What serious reader or writer wouldn’t want to take a master class from George Saunders?

Especially for the price of a regular hardcover book?

Basically, that’s what anyone gets who opens Saunders’ “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.” And that’s good since the subtitle promises it, even though Saunders humbly defers who’s teaching the course: “In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.”

The four Russians are the legendary writers Anton Chekov, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Gogol. 

Saunders is no slouch, either. 

He’s an award-winning writer of finely crafted and profoundly insightful short-story collections such as “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” and “Tenth of December.” He also penned the deeply moving “Lincoln in the Bardo.”

In “Swim,” Saunders greets readers with an explanation that the following pages are similar to a study plan he teaches students in his master class on Russian short stories at Syracuse University. 

The book includes seven short stories by the Russian authors, each translated into English. Each Russian short story is followed by thoughts on the work by Saunders. (For the opening story, Saunders releases a page of the story then offers thoughts after each page.) He offers more general thoughts on writing after each story analysis.

Many readers who enter this book may come away with a couple of general, though startling, realizations: 

One, many may feel they are not reading stories closely enough; even the most astute reader may question their reading retention here, or their abilities of observation or critical reading skills. And that’s OK. A reminder that reading some times should be as challenging as it is entertaining or immediately gratifying is good.

Two, on a few occasions, readers may be surprised they enjoy reading Saunders’ commentary on a short story more than reading the actual short story.    

Three, some readers will vigorously disagree on the meaning of a story that Saunders presents. Reading this book will remind some readers of literature classes past when as a student they gleaned “this” from a book while a teacher insisted that all of the scholars agree the story means “that” while discounting the student’s “this.” Saunders is not that teacher, or at least he doesn’t appear to be in the context of his commentary; however, given “Swim” is a book, readers cannot challenge his views.

While that can be frustrating, Saunders is fascinating in this book. So are the Russian authors.

“A Swim in a Pond in the Rain” is not for every reader, but it is for any reader looking to reevaluate how they read and for any writers wishing to reevaluate how they write.