2000's Literature: 2004-2006
This blog was going in 2006- in the local music era. The book era on the blog didn't happen for years, so I didn't actually read any of the books from this period until 2018/19.
Published 3/6/18
Cloud Atlas (2004)
by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas is the perfect candidate for an audio book library check out: 544 pages long (audio book was 20 hours!), recently published, big international best seller. When it comes to checking out free audio books, you are talking blockbuster/best seller types and public domain classics. The Overdrive app used by the Los Angeles Public Library for Audio book checkouts allows you to speed up the playback up to 2x the original speed, a useful feature for all but the most obtuse books. I find myself speed up and slowing down the narrative as accent and density requires.
Cloud Atlas was a rare genre/popular/critical cross-over. The blend of historical and science fiction is novel, and it is the boldness of the concept, rather than the details of the execution of the prose, that draws the reader along over 500 pages and five different story lines over thousands of years on different continents. The philosophy underlying Cloud Atlas is sprawling, reincarnation is a prominent part of the theme of Cloud Atlas, though not the idea that the goal is release from the cycle of birth and death. Only in the last hour or so of the 20 do any of the major characters start making grand philosophical statements about "what it all means" and when they do they all sound like Herman Hesse.
The movie version, released in 2012, boasted an alleged budget of over 100 million dollars, and famously flopped to a 9 million dollar opening weekend. You can tell, these days, that a theatrical film has well and truly flopped when it comes to Netflix, as is the case for Cloud Atlas. I'd have to say that the movie flop didn't hurt the book, since the mere investment of 100 million dollars in the movie version raised the level of exposure such that Cloud Atlas is still in print, whereas it might not be were it not for the film. Going from Booker Short list to 100 million dollar budget is an achievement worth writing about, even if the movie flopped.
Cloud Atlas (2004)
by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas is the perfect candidate for an audio book library check out: 544 pages long (audio book was 20 hours!), recently published, big international best seller. When it comes to checking out free audio books, you are talking blockbuster/best seller types and public domain classics. The Overdrive app used by the Los Angeles Public Library for Audio book checkouts allows you to speed up the playback up to 2x the original speed, a useful feature for all but the most obtuse books. I find myself speed up and slowing down the narrative as accent and density requires.
Cloud Atlas was a rare genre/popular/critical cross-over. The blend of historical and science fiction is novel, and it is the boldness of the concept, rather than the details of the execution of the prose, that draws the reader along over 500 pages and five different story lines over thousands of years on different continents. The philosophy underlying Cloud Atlas is sprawling, reincarnation is a prominent part of the theme of Cloud Atlas, though not the idea that the goal is release from the cycle of birth and death. Only in the last hour or so of the 20 do any of the major characters start making grand philosophical statements about "what it all means" and when they do they all sound like Herman Hesse.
The movie version, released in 2012, boasted an alleged budget of over 100 million dollars, and famously flopped to a 9 million dollar opening weekend. You can tell, these days, that a theatrical film has well and truly flopped when it comes to Netflix, as is the case for Cloud Atlas. I'd have to say that the movie flop didn't hurt the book, since the mere investment of 100 million dollars in the movie version raised the level of exposure such that Cloud Atlas is still in print, whereas it might not be were it not for the film. Going from Booker Short list to 100 million dollar budget is an achievement worth writing about, even if the movie flopped.
Published 3/15/18
On Beauty (2005)
by Zadie Smith
1001 Books to Read Before You Die was published in 2006, but the cut-off for included titles was 2005, meaning that On Beauty is one of the last books on the first edition list. You'd have to be a cretin to not see the charm in On Beauty, a loose take on Howard's End by E.M. Forster. Smith's version features two families, the first being Howard Belsey, a white Englishman, married to his African-American wife, Kiki. They have three kids, all of whom identify as African American . The other family is the Kipps'- Monty Kipps, a black Englishman and his Afro-Caribbean wife Carlene.
Both patriarchs are professors of art history, Kipps a fashionably (or unfashionably) conservative Christian who has sold a million copies of his Rembrandt treatise and inveighs against affirmative action. Howard, an almost stereotypical post-modernist, an art professor who hates beauty. The lives of them and their children become intertwined when Kipps accepts a visiting professorship at the university where Howard is seeking tenure.
As I said, you'd have to be a cretin not to see the charm in On Beauty, which is more or less what you call a "campus novel" with an incredibly close up focus on the world of faculty tenure. The campus novel has been largely excluded from the 1001 Books list, Smith likely managed to sneak in on the basis of charm and wit. I wasn't totally won over- I regret reading the ebook version. On Beauty clocks in at around 450 pages in print, and I've come to the conclusion that 300 pages is optimal, and any ebook over 350 pages turns into a chore.
I gather that unwieldiness is part of the charm of Zadie Smith. I'm interested to read more of her books, but I'm not sure that On Beauty would be the one I would recommend to a would-be reader.
On Beauty (2005)
by Zadie Smith
1001 Books to Read Before You Die was published in 2006, but the cut-off for included titles was 2005, meaning that On Beauty is one of the last books on the first edition list. You'd have to be a cretin to not see the charm in On Beauty, a loose take on Howard's End by E.M. Forster. Smith's version features two families, the first being Howard Belsey, a white Englishman, married to his African-American wife, Kiki. They have three kids, all of whom identify as African American . The other family is the Kipps'- Monty Kipps, a black Englishman and his Afro-Caribbean wife Carlene.
Both patriarchs are professors of art history, Kipps a fashionably (or unfashionably) conservative Christian who has sold a million copies of his Rembrandt treatise and inveighs against affirmative action. Howard, an almost stereotypical post-modernist, an art professor who hates beauty. The lives of them and their children become intertwined when Kipps accepts a visiting professorship at the university where Howard is seeking tenure.
As I said, you'd have to be a cretin not to see the charm in On Beauty, which is more or less what you call a "campus novel" with an incredibly close up focus on the world of faculty tenure. The campus novel has been largely excluded from the 1001 Books list, Smith likely managed to sneak in on the basis of charm and wit. I wasn't totally won over- I regret reading the ebook version. On Beauty clocks in at around 450 pages in print, and I've come to the conclusion that 300 pages is optimal, and any ebook over 350 pages turns into a chore.
I gather that unwieldiness is part of the charm of Zadie Smith. I'm interested to read more of her books, but I'm not sure that On Beauty would be the one I would recommend to a would-be reader.
Published 3/20/18
The Master (2004)
by Colm Tóibín
I genuinely I got more out of The Master by listening to the audio book than I would have if I read the book itself. If ever there was an author who needs a little help to "come alive" for contemporary readers such as myself, it is Henry James, to whom the title refers. The Master captures a time in James' life, after the failure of his play on the London stage, when he was taking stock in his life, and most of The Master consists of lengthy recollections by James as he intricately examines past episodes in his life.
Much of what concerns James in his recollections is his obsession with the hidden self and the manner in which his personal reticence, particularly as it relates to his relationship with his deceased sister, Alice, and the novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson, who perhaps killed herself after being abandoned by James in Venice. James also spends ample time reflecting on the nature of literary fame and fortune- including the opening chapters featuring the failure of his play, and a late encounter with his brother, famous psychologist and scholar William James, where his brother urges him to write a historical drama that "everyone can understand."
In the hands of Tóibín, Henry James"comes alive" in a way I had previously thought impossible, and it left me looking forward to revisiting his books on my way back through the canon. The Master is also the second book, chronologically, on the "core" list. I fully agree with that decision. The Master by Colm Tóibín
The Master (2004)
by Colm Tóibín
I genuinely I got more out of The Master by listening to the audio book than I would have if I read the book itself. If ever there was an author who needs a little help to "come alive" for contemporary readers such as myself, it is Henry James, to whom the title refers. The Master captures a time in James' life, after the failure of his play on the London stage, when he was taking stock in his life, and most of The Master consists of lengthy recollections by James as he intricately examines past episodes in his life.
Much of what concerns James in his recollections is his obsession with the hidden self and the manner in which his personal reticence, particularly as it relates to his relationship with his deceased sister, Alice, and the novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson, who perhaps killed herself after being abandoned by James in Venice. James also spends ample time reflecting on the nature of literary fame and fortune- including the opening chapters featuring the failure of his play, and a late encounter with his brother, famous psychologist and scholar William James, where his brother urges him to write a historical drama that "everyone can understand."
In the hands of Tóibín, Henry James"comes alive" in a way I had previously thought impossible, and it left me looking forward to revisiting his books on my way back through the canon. The Master is also the second book, chronologically, on the "core" list. I fully agree with that decision. The Master by Colm Tóibín
Published 3/26/18
Islands (2005)
by Dan Sleigh
Islands was one of the few books from the original edition of the 1001 Books list that was removed, not in the major 2008 revision, but in the minor (11 titles) 2010 revision. Of those 11 titles, only 5 were from the original 2006 list, the rest were from the first major revision in 2008. Two of those five titles- Islands and The Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda come from South Africa, suggesting an over-representation of South Africa in the original list. It is a suggestion made even stronger by the status of J.M. Coetzee as the most represented author on the original list.
Islands was translated from the original Afrikans. Author Dan Sleigh reportedly spent two decades writing this vast historic epic- 750 pages- charting the history of the Dutch East India Company and its employees in Cape Town and the island of Mauritius- which was settled by the Dutch in the 17th century and abandoned early in the 18th century. There is nothing "post-modern" about Islands, which could have been written at any time in the 20th century. Perhaps the most surprising fact about Islands is that a 750 page historical novel about one of the most despised groups in world history could obtain a wide release in both the UK and the United States after being translated out of Afrikaans.
