites, in their spacious nation, and abuse the vast good will that they have bestowed upon by the Outer Hornerites as they stand in the short-term residency zone in Outer Horner where they would wait there turn to enter their country. So Phil, gaining the support of the other Outer Hornerites and hiring two giants as his personal policy enforcers begins to tax the Inner Hornerites for staying in his country of money they do not have. He settles in the end to accept the disassembling, tuna fish cans and belt buckles in all, of the Inner Hornerites as sufficient payment. The story chronicles Phil's tyrannical rise to power and his attempted inner Hornerite genocide. The satire focuses on several contemporary issues: the redundant propagandizing media, corruption, a fickle public, and weakness in the Democratic Party.
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