Lincoln in the bardo

So, the first novel of 2018 is a fact! Although, maybe it wasn't really a novel... I decided to keep up with the Man Booker winners and get started on Lincoln in the Bardo, the 2017 Man Booker winner and the second American novel in a row to do so. The first one, The Sellout, was a huge disappointment, and as this novel had beaten Mohsin Hamid's Exit West (which should have won, really), it had to be pretty good to keep me happy.
At first glance, it was mostly... weird. I'd been somewhat prepared to that due to a review I'd read, but still, it took me a while to 'get' it. The novel starts with someone recounting a pretty silly story, until other voices seem to burst into the conversation, and then the chapter is suddenly finished. The next chapter consists of snippets of (real?) historical sources, all recounting something about Abraham Lincoln. Which in no way has any relation with chapter one. Then more 'talk' from the characters introduced in chapter one, and then more historical sources. Quite puzzeling. And it could have been quite annoying, so much so that I might have put the thing down never to pick it up again, but there is something that kept me reading, something in the style of writing or the events described (everything is described by the characters, it is all dialogue, or rather intertwined monologues).
And as I got into it, a picture started to emerge. I won't give too much away, for the discovery of what is going on is half the joy of reading. But all these characters were so confusing because they didn't realise the position they were in, or were in denial of it. They were unreliable narrators, but unintentionally. And the historical sources were there to give some sort of a frame for the other events, ordered in such a way that they provide the necessary background information for the rest of the story. These 'historical' (I'm still not sure whether these were real sources) texts were pretty reliable, apart from the bit where they all gave Abraham Lincoln different coloured eyes.
The book has over a hundred chapters, but somehow I flew through them, feeling dazed and confused when it was all over. The pacing is somewhat off; the first chapters feel very slow and uneventful, and then suddenly everything is in motion and happening at the same time. The plot is equally unbalanced. Not in an annoying way, but it makes you wonder whether it couldn't have been done differently. There are some truly funny bits, and also some moving bits, with one slightly disturbing image that keeps coming back. The characters are flat as pancakes, but they cannot help themselves, there being so many and them only able to describe events and their own emotions. The style, the combination of monologue and historical sources, and the choice of words and language, is the main selling point.
So the overall verdict? Way, way better than The Sellout. A deserved winner over Exit West? No way. But as an experiment in style and subject matter, it is truly well done. It gives me similar feelings as The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton; a lot of preparatory work went into the 'framework' of that novel as well, and sometimes the story collapses under all that structure. This novel holds up on its own, mostly due to the author's writing style. Apparently, George Saunders said he's never written a novel, and Lincoln in the Bardo shouldn't be considered his first, as it is not a novel at all. I somewhat agree with him, but I also hope he will put his considerable talents towards actually writing a novel soon. That may, in years where there are no other favourite authors to compete, be Man Booker worthy.