The vast story is told by several different narrators, linked together through the life of Eva, a young girl who belongs to one of the native groups which encountered the Dutch when they arrived at Cape Town. Eva marries a doctor for the East India Company, and give birth to several children. Her daughter, Pietranella, becomes the hinge for the second half of the book, which takes place largely on Mauritius. Many of the most well known figures from early Afrikaans history are depicted with a realism that likely shocked the diminished minority who still hold the early Dutch settler in high regard.
The Dutch settlements in South Africa and Mauritius were a corporate affair in a way that is very different from the way North and South America were settled. In those places, the sovereigns of Empires like Spain, Portugal, England and France maintained a strong presence. In Cape Town, the corporation was the law and the government. The action ends in the early 18th century- a half century before America declares independence, and it becomes clear by the end of Islands that turning over the settlement and population of an overseas colony to a faceless corporation probably wasn't the best choice.
Published 4/9/18
The Lambs of London (2004)by Dan Sleigh
Islands was one of the few books from the original edition of the 1001 Books list that was removed, not in the major 2008 revision, but in the minor (11 titles) 2010 revision. Of those 11 titles, only 5 were from the original 2006 list, the rest were from the first major revision in 2008. Two of those five titles- Islands and The Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda come from South Africa, suggesting an over-representation of South Africa in the original list. It is a suggestion made even stronger by the status of J.M. Coetzee as the most represented author on the original list.
Islands was translated from the original Afrikans. Author Dan Sleigh reportedly spent two decades writing this vast historic epic- 750 pages- charting the history of the Dutch East India Company and its employees in Cape Town and the island of Mauritius- which was settled by the Dutch in the 17th century and abandoned early in the 18th century. There is nothing "post-modern" about Islands, which could have been written at any time in the 20th century. Perhaps the most surprising fact about Islands is that a 750 page historical novel about one of the most despised groups in world history could obtain a wide release in both the UK and the United States after being translated out of Afrikaans.
The vast story is told by several different narrators, linked together through the life of Eva, a young girl who belongs to one of the native groups which encountered the Dutch when they arrived at Cape Town. Eva marries a doctor for the East India Company, and give birth to several children. Her daughter, Pietranella, becomes the hinge for the second half of the book, which takes place largely on Mauritius. Many of the most well known figures from early Afrikaans history are depicted with a realism that likely shocked the diminished minority who still hold the early Dutch settler in high regard.
The Dutch settlements in South Africa and Mauritius were a corporate affair in a way that is very different from the way North and South America were settled. In those places, the sovereigns of Empires like Spain, Portugal, England and France maintained a strong presence. In Cape Town, the corporation was the law and the government. The action ends in the early 18th century- a half century before America declares independence, and it becomes clear by the end of Islands that turning over the settlement and population of an overseas colony to a faceless corporation probably wasn't the best choice.
Published 4/9/18
by Peter Ackroyd
In the United States, Peter Ackroyd is known for his non fiction, particularly his books about London. In the United Kingdom he also has a solid reputation for well-researched historical fiction, often retracing events he has written non-fiction books about in the past. Charles Lamb, the brother of the brother/sister duo to which the title refers, must be close to Ackroyd's heart, since he himself was one of the first "chroniclers" of London life, back in the late 18th century. The events of The Lambs of London revolve around a real life controversy surrounding a young book seller, William Ireland, who claimed to have discovered multiple new works written by William Shakespeare.
The biggest real life event surrounding the Lambs, sister Mary's murder of her mother some years later, is not a subject tackled in this novel, but presumably Ackroyd depends, at some level, on the reader being familiar enough with how the tale ended in the real world to be interested in Mary's increasingly frantic despair as the book move through the otherwise Shakespeare focused plot.
Published 4/9/18
Never Let Me Go (2005)
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go is the last book in the first edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I haven't adhered to a strictly chronological approach, but that is how the books have tend to be read, just because it's easiest that way and requires the least amount of time acquiring the titles. With about 150 books left over, I've still got work to do. Most of the remaining books are either books I read in school or on my own. 20th century fiction, in particular, has whole swathes of books that I skipped over because of prior familiarity. I wasn't even sure I was going to go back and re-read any of those books until recently. Now that I've decided in favor of that executing that task, the chronological end of the list seems less important, but still, 850 plus books. That is something.
I listened to the audio book version on the Overdrive app- many of the audio book versions that have made it online or into mp3 format have done that with the inter cd breaks intact, so that the process of listening to an audio-book on my smartphone involves breaks every 50 minutes or so and a voice intoning "play next disc." Sometimes there is a little swatch of music to accompany the voice, sometimes not. It gives me pause to think of the material wasted in the production of audiobooks on cd, surely the mp3 format is superior.
This is the second Ishiguro novel I've listened to rather than read. The other was Remains of the Day. That is vs. the three Ishiguro novel's I've read; An Artist of the Floating World, The Unconsoled and The Buried Giant. I found the written novels to be difficult, on the other hand, Ishiguro's recursive prose style seemed well suited for the audiobook format. Never Let Me Go, in particular was a great audio book listen. His dive into a particularly Ishiguro-ian parallel universe dystopia, where clones are raised alongside regular humans as a source for organ transplants in late 20th century England rewards the listener, and helps mitigate the slow early portions of the novel, before the reader becomes aware of the true horrors of the world of Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go was both the last book selected and the first book removed from the list in the initial 2008 edition. You would think it might be added back if they ever do a post-Nobel Prize win edition of the book- the last revision was in 2012. On the other hand, Ishiguro continues to write, which raises the possibility of a better book coming out to displace one of his remaining titles.
Never Let Me Go (2005)
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go is the last book in the first edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I haven't adhered to a strictly chronological approach, but that is how the books have tend to be read, just because it's easiest that way and requires the least amount of time acquiring the titles. With about 150 books left over, I've still got work to do. Most of the remaining books are either books I read in school or on my own. 20th century fiction, in particular, has whole swathes of books that I skipped over because of prior familiarity. I wasn't even sure I was going to go back and re-read any of those books until recently. Now that I've decided in favor of that executing that task, the chronological end of the list seems less important, but still, 850 plus books. That is something.
I listened to the audio book version on the Overdrive app- many of the audio book versions that have made it online or into mp3 format have done that with the inter cd breaks intact, so that the process of listening to an audio-book on my smartphone involves breaks every 50 minutes or so and a voice intoning "play next disc." Sometimes there is a little swatch of music to accompany the voice, sometimes not. It gives me pause to think of the material wasted in the production of audiobooks on cd, surely the mp3 format is superior.
This is the second Ishiguro novel I've listened to rather than read. The other was Remains of the Day. That is vs. the three Ishiguro novel's I've read; An Artist of the Floating World, The Unconsoled and The Buried Giant. I found the written novels to be difficult, on the other hand, Ishiguro's recursive prose style seemed well suited for the audiobook format. Never Let Me Go, in particular was a great audio book listen. His dive into a particularly Ishiguro-ian parallel universe dystopia, where clones are raised alongside regular humans as a source for organ transplants in late 20th century England rewards the listener, and helps mitigate the slow early portions of the novel, before the reader becomes aware of the true horrors of the world of Never Let Me Go.
Never Let Me Go was both the last book selected and the first book removed from the list in the initial 2008 edition. You would think it might be added back if they ever do a post-Nobel Prize win edition of the book- the last revision was in 2012. On the other hand, Ishiguro continues to write, which raises the possibility of a better book coming out to displace one of his remaining titles.
Published 4/17/18
Celestial Harmonies (2004)
by Peter Esterhazy
This 850 page monster by the scion of one Hungary's most famous aristocratic families is one of those English translations which works better in the UK, where the Esterhazy family name holds some actual clout among the cultural elite, than the US, where most people think Hungary is what happens when you don't eat, and the pedigrees of ancient European royalty function best as punch lines.
To be sure, the Esterhazy family got a raw deal of it when the Communists took over Hungary, but they handled it with aplomb, at least as depicted in this book. In true European fashion, Celestial Harmonies is divided into two 400 page parts. The first part, written as numbered paragraphs, are various observations about different members of the Esterhazy family line, stretching back in time to the origins of the family. He includes entire portions of other books- actual entire pages of The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme- which he acknowledges both before and after the main text.
The second half of Celestial Harmonies is a more or less conventional work of biographical fiction about the experience of Esterhazy's father under Communism. Compared to similar stores about people living through Russian, Chinese and Cambodian versions of this same transition, the Esterhazy's had an easy time of it and to his credit, Esterhazy doesn't try overmuch to enlist the sympathy of the reader for his poor dad.
Celestial Harmonies (2004)
by Peter Esterhazy
This 850 page monster by the scion of one Hungary's most famous aristocratic families is one of those English translations which works better in the UK, where the Esterhazy family name holds some actual clout among the cultural elite, than the US, where most people think Hungary is what happens when you don't eat, and the pedigrees of ancient European royalty function best as punch lines.
To be sure, the Esterhazy family got a raw deal of it when the Communists took over Hungary, but they handled it with aplomb, at least as depicted in this book. In true European fashion, Celestial Harmonies is divided into two 400 page parts. The first part, written as numbered paragraphs, are various observations about different members of the Esterhazy family line, stretching back in time to the origins of the family. He includes entire portions of other books- actual entire pages of The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme- which he acknowledges both before and after the main text.
The second half of Celestial Harmonies is a more or less conventional work of biographical fiction about the experience of Esterhazy's father under Communism. Compared to similar stores about people living through Russian, Chinese and Cambodian versions of this same transition, the Esterhazy's had an easy time of it and to his credit, Esterhazy doesn't try overmuch to enlist the sympathy of the reader for his poor dad.
Published 4/18/18
Saturday (2005)
by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan is an author who immediately challenges the "Early/Middle/Late" principle of 3 works for any author in the literary canon. Saturday is the last of seven books he place in the first edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. Since 1001 Books was published in 2006, he's published six more novels, one of which (On Chesil Beach, 2007) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has yet another novel coming out this year, which would seem to indicate that there is no clear point at which to demarcate the periods of McEwan's writing except for the beginning.
As far as the beginning goes, The Cement Garden, 1978, which is his first published novel, makes a great choice. None of his other early books clearly surpasses it, and it was published first, so pick that one. The next question is, what is the cut-off point for mid-period Ian McEwan, and of course, here the difficulties begin. At least setting the boundary between early and middle should be possible.
I think the proper dividing line is Black Dogs (1992) and Enduring Love (1997). Enduring Love is the first book that really explores his mid-period combination of the exquisite workings of fate with specialized medical and scientific knowledge wielded for good and/or evil by a troubled protagonist. Picking a middle period representative is pretty easy, probably Atonement (2001), which is his best seller, his most famous and maybe his best book as well. It's the cut off for the middle period where his continued productivity causes problems.
It could be anywhere, really, On Chesil Beach, his last book to be nominated for a major literary prize, makes a certain amount of sense, or the next book, Solar (2010). The late period representative is impossible to determine. Cutting out the other five books brings his 1001 Books total down to two, which seems about right for a truly representative canon.
Saturday, then, is a cut. It is squarely inside his middle period, about a single day in the life of a neurosurgeon who has a chance encounter with a Huntington's disease suffering cockney gangster in a fender bender caused by Iraqi war protestors. The liberal use of brain surgeon language makes Saturday an ideal Kindle read- being able to touch a particular term and bring up the Wikipedia page before progressing was invaluable in this case, and you can count on McEwan for a reasonable length for all of his books.
Saturday (2005)
by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan is an author who immediately challenges the "Early/Middle/Late" principle of 3 works for any author in the literary canon. Saturday is the last of seven books he place in the first edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. Since 1001 Books was published in 2006, he's published six more novels, one of which (On Chesil Beach, 2007) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has yet another novel coming out this year, which would seem to indicate that there is no clear point at which to demarcate the periods of McEwan's writing except for the beginning.
As far as the beginning goes, The Cement Garden, 1978, which is his first published novel, makes a great choice. None of his other early books clearly surpasses it, and it was published first, so pick that one. The next question is, what is the cut-off point for mid-period Ian McEwan, and of course, here the difficulties begin. At least setting the boundary between early and middle should be possible.
I think the proper dividing line is Black Dogs (1992) and Enduring Love (1997). Enduring Love is the first book that really explores his mid-period combination of the exquisite workings of fate with specialized medical and scientific knowledge wielded for good and/or evil by a troubled protagonist. Picking a middle period representative is pretty easy, probably Atonement (2001), which is his best seller, his most famous and maybe his best book as well. It's the cut off for the middle period where his continued productivity causes problems.
It could be anywhere, really, On Chesil Beach, his last book to be nominated for a major literary prize, makes a certain amount of sense, or the next book, Solar (2010). The late period representative is impossible to determine. Cutting out the other five books brings his 1001 Books total down to two, which seems about right for a truly representative canon.
Saturday, then, is a cut. It is squarely inside his middle period, about a single day in the life of a neurosurgeon who has a chance encounter with a Huntington's disease suffering cockney gangster in a fender bender caused by Iraqi war protestors. The liberal use of brain surgeon language makes Saturday an ideal Kindle read- being able to touch a particular term and bring up the Wikipedia page before progressing was invaluable in this case, and you can count on McEwan for a reasonable length for all of his books.
Published 4/23/18
Don't Move (2004)
by Margaret Mazzantini
I surmise that Don't Move, the 2004 novel by Italian author Margaret Mazzantini made a splash- both in her native Italy, where it sold a million copies, and in English translation, but I missed all that, and it came to me as one of those random selections at the end of the original edition of the 1001 Books list. The only copy I could locate was the hard copy, no Kindle or Audiobook for this title.
The plot is something that only makes sense in the context of Europe: A succesful Italian surgeon sits at the bedside of his adolescent daughter in the aftermath of a traumatic scooter accident. As he waits for her to recover (or not) he recounts an affair with a slatternly woman named Italia. They meet, as could only be the case in a French or Italian work of art, when he, the surgeon has car trouble and needs to find a phone to call for help. Italia offers him the use of the phone in her shack, He uses the phone, calls for help, then returns shortly thereafter and violently rapes her. At first consumed with the fear of discovery, he returns to the scene of the crime, rapes her again, and only then realizes that, perhaps, she is into it.
She is, indeed, into it, and their relationship starts as a series of quasi-violent or actually violent sex scenes and evolves into something...else. More would spoil the story, which isn't quite a thriller, but more like a morality tale woven into something resembling a thriller.
Don't Move (2004)
by Margaret Mazzantini
I surmise that Don't Move, the 2004 novel by Italian author Margaret Mazzantini made a splash- both in her native Italy, where it sold a million copies, and in English translation, but I missed all that, and it came to me as one of those random selections at the end of the original edition of the 1001 Books list. The only copy I could locate was the hard copy, no Kindle or Audiobook for this title.
The plot is something that only makes sense in the context of Europe: A succesful Italian surgeon sits at the bedside of his adolescent daughter in the aftermath of a traumatic scooter accident. As he waits for her to recover (or not) he recounts an affair with a slatternly woman named Italia. They meet, as could only be the case in a French or Italian work of art, when he, the surgeon has car trouble and needs to find a phone to call for help. Italia offers him the use of the phone in her shack, He uses the phone, calls for help, then returns shortly thereafter and violently rapes her. At first consumed with the fear of discovery, he returns to the scene of the crime, rapes her again, and only then realizes that, perhaps, she is into it.
She is, indeed, into it, and their relationship starts as a series of quasi-violent or actually violent sex scenes and evolves into something...else. More would spoil the story, which isn't quite a thriller, but more like a morality tale woven into something resembling a thriller.
Published 6/4/18
Dining on Stones (2004)
by Iain Sinclair
Psychogeography would probably be more popular in the United States if it had been developed by writers in New York and Los Angeles. As it is, the Paris and London roots of this contemporary socio-literary movement doom it to a struggle for relevance in the reading rooms of American audiences. Even worse, most of the London based psychogeography is focused on East London, which, if it means anything to most American readers, brings associations of cockney speaking gangsters. Iain Sinclair, one of the foremost proponents of psycho geography, is very focused on East London. In Dining on Stones he moves down the river to the coast, East Sussex, specifically, where his avatar-narrator follows in the footsteps of Joseph Conrad, who famously, and tortuously, wrote Nostromo here.
To quote the Guardian review, Dining on Stones is, "pretty free of plot, if not story." Almost all the book is not-quite-stream of consciousness, with frequent interpositions of pop culture references and literary criticism, mostly focused on the aforementioned Conrad and psychogeography fellow traveler J.G. Ballard. One of the principles I've synthesized out of the psychogeographical texts I've read is attention to the ignored spots in the landscape: Let's have a paragraph about the detritus on the side of a motorway, or the pattern of stains in the parking lot of a petrol station. This attention to the ignored isn't solely the province of psychogeographical writers- I can think of a half dozen photographers with work stretching back a half century who have made careers out of these kind of places- starting with Robert Frank, and attention to place is a frequent feature of succesful literary fiction, but not in the way that Sinclair and his fellows pay attention to place- not the same places.
Dining on Stones (2004)
by Iain Sinclair
Psychogeography would probably be more popular in the United States if it had been developed by writers in New York and Los Angeles. As it is, the Paris and London roots of this contemporary socio-literary movement doom it to a struggle for relevance in the reading rooms of American audiences. Even worse, most of the London based psychogeography is focused on East London, which, if it means anything to most American readers, brings associations of cockney speaking gangsters. Iain Sinclair, one of the foremost proponents of psycho geography, is very focused on East London. In Dining on Stones he moves down the river to the coast, East Sussex, specifically, where his avatar-narrator follows in the footsteps of Joseph Conrad, who famously, and tortuously, wrote Nostromo here.
To quote the Guardian review, Dining on Stones is, "pretty free of plot, if not story." Almost all the book is not-quite-stream of consciousness, with frequent interpositions of pop culture references and literary criticism, mostly focused on the aforementioned Conrad and psychogeography fellow traveler J.G. Ballard. One of the principles I've synthesized out of the psychogeographical texts I've read is attention to the ignored spots in the landscape: Let's have a paragraph about the detritus on the side of a motorway, or the pattern of stains in the parking lot of a petrol station. This attention to the ignored isn't solely the province of psychogeographical writers- I can think of a half dozen photographers with work stretching back a half century who have made careers out of these kind of places- starting with Robert Frank, and attention to place is a frequent feature of succesful literary fiction, but not in the way that Sinclair and his fellows pay attention to place- not the same places.
Published 8/31/18
The Three Body Problem (2006)
by Liu Cixin
This "hard sci fi" classic was translated from the original Chinese into English in 2014. In that guise, it promptly swept that year's English language fantasy/sci fi multiple awards, and just this March, Amazon announced that it is adapting the trilogy into a one billion dollar television version. Even though the original publication date is 2006, the audience is still growing, and the prospect of a future big budget Western television version extends the time horizon for that growth out for years. I believe it would also be the first work of Chinese genre fiction to make it so big in the United States, which is itself a cultural milestone for the integration of Chinese literature into the world canon.
Western reviewers often compare Cixin to canonical genre authors like Asimov and Bradbury, but there is no denying that there is something extra about Cixin, specifically his grasp of the "hard" subjects of science fiction, which still sound as fresh in 2018 as they must have to a Chinese language audience in 2006. Surprisingly to me, The Three Body Problem does not ignore recent Chinese history, with the major "villain" being a victim of the excesses of the cultural revolution against intellectuals. This intriguing backdrop animates the characters, giving The Three Body Problem a depth that is more consistent with literary fiction than genre fiction.
The bare outline of The Three Body Problem is that it is a "first contact" narrative written from a contemporary Chinese point of view, heavy on the actual science of SETI. From a western television perspective, the Cultural Revolution back story seems like an easy fumble, since most Americans simply don't know what happened, period the end. The sensitivities of the current Chinese administration are another level of complexity, but The Three Body Problem trilogy has a status in China that requires official endorsement.
The Three Body Problem (2006)
by Liu Cixin
This "hard sci fi" classic was translated from the original Chinese into English in 2014. In that guise, it promptly swept that year's English language fantasy/sci fi multiple awards, and just this March, Amazon announced that it is adapting the trilogy into a one billion dollar television version. Even though the original publication date is 2006, the audience is still growing, and the prospect of a future big budget Western television version extends the time horizon for that growth out for years. I believe it would also be the first work of Chinese genre fiction to make it so big in the United States, which is itself a cultural milestone for the integration of Chinese literature into the world canon.
Western reviewers often compare Cixin to canonical genre authors like Asimov and Bradbury, but there is no denying that there is something extra about Cixin, specifically his grasp of the "hard" subjects of science fiction, which still sound as fresh in 2018 as they must have to a Chinese language audience in 2006. Surprisingly to me, The Three Body Problem does not ignore recent Chinese history, with the major "villain" being a victim of the excesses of the cultural revolution against intellectuals. This intriguing backdrop animates the characters, giving The Three Body Problem a depth that is more consistent with literary fiction than genre fiction.
The bare outline of The Three Body Problem is that it is a "first contact" narrative written from a contemporary Chinese point of view, heavy on the actual science of SETI. From a western television perspective, the Cultural Revolution back story seems like an easy fumble, since most Americans simply don't know what happened, period the end. The sensitivities of the current Chinese administration are another level of complexity, but The Three Body Problem trilogy has a status in China that requires official endorsement.
Published 10/2/18
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian (2005)
by Marina Lewcyka
Replaced: The Colour (2003) by Rose Tremain (Review April 2018)
I probably would have kept The Colour, Rose Tremain's excellent historical novel about 19th century gold fever in New Zealand, but is also to see what is attractive about A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which is an English language book written by a Ukrainian immigrant to the UK, and deals with elder care issues as well as the issues of immigrant families in a way that is both humorous and sophisticated.
The Short History of the title refers to an always in progress monograph of family patriarch Nikolai, recently widowed by the death of his wife for over half a century, and worried over by his two daughters, Nadezha, the narrator, and her older sister, Vera. The plot is set into motion when Nikolai announces his intention to marry Valentina, a thirty something recent immigrant from the Ukraine. The daughters, who have been nursing a family feud for decades, unite against Valentina and in the process Lewcyka delicately addresses the mixed emotions that confront children with aging parents.
Lewcyka ads further depth to the narrative by including flashbacks from Ukraine, which shaped the development of older sister Vera but were too early for Nadezha to experience. These stories, related by Vera to Nadezha at quiet moments during the events of the anti-Valentina campaign, link Nikolai and his family to the larger, more horrific currents of the 20th century.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian (2005)
by Marina Lewcyka
Replaced: The Colour (2003) by Rose Tremain (Review April 2018)
I probably would have kept The Colour, Rose Tremain's excellent historical novel about 19th century gold fever in New Zealand, but is also to see what is attractive about A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which is an English language book written by a Ukrainian immigrant to the UK, and deals with elder care issues as well as the issues of immigrant families in a way that is both humorous and sophisticated.
The Short History of the title refers to an always in progress monograph of family patriarch Nikolai, recently widowed by the death of his wife for over half a century, and worried over by his two daughters, Nadezha, the narrator, and her older sister, Vera. The plot is set into motion when Nikolai announces his intention to marry Valentina, a thirty something recent immigrant from the Ukraine. The daughters, who have been nursing a family feud for decades, unite against Valentina and in the process Lewcyka delicately addresses the mixed emotions that confront children with aging parents.
Lewcyka ads further depth to the narrative by including flashbacks from Ukraine, which shaped the development of older sister Vera but were too early for Nadezha to experience. These stories, related by Vera to Nadezha at quiet moments during the events of the anti-Valentina campaign, link Nikolai and his family to the larger, more horrific currents of the 20th century.
Published 10/12/18
The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
by Kiran Desai
Replaces: The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble (Read/unreviewed)
Kiran Desai is the rarest of rare birds: A second generation writer of literary fiction (daughter of thrice Booker Prize shortlisted Anita Desai), with achievements to equal those of the parent. The Inheritance of Loss was Desai's second novel, and it made it to the Booker Prize shortlist in 2007. The most surprising fact about Desai is that she hasn't written a novel since. Kiran was joined by three books written by her Mom in the first revision of the 1001 Books list, and all four additions represent the larger effort by the Editors to diversify the list both in terms of number of Authors represented and number of viewpoints.
The younger Desai moved, with her Mother, to the United States when she was 14 and The Inheritance of Loss reflects an understanding both of life in India (mostly the "Hill Country" bordering Nepal) and the United States (the milieu of illegal immigrants working in the bowels of New York City restaurants). There is no doubt that Indian authors with an education and familiarity with living in the west possess an advantage when it comes to being selected to diversify the canon. It's nice when those writers share the voices of less educated people, particularly those inside India who may have been excluded from the limited information that western readers of literary fiction receive about that place.
At the same time, it's not the same as having a member of said less educated classes speak for themselves. In a sense, it's the same problem that you get when William Styron (a white man) writes a prize-winning novel about the black leader of a slave revolt, The Confessions of Nat Turner. It's not as bad as that example, but it is still an example of privileged voices defining the narrative of the less fortunate.
The book that The Inheritance of Loss replaces, The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble, was critically drubbed when it was released for similar reasons: A white, Canadian author telling the story of a Korean woman from the Middle Ages. Not a bad thought, but maybe let a Korean author tell that particular tale. Apparently, I was so little impressed by The Red Queen that I didn't even write a review.
The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
by Kiran Desai
Replaces: The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble (Read/unreviewed)
Kiran Desai is the rarest of rare birds: A second generation writer of literary fiction (daughter of thrice Booker Prize shortlisted Anita Desai), with achievements to equal those of the parent. The Inheritance of Loss was Desai's second novel, and it made it to the Booker Prize shortlist in 2007. The most surprising fact about Desai is that she hasn't written a novel since. Kiran was joined by three books written by her Mom in the first revision of the 1001 Books list, and all four additions represent the larger effort by the Editors to diversify the list both in terms of number of Authors represented and number of viewpoints.
The younger Desai moved, with her Mother, to the United States when she was 14 and The Inheritance of Loss reflects an understanding both of life in India (mostly the "Hill Country" bordering Nepal) and the United States (the milieu of illegal immigrants working in the bowels of New York City restaurants). There is no doubt that Indian authors with an education and familiarity with living in the west possess an advantage when it comes to being selected to diversify the canon. It's nice when those writers share the voices of less educated people, particularly those inside India who may have been excluded from the limited information that western readers of literary fiction receive about that place.
At the same time, it's not the same as having a member of said less educated classes speak for themselves. In a sense, it's the same problem that you get when William Styron (a white man) writes a prize-winning novel about the black leader of a slave revolt, The Confessions of Nat Turner. It's not as bad as that example, but it is still an example of privileged voices defining the narrative of the less fortunate.
The book that The Inheritance of Loss replaces, The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble, was critically drubbed when it was released for similar reasons: A white, Canadian author telling the story of a Korean woman from the Middle Ages. Not a bad thought, but maybe let a Korean author tell that particular tale. Apparently, I was so little impressed by The Red Queen that I didn't even write a review.
Published 10/27/18
The Accidental (2005)
by Ali Smith
Replaces Thursbitch by Alan Garner (Reviewed April 2018)
Ali Smith is an excellent example of a British (Scottish) author with an international critical attention, including multiple trips as far as the Man Booker Prize shortlist, but without the mass-market breakthrough. Recently, she's been publishing her Seasons cycle, Autumn (2016) was one of her Booker Prize shortlist books, Winter came out last year and Spring is due next year. In addition to Autumn, she was shortlisted for How to be Both (2014) and this book, which replaces another Scottish author, Alan Garner, and Thursbitch.
I had imagined that her books would lend them well to the Audiobook format, and The Accidental is an excellent prospect in that regard because the narrative voice switches between five different voices, a 40ish author Eve Smart, seeking to overcome some writer's block by renting a vacation house in Norfolk, England. With her is Michael, her second husband and step father to her two children, Magnus, a high school aged adolescent, and Astrid, 12, on the cusp of adolescence.
The straw that stirs the proverbial drink in The Accidental, is Amber, a mysterious twenty something who shows up on the doorstop of their Norfolk vacation house, and through a series of misunderstandings that should be intimately familiar with the narrative conventions of both Hollywood film and English television, gets integrated into the life of this post-nuclear family in surprising ways.
Each narrator has a different voice reflecting their age and gender. Eve Smart clearly resembles the biographical description of Ali Smith, though she is English, and Scottish. Like all first-rate writers of literary fiction (those with an audience and a publisher), Smith is incredibly insightful- she integrates riffs on works of contemporary popular culture- Love Actually, the 2003 schmaltz fest, is the subject of a lengthy monologue by son Magnus.
Smith also injects a surprising amount of graphic sexual content, which I don't remember in Autumn- the only other book I've read. There is some plot, but The Accidental most resembles an updated version of a book by a high modernist with Virginia Woolf: 10 hours inside the heads of normal people living a relatively normal life for members of the international Anglo-American literati.
The Accidental (2005)
by Ali Smith
Replaces Thursbitch by Alan Garner (Reviewed April 2018)
Ali Smith is an excellent example of a British (Scottish) author with an international critical attention, including multiple trips as far as the Man Booker Prize shortlist, but without the mass-market breakthrough. Recently, she's been publishing her Seasons cycle, Autumn (2016) was one of her Booker Prize shortlist books, Winter came out last year and Spring is due next year. In addition to Autumn, she was shortlisted for How to be Both (2014) and this book, which replaces another Scottish author, Alan Garner, and Thursbitch.
I had imagined that her books would lend them well to the Audiobook format, and The Accidental is an excellent prospect in that regard because the narrative voice switches between five different voices, a 40ish author Eve Smart, seeking to overcome some writer's block by renting a vacation house in Norfolk, England. With her is Michael, her second husband and step father to her two children, Magnus, a high school aged adolescent, and Astrid, 12, on the cusp of adolescence.
The straw that stirs the proverbial drink in The Accidental, is Amber, a mysterious twenty something who shows up on the doorstop of their Norfolk vacation house, and through a series of misunderstandings that should be intimately familiar with the narrative conventions of both Hollywood film and English television, gets integrated into the life of this post-nuclear family in surprising ways.
Each narrator has a different voice reflecting their age and gender. Eve Smart clearly resembles the biographical description of Ali Smith, though she is English, and Scottish. Like all first-rate writers of literary fiction (those with an audience and a publisher), Smith is incredibly insightful- she integrates riffs on works of contemporary popular culture- Love Actually, the 2003 schmaltz fest, is the subject of a lengthy monologue by son Magnus.
Smith also injects a surprising amount of graphic sexual content, which I don't remember in Autumn- the only other book I've read. There is some plot, but The Accidental most resembles an updated version of a book by a high modernist with Virginia Woolf: 10 hours inside the heads of normal people living a relatively normal life for members of the international Anglo-American literati.
Published 11/27/18
Carry Me Down (2006)
by M.J. Hyland
Replaces: The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
English author M.J. Hyland is better known in the UK, where she writes a column on writing for the Guardian, teaches and often appears as a public intellectual. Carry Me Down is her Booker shortlisted novel from 2006, about an autistic Irish boy living in a pre-autism awareness society. John Egan is never properly diagnosed during the course of the highly dysfunctional events of the book. Living with his paternal Grandmother and parents- a dad who refuses to work and mother who is increasingly terrified of her incomprehensible son. Egan has characteristics that are obviously autistic: he believes that he is a "human lie detector," is obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records and has an almost total absence of social skills.
Besides the issues surrounding Egan's undiagnosed Autism, the rest of Carry Me Down is standard post-Kitchen Sink Realism albeit in Ireland not England. It is hard to argue with Carry Me Down replacing The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd, a minor work by an author better known for non-fiction than fiction, and one who scores negative points in terms of biographical or thematic diversity.
Carry Me Down (2006)
by M.J. Hyland
Replaces: The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
English author M.J. Hyland is better known in the UK, where she writes a column on writing for the Guardian, teaches and often appears as a public intellectual. Carry Me Down is her Booker shortlisted novel from 2006, about an autistic Irish boy living in a pre-autism awareness society. John Egan is never properly diagnosed during the course of the highly dysfunctional events of the book. Living with his paternal Grandmother and parents- a dad who refuses to work and mother who is increasingly terrified of her incomprehensible son. Egan has characteristics that are obviously autistic: he believes that he is a "human lie detector," is obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records and has an almost total absence of social skills.
Besides the issues surrounding Egan's undiagnosed Autism, the rest of Carry Me Down is standard post-Kitchen Sink Realism albeit in Ireland not England. It is hard to argue with Carry Me Down replacing The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd, a minor work by an author better known for non-fiction than fiction, and one who scores negative points in terms of biographical or thematic diversity.
Published 12/5/18
Small Island (2004)
by Andrea Levy
Replaces: London Orbital by Iain Sinclair (Reviewed October 2018)
Andrea Levy has only published a few novels. Three before Small Island really put her on the map, and she solidified her position in 2011 with The Long Song, which won the Walter Scott Prize and made the Booker Prize Shortlist. Small Island won the Orange Prize, Whitbread Book of the Year and the Commonwealth Award. She also has firm roots in the literary world of London while representing the viewpoint of Jamaicans, and specifically Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom.
Small Island fictionalizes the experiences of her parents, who came over as part of the "Windrush" generation, so named for the boat which offered passage (and admission) to the United Kingdom from Jamaica after World War II. Levy deftly deploys four different narrators: the two characters standing in for Levy's own parents and the white woman who takes them in, and her husband, who is absent for most of the book. Small Island shuffles between "the present" which is in 1948, and flashbacks for all four of the narrators. For the two parent figures, this past is in Jamaica- for the mother, and in Jamaica and as a driver in the Royal Air Force, for the father. The white husband, the last of the four narrators to get his shot, is largely concerned with his time serving in the English army in India.
The most memorable and significant characteristic of Small Island is the straight forward, virulent racism of English society in the 1940's. On the other hand, the legal regime was quite fair, unlike the United States, where public and private attitudes often mirrored one another. Thus, Hortense and Gilbert, the Levy parent figures, behave in a way that is both familiar and different to readers more experienced with the racial mistreatment of early 20th century America.
Gilbert actually experiences Jim Crow America during his service in the Royal Air Force, where he is forbidden to make a pick up of supplies because the location is in the state of Alabama. Small Island is very much in the category of the "international best seller" which manages to strike a chord across international borders. Certainly, Small Island was read by a large swath of the audience for literary fiction in the UK, and it scored a BBC TV version.
It also looks like her 2010 novel, The Long Song might also be 1001 Books material, perhaps as a replacement for this book. Small Island replaces London Orbital by Iain Banks, which is a prime representative of the psycho geography movement, but not a huge hit, and it didn't even get an American publisher- I had to buy the English edition off Amazon, and it wasn't in the Los Angeles Public Library.
Small Island (2004)
by Andrea Levy
Replaces: London Orbital by Iain Sinclair (Reviewed October 2018)
Andrea Levy has only published a few novels. Three before Small Island really put her on the map, and she solidified her position in 2011 with The Long Song, which won the Walter Scott Prize and made the Booker Prize Shortlist. Small Island won the Orange Prize, Whitbread Book of the Year and the Commonwealth Award. She also has firm roots in the literary world of London while representing the viewpoint of Jamaicans, and specifically Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom.
Small Island fictionalizes the experiences of her parents, who came over as part of the "Windrush" generation, so named for the boat which offered passage (and admission) to the United Kingdom from Jamaica after World War II. Levy deftly deploys four different narrators: the two characters standing in for Levy's own parents and the white woman who takes them in, and her husband, who is absent for most of the book. Small Island shuffles between "the present" which is in 1948, and flashbacks for all four of the narrators. For the two parent figures, this past is in Jamaica- for the mother, and in Jamaica and as a driver in the Royal Air Force, for the father. The white husband, the last of the four narrators to get his shot, is largely concerned with his time serving in the English army in India.
The most memorable and significant characteristic of Small Island is the straight forward, virulent racism of English society in the 1940's. On the other hand, the legal regime was quite fair, unlike the United States, where public and private attitudes often mirrored one another. Thus, Hortense and Gilbert, the Levy parent figures, behave in a way that is both familiar and different to readers more experienced with the racial mistreatment of early 20th century America.
Gilbert actually experiences Jim Crow America during his service in the Royal Air Force, where he is forbidden to make a pick up of supplies because the location is in the state of Alabama. Small Island is very much in the category of the "international best seller" which manages to strike a chord across international borders. Certainly, Small Island was read by a large swath of the audience for literary fiction in the UK, and it scored a BBC TV version.
It also looks like her 2010 novel, The Long Song might also be 1001 Books material, perhaps as a replacement for this book. Small Island replaces London Orbital by Iain Banks, which is a prime representative of the psycho geography movement, but not a huge hit, and it didn't even get an American publisher- I had to buy the English edition off Amazon, and it wasn't in the Los Angeles Public Library.
Published 12/11/18
Snow (2004)
by Orhan Pamuk
Replaces: Youth (2002)by J.M. Coetzee (Reviewed March 2018)
Orhan Pamuk is one of those authors who seem destined for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Pamuk is prolific but maintains a high level of quality. He is a very public intellectual who faced charges in his native Turkey for espousing politically unpopular opinions (about the Armenian genocide and crimes against Turkish Kurds. Before his Nobel win, he was translated into English but not particularly well known by global Audiences.
His win, in 2006, was a surprise victory over Syrian modernist poet Adunis. Snow, translated into English in 2004, happens to be the last novel he published before the Nobel Prize win, and even though the Prize is not awarded for a specific work, writers like Pamuk tend to seen an immediate elevation of their most recent book onto best seller lists in many nations. It's hard to imagine a generic American reader of literary fiction delving into Snow absent the Nobel Prize win. It's a nearly 600 page book about a Turkish poet who has spent over a decade in exile in Germany, returning to the Turkish border city of Kars amidst an epidemic of young women killing themselves.
The young women, called "the suicide girls," have all been banned from attending public schools for wearing head scarves. Ka, the exiled poet and part time narrator, quickly gets entangled in local politics as he seeks to woo an old flame, recently divorced from her husband. This all takes place in the city of Kars, scarred by a century of tit for tat ethnic reprisals, and in the case of the Armenians, wholesale ethnic cleansing bordering on genocide.
The political/military landscape in Kars is divided uneasily between the secular military (in power), jihadist guerrillas and Kurds, some jihadist and others Marxist. The plot shifts into high gear when a theatrical impresario takes the opportunity of a timely snow storm cutting off the outside world to pull his own coup. As the coup takes shape, scores are settled with the local radical Muslims and rebellious Kurds, and Ka navigates between the parties.
Pamuk also moves back in time to discuss Ka's history and time in Germany, and forward in time, after Ka has been assassinated after his return to exile, after the events of Snow take place. Snow replaces Youth, J.M. Coetzee's memoir of growing up in South Africa. It's the second Coetzee title to get bumped off the 1001 Books list in the past week. Like Elizabeth Costello, Youth is a minor work and came late in his career, and the replacement title represents the sole Turkish representative on the 1001 Books list.
Snow (2004)
by Orhan Pamuk
Replaces: Youth (2002)by J.M. Coetzee (Reviewed March 2018)
Orhan Pamuk is one of those authors who seem destined for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Pamuk is prolific but maintains a high level of quality. He is a very public intellectual who faced charges in his native Turkey for espousing politically unpopular opinions (about the Armenian genocide and crimes against Turkish Kurds. Before his Nobel win, he was translated into English but not particularly well known by global Audiences.
His win, in 2006, was a surprise victory over Syrian modernist poet Adunis. Snow, translated into English in 2004, happens to be the last novel he published before the Nobel Prize win, and even though the Prize is not awarded for a specific work, writers like Pamuk tend to seen an immediate elevation of their most recent book onto best seller lists in many nations. It's hard to imagine a generic American reader of literary fiction delving into Snow absent the Nobel Prize win. It's a nearly 600 page book about a Turkish poet who has spent over a decade in exile in Germany, returning to the Turkish border city of Kars amidst an epidemic of young women killing themselves.
The young women, called "the suicide girls," have all been banned from attending public schools for wearing head scarves. Ka, the exiled poet and part time narrator, quickly gets entangled in local politics as he seeks to woo an old flame, recently divorced from her husband. This all takes place in the city of Kars, scarred by a century of tit for tat ethnic reprisals, and in the case of the Armenians, wholesale ethnic cleansing bordering on genocide.
The political/military landscape in Kars is divided uneasily between the secular military (in power), jihadist guerrillas and Kurds, some jihadist and others Marxist. The plot shifts into high gear when a theatrical impresario takes the opportunity of a timely snow storm cutting off the outside world to pull his own coup. As the coup takes shape, scores are settled with the local radical Muslims and rebellious Kurds, and Ka navigates between the parties.
Pamuk also moves back in time to discuss Ka's history and time in Germany, and forward in time, after Ka has been assassinated after his return to exile, after the events of Snow take place. Snow replaces Youth, J.M. Coetzee's memoir of growing up in South Africa. It's the second Coetzee title to get bumped off the 1001 Books list in the past week. Like Elizabeth Costello, Youth is a minor work and came late in his career, and the replacement title represents the sole Turkish representative on the 1001 Books list.
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Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Replaces: Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee (Read but not reviewed?!?)
There is no denying that Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the pre-eminent novelists of her generation, matching critical acclaim (A MacArthur Genius Award!) with best-seller status. Like trailblazing African novelist Chinua Achebe, Adichie is a member of the Igbo ethnicity, one of the three major ethnicities in Nigeria, alongside the northern, mostly Muslim Hausa and the Yoruba. The Igbo are largely grouped in the South, and they had a long tradition of small polity democracy up to and through the colonial period, where the British managed to impose a degree of control through the use of "Warrant Chiefs."
This phenomenon was the subject of Achebe's classic, Things Fall Apart, which is frequently taught to high school and college students in the United States. Adichie moves forward in time to write her masterpiece about the Biafran War, AKA the Nigerian Civil War, and it's precursors and aftermath, from the mid 1960's to 1970. Adichie splits narrator duties between three characters. First is Ugwu, who begins the book as the brand new house boy to Odenigbo, an Igbo mathematics professor with strong nationalist sentiment. Second narrator is Olana, the daughter of a wealthy Igbo Chieftain with significant business interests. Olana has just returned from England at the beginning of the book, and she settles into life with Odenigbo where they both teach at a brand new Igbo centered university.
The final narrator is Richard, a white Englishman who is engaged to Kainene, the twin sister of Olana. Whereas Olana is something of a idealist and would-be revolutionary, Kainene is firmly his father's daughter, entrusted to developing and maintaining his business interests. The plot shifts into motion when intermittent ethnic violence against Igbo's living outside of the southern homeland. This in turn spurs the Igbo to attempt to secede from the Nigerian government.
The Baifran War or Nigerian Civil War follows, and while it doesn't quite have the horror of the more recent Rwandan genocides, there is no question that it foreshadowed many of the post-colonial horrors of the African continent. Adichie eschews the entirely male central players of the coup- certainly a subject that is well within her authorial reach, to focus on the more marginal figures of the servant boy, the well educated wife and the white boyfriend. Both Kaniene and Odenigbo seem like typical protagonists, but depriving them of their own voice gives Half of a Yellow Sun a unique perspective.
It is hard shaking the feeling that the entire enterprise of the Igbo succession was poorly thought out and that the ultimate victims, specifically the 2 million Igbo who starved to death as a result of a Nigerian blockade of supplies, were as much the victims of their own leaders as they were outside forces.
This was a very good choice in the Audiobook format, with the narrator capturing the African inflected English of the Igbo, it really gave a feel for the time, place and people of Half of a Yellow Sun and I would recommend it.
Published 1/30/19
The Suite Francaise (2004)
by Irène Némirovsky
Replaces: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Irène Némirovsky was a Ukranian-Jewish woman who grew up in France. She denied citizenship in France, despite a succesful career as a writer, deported to Auschwitz and murdered by the Nazi's at the age of 39. She was rediscovered by the world in 2004, when two novella's she wrote during the Nazi occupation of Paris were found- written in long land and published (and translated). If her deportation and murder by the Nazi's wasn't part of her mini bio, you wouldn't guess that Némirovsky from the material in The Suite Francaise.
The first novella describes the panicked flight from Paris in advance of the Nazi invasion, the second the goings-on in a small town in the months before the Russian invasion. Neither novella has a single Jewish character. I guess Némirovsky converted to Catholicism, to no avail, as far of the Nazi's were concerned (or the French authorities, for that matter).
The central irony of The Suite Francaise is that this victim of the Holocaust is also the author of the one of the books that provides the most sympathetic portrayal of Nazi officers. Indeed, the main character of the second novella is a young French aristocrat who semi-falls in love with an occupying German officer. By any measure, the French got the best of the Nazi occupation experience- occupied France was to stand as a beacon of the benevolent nature of German invasion. Compare the experience of characters set in southern and eastern Europe, let alone those in Russia proper, where the German occupation was gritty and brutal.
The book that The Suite Francaise replaces in the 1001 Books list is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters- she lost both her titles in the first revision- which I think makes her the first 1001 Books author to be delisted from the list entirely. What to make of it? Maybe that both of her books were diversity picks, and she had to make way for new flavors of the month. That isn't my opinion mind- I'm just speculating on the editorial process that would result in an author being wholly eliminated from a 1001 volume list of canonical books.
The Suite Francaise (2004)
by Irène Némirovsky
Replaces: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Irène Némirovsky was a Ukranian-Jewish woman who grew up in France. She denied citizenship in France, despite a succesful career as a writer, deported to Auschwitz and murdered by the Nazi's at the age of 39. She was rediscovered by the world in 2004, when two novella's she wrote during the Nazi occupation of Paris were found- written in long land and published (and translated). If her deportation and murder by the Nazi's wasn't part of her mini bio, you wouldn't guess that Némirovsky from the material in The Suite Francaise.
The first novella describes the panicked flight from Paris in advance of the Nazi invasion, the second the goings-on in a small town in the months before the Russian invasion. Neither novella has a single Jewish character. I guess Némirovsky converted to Catholicism, to no avail, as far of the Nazi's were concerned (or the French authorities, for that matter).
The central irony of The Suite Francaise is that this victim of the Holocaust is also the author of the one of the books that provides the most sympathetic portrayal of Nazi officers. Indeed, the main character of the second novella is a young French aristocrat who semi-falls in love with an occupying German officer. By any measure, the French got the best of the Nazi occupation experience- occupied France was to stand as a beacon of the benevolent nature of German invasion. Compare the experience of characters set in southern and eastern Europe, let alone those in Russia proper, where the German occupation was gritty and brutal.
The book that The Suite Francaise replaces in the 1001 Books list is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters- she lost both her titles in the first revision- which I think makes her the first 1001 Books author to be delisted from the list entirely. What to make of it? Maybe that both of her books were diversity picks, and she had to make way for new flavors of the month. That isn't my opinion mind- I'm just speculating on the editorial process that would result in an author being wholly eliminated from a 1001 volume list of canonical books.
Published 2/10/19
The Swarm (2004)
by Frank Schätzing
Replaces: The Double by Jose Saramago
The Swarm is an eco thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, about a series of catastrophic disasters that come from the sea: Whales attacking whale watching ships, jellyfish clocking the water intakes of trans-national shippers, mysterious worms destroying the methane hydrate that holds the sea floor together. The question is what or who is behind the attacks.
It is honestly hard to figure why the editors of the 1001 Books project picked what is at heart a pedestrian eco thriller that also happens to be over 850 pages long. Surely, if The Swarm rates includion in the 1001 Books project, Michael Crichton deserves to be in there with Jurassic Park (1990), which I don't think gets enough credit for the prescience of it's eco-catastrophe theme. I suppose The Swarm made the cut because it is written by German, and is the rare example of a work of non-English genre fiction making it into the 1001 Books list.
The Swarm is at times interminable, what with nearly a dozen primary protagonists, a few of which get fifty page long back stories that add nothing to the main plot. You can't reasonably expect an 800 page plus eco thriller to go without dozens of pages of exposition, and Schatzing does not disappoint, especially after the main characters are gathered together at the North Pole for a last ditch effort to save the planet, and apparently, convene an endless series of meetings. The reveal of the villain in the third act seemed a little inconsistent with the previous 750 pages, but Schatzing resolves the central plot in a satisfying fashion. Schatzing shouldn't be accused of the humorlessness of similar authors like Crichton- the characters repeatedly reference Hollywood films that have inspired different plot elements: The Abyss, Armageddon- it shouldn't be surprising to learn that Game of Thrones producer Frank Doelger has optioned the Swarm for German television (and one would imagine, Netflix.)
The Swarm (2004)
by Frank Schätzing
Replaces: The Double by Jose Saramago
The Swarm is an eco thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, about a series of catastrophic disasters that come from the sea: Whales attacking whale watching ships, jellyfish clocking the water intakes of trans-national shippers, mysterious worms destroying the methane hydrate that holds the sea floor together. The question is what or who is behind the attacks.
It is honestly hard to figure why the editors of the 1001 Books project picked what is at heart a pedestrian eco thriller that also happens to be over 850 pages long. Surely, if The Swarm rates includion in the 1001 Books project, Michael Crichton deserves to be in there with Jurassic Park (1990), which I don't think gets enough credit for the prescience of it's eco-catastrophe theme. I suppose The Swarm made the cut because it is written by German, and is the rare example of a work of non-English genre fiction making it into the 1001 Books list.
The Swarm is at times interminable, what with nearly a dozen primary protagonists, a few of which get fifty page long back stories that add nothing to the main plot. You can't reasonably expect an 800 page plus eco thriller to go without dozens of pages of exposition, and Schatzing does not disappoint, especially after the main characters are gathered together at the North Pole for a last ditch effort to save the planet, and apparently, convene an endless series of meetings. The reveal of the villain in the third act seemed a little inconsistent with the previous 750 pages, but Schatzing resolves the central plot in a satisfying fashion. Schatzing shouldn't be accused of the humorlessness of similar authors like Crichton- the characters repeatedly reference Hollywood films that have inspired different plot elements: The Abyss, Armageddon- it shouldn't be surprising to learn that Game of Thrones producer Frank Doelger has optioned the Swarm for German television (and one would imagine, Netflix.)
Published 3/28/19
Runaway (2004)
by Alice Munro
I like these characteristics of Canadian author Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013: First, all her Audiobooks are available without a wait in the Public Library Libby Audiobook app. Second, all her books are short stories, so listening to one of her books never requires a huge listening effort. What I don't like about Munro would be her limited range, at least from what I've seen in two books, as described by the Wikipedia page for this book:
There are eight short stories in the book. Three of the stories ("Chance", "Soon", and "Silence") are about a single character named "Juliet Henderson".
Runaway (2004)
by Alice Munro
I like these characteristics of Canadian author Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013: First, all her Audiobooks are available without a wait in the Public Library Libby Audiobook app. Second, all her books are short stories, so listening to one of her books never requires a huge listening effort. What I don't like about Munro would be her limited range, at least from what I've seen in two books, as described by the Wikipedia page for this book:
There are eight short stories in the book. Three of the stories ("Chance", "Soon", and "Silence") are about a single character named "Juliet Henderson".
"Runaway" – a woman is trapped in a bad marriage.
"Chance" – Juliet takes a train trip which leads to an affair.
"Soon" – Juliet visits her parents with her child Penelope.
"Silence" – Juliet hopes for news from her adult estranged daughter Penelope.
"Passion" – A lonely small town girl flees a passionless relationship with an outsider.
"Trespasses" – Lauren, a young girl, meets an older woman, Delphine, who is too interested in her.
"Tricks" – Robin, a lonely girl, lives life alone due to bad luck and misinterpretation.
I mean there you have it, Alice Munro in a nutshell. Every story is about women on the margins of society for various reasons, isolated by domestic violence, mental illness or just plain bad luck.
Published 4/9/19
Magic Seeds (2004)
by V.S. Naipaul
The category of post-colonial literature dominates global fiction. The first wave of this phenomenon was mostly literature written by expatriate/diaspora writers, with a heavy emphasis on English language writers who were educated at top English universities. The second wave mixes expatriate/diaspora voices from new and different places- the US and Canada, and also European nations like France and Germany, with newer voices of writers who either never left their country of origin or returned back.
Naipaul is the quintessential, and probably the most succesful, of this first wave of expatriate writers, and much of the criticism of his work concerned his lack of authenticity in relationship to his past. No surprise then that Willie Somerset Chandran, the narrator of Magic Seeds and it's prequel, Half a Life, picks up with Chandran adrift and brooding in Berlin, living at the sufferance of her sister, who has escaped India for a more or less comfortable life in Berlin as the somewhat happily married wife of a radical German filmmaker.
Under his sister's influence, Chandran returns to India, where he hooks up with one of several Marxist rebel groups. No one who has read Half a Life will be surprised that Half a Life, like his two decades in Africa, proves to be a moderately embarrassing failure. After an initial burst of enthusiasm, Chandran becomes dissatsfied with rebel life, with rebels themselves and with the peasants they are supposedly trying to liberate.
With a comrade, he escapes the rebels and ends up imprisoned, before he is liberated via the timely intercession of his sister. He returns to London, where the friends of his long forgotten student days in London pull him into the drift of their own intermittently self-satisfied and miserable lives. It is hard to ignore Chandran's self contempt, which issues forth from each of his increasingly desperate attempts to find a self he can live with. At the end of Magic Seeds it is left unclear whether Chandran ever resolves his dilemma, but you'd have to doubt it.
Magic Seeds (2004)
by V.S. Naipaul
The category of post-colonial literature dominates global fiction. The first wave of this phenomenon was mostly literature written by expatriate/diaspora writers, with a heavy emphasis on English language writers who were educated at top English universities. The second wave mixes expatriate/diaspora voices from new and different places- the US and Canada, and also European nations like France and Germany, with newer voices of writers who either never left their country of origin or returned back.
Naipaul is the quintessential, and probably the most succesful, of this first wave of expatriate writers, and much of the criticism of his work concerned his lack of authenticity in relationship to his past. No surprise then that Willie Somerset Chandran, the narrator of Magic Seeds and it's prequel, Half a Life, picks up with Chandran adrift and brooding in Berlin, living at the sufferance of her sister, who has escaped India for a more or less comfortable life in Berlin as the somewhat happily married wife of a radical German filmmaker.
Under his sister's influence, Chandran returns to India, where he hooks up with one of several Marxist rebel groups. No one who has read Half a Life will be surprised that Half a Life, like his two decades in Africa, proves to be a moderately embarrassing failure. After an initial burst of enthusiasm, Chandran becomes dissatsfied with rebel life, with rebels themselves and with the peasants they are supposedly trying to liberate.
With a comrade, he escapes the rebels and ends up imprisoned, before he is liberated via the timely intercession of his sister. He returns to London, where the friends of his long forgotten student days in London pull him into the drift of their own intermittently self-satisfied and miserable lives. It is hard to ignore Chandran's self contempt, which issues forth from each of his increasingly desperate attempts to find a self he can live with. At the end of Magic Seeds it is left unclear whether Chandran ever resolves his dilemma, but you'd have to doubt it.
Published 4/17/19
No Country for Old Men (2005)
by Cormac McCarthy
I love love love Cormac McCarthy Audio books. Of course, the movie version of No Country for Old Men, a Coen Brothers film- is tremendous, one of their best. McCarthy originally wrote it as a screenplay, so that makes sense- that the movie would be so good, but also because the plot- a "Texas" or "Southwest" Noir, dovetails with the highlights of the Coen Brothers filmography- their first movie, Blood Simple, is a Texas noir, and Fargo was arguably their greatest hit.
After listening to the Audiobook, I watched the movie again on Netflix. McCarthy really managed to smooth down the rough elements of his earlier work, but still managed to produce a work filled with blood shed and violence. The contemporary setting: relatively speaking- No Country for Old Men takes place in 1980, closer to the present than any of his other books, except maybe The Road, which takes place in the "near future;" marks No Country apart from McCarthy's other work.
At the same time, it is hard to imagine the character of Anton Chigurr or Llewelyn Moss as written by anyone other than Cormac McCarthy.
No Country for Old Men (2005)
by Cormac McCarthy
I love love love Cormac McCarthy Audio books. Of course, the movie version of No Country for Old Men, a Coen Brothers film- is tremendous, one of their best. McCarthy originally wrote it as a screenplay, so that makes sense- that the movie would be so good, but also because the plot- a "Texas" or "Southwest" Noir, dovetails with the highlights of the Coen Brothers filmography- their first movie, Blood Simple, is a Texas noir, and Fargo was arguably their greatest hit.
After listening to the Audiobook, I watched the movie again on Netflix. McCarthy really managed to smooth down the rough elements of his earlier work, but still managed to produce a work filled with blood shed and violence. The contemporary setting: relatively speaking- No Country for Old Men takes place in 1980, closer to the present than any of his other books, except maybe The Road, which takes place in the "near future;" marks No Country apart from McCarthy's other work.
At the same time, it is hard to imagine the character of Anton Chigurr or Llewelyn Moss as written by anyone other than Cormac McCarthy.
Published 9/10/19
John Crow's Devil (2005)
by Marlon James
I've been waiting for the single copy of the Los Angeles Public Library Audiobook on this title for over six months! There is no doubt that interest in Marlon James is way up- it wouldn't surprise me if John Crow's Devil, his 2005 debut novel, gets a reissue one of these days. I would have listened to the Audiobook in any case, following one of my theories that Audiobooks are at their best when the reader possesses an accent that the listener does not- I can't imagine myself reading the heavy Jamaican patois of most of the character in John Crow's Devil without doing them a disservice.
Reader Robin Miles is the gold standard for books requiring a Caribbean accent- she's done all of Jamaica Kincaid's and Edward Danicat Audiobooks. John Crow's Devil is an excellent first novel, if not a world-beater like his Booker Prize winner about Bob Marley, but it is confident and self-assured, and shows many of the themes he would revisit in his break-out books.
Set in an isolated village in World War II era Jamaica, John Crow's Devil could be called "Jamaican Gothic," with an element of the fantastical that you could describe as "magical realism" although I'm certain James would bristle at the usage of that phrase. His characters: the Rum Preacher, the Apostle, the Widow possess an allegorical weight, even as James develops the narrative by delving into the pasts of most of the main characters in flash-back form.
There is plenty of sex and death to be had- clearly, James from the beginning has been inspired to give a "red blooded" edge to his stories, even as he incorporates LGBT themes into the mix. When I saw James speak, he professed to despise the bloodlessness of contemporary intellectual culture- that is present here, in his first book, and I think it is a key to why he managed to break out with a Booker Prize- if you can fit it in the form of literary fiction, sex and death still sell.
John Crow's Devil (2005)
by Marlon James
I've been waiting for the single copy of the Los Angeles Public Library Audiobook on this title for over six months! There is no doubt that interest in Marlon James is way up- it wouldn't surprise me if John Crow's Devil, his 2005 debut novel, gets a reissue one of these days. I would have listened to the Audiobook in any case, following one of my theories that Audiobooks are at their best when the reader possesses an accent that the listener does not- I can't imagine myself reading the heavy Jamaican patois of most of the character in John Crow's Devil without doing them a disservice.
Reader Robin Miles is the gold standard for books requiring a Caribbean accent- she's done all of Jamaica Kincaid's and Edward Danicat Audiobooks. John Crow's Devil is an excellent first novel, if not a world-beater like his Booker Prize winner about Bob Marley, but it is confident and self-assured, and shows many of the themes he would revisit in his break-out books.
Set in an isolated village in World War II era Jamaica, John Crow's Devil could be called "Jamaican Gothic," with an element of the fantastical that you could describe as "magical realism" although I'm certain James would bristle at the usage of that phrase. His characters: the Rum Preacher, the Apostle, the Widow possess an allegorical weight, even as James develops the narrative by delving into the pasts of most of the main characters in flash-back form.
There is plenty of sex and death to be had- clearly, James from the beginning has been inspired to give a "red blooded" edge to his stories, even as he incorporates LGBT themes into the mix. When I saw James speak, he professed to despise the bloodlessness of contemporary intellectual culture- that is present here, in his first book, and I think it is a key to why he managed to break out with a Booker Prize- if you can fit it in the form of literary fiction, sex and death still sell.
Published 10/14/19
The Line of Beauty (2004)
by Alan Hollinghurst
Replaces: The Light of Day by Graham Swift
The "little library" down the street has proved valuable supplying me both with this book and a paperback copy of Infinite Jest. The Line of Beauty was an addition to the 2008 edition of the 1001 Books list, replacing The Light of Day by Graham Swift. It won the 2004 Booker Prize, beating out The Master by Coim Toibin and The Cloud Atlas, both shortlisted. It's fair to say that Hollinghurst is the "best" writer on the gay life (for well-educated, if not necessarily wealthy white guys) in the UK. He's shown some progress in this area in his recent novel, The Sparsholt Affair, which departs from the "Sloane Ranger" milieu in terms of time and place, but The Line of Beauty represents an apogee of this highly succesful period in Hollinghurst's career, where he ascended to the heights of literary fame, at least in the UK, on the strength of his smartly constructed portraits of modern gay life in the UK.
Compared to his earlier books, The Line of Beauty is an epic- 400 pages in the UK edition paperback I found in the little library. It tells the story of Nick Guest, an upwardly mobile gay university graduate who attaches himself to the troubled household of a rising conservative MP Gerald Fedden via his son and Nick's Oxford classmate, Toby. Told in three parts: 1983, 1986 and 1987, it covers the triumph of the Thatcher era conservative party- with a cameo by "The Lady" herself, and the consequences: notably AIDS and public scandal. Cocaine and gay sex are prevalent: Don't call Hollinghurst and English prude!
There is a little diversity in the characters of Nick's lovers- Leo, a black guy who lives with his Church going mother, and Wani, the urbane, sophisticated son of a Lebanese millionaire who made his money "combining the grocery store with the corner store" and prominent conservative donor. Wani is also closeted, complete with a "fiance" on the payroll of his mother, and Wani and Nick spend most of the book snorting cocaine and fucking in the bathroom. So, I guess it's a satire, at least that is what people seem to think, like the comedy category at the Emmy's, I think sometimes satire is a category for drama that makes the viewer especially outrageous through the unconventional behavior of the characters, and The Line of Beauty is that no doubt.
The Line of Beauty replaces The Light of Day by Graham Swift- which was not his Booker Prize winner (Last Orders 1996) and represents a conventional updating of priorities in terms of viewpoint diversity.
The Line of Beauty (2004)
by Alan Hollinghurst
Replaces: The Light of Day by Graham Swift
The "little library" down the street has proved valuable supplying me both with this book and a paperback copy of Infinite Jest. The Line of Beauty was an addition to the 2008 edition of the 1001 Books list, replacing The Light of Day by Graham Swift. It won the 2004 Booker Prize, beating out The Master by Coim Toibin and The Cloud Atlas, both shortlisted. It's fair to say that Hollinghurst is the "best" writer on the gay life (for well-educated, if not necessarily wealthy white guys) in the UK. He's shown some progress in this area in his recent novel, The Sparsholt Affair, which departs from the "Sloane Ranger" milieu in terms of time and place, but The Line of Beauty represents an apogee of this highly succesful period in Hollinghurst's career, where he ascended to the heights of literary fame, at least in the UK, on the strength of his smartly constructed portraits of modern gay life in the UK.
Compared to his earlier books, The Line of Beauty is an epic- 400 pages in the UK edition paperback I found in the little library. It tells the story of Nick Guest, an upwardly mobile gay university graduate who attaches himself to the troubled household of a rising conservative MP Gerald Fedden via his son and Nick's Oxford classmate, Toby. Told in three parts: 1983, 1986 and 1987, it covers the triumph of the Thatcher era conservative party- with a cameo by "The Lady" herself, and the consequences: notably AIDS and public scandal. Cocaine and gay sex are prevalent: Don't call Hollinghurst and English prude!
There is a little diversity in the characters of Nick's lovers- Leo, a black guy who lives with his Church going mother, and Wani, the urbane, sophisticated son of a Lebanese millionaire who made his money "combining the grocery store with the corner store" and prominent conservative donor. Wani is also closeted, complete with a "fiance" on the payroll of his mother, and Wani and Nick spend most of the book snorting cocaine and fucking in the bathroom. So, I guess it's a satire, at least that is what people seem to think, like the comedy category at the Emmy's, I think sometimes satire is a category for drama that makes the viewer especially outrageous through the unconventional behavior of the characters, and The Line of Beauty is that no doubt.
The Line of Beauty replaces The Light of Day by Graham Swift- which was not his Booker Prize winner (Last Orders 1996) and represents a conventional updating of priorities in terms of viewpoint diversity.
Published 12/2/19
The Power of the Dog (2005)
by Don Winslow
As a criminal defense lawyer who frequently works in federal court, I've had a decades long interest in the "drug war" of the United States. Federal defense attorneys are frequently paid by the Court itself i.e. the United States government, so I'm maybe not as critical of drug war mainstays like mandatory minimums and the millions and millions they spend on prosecuting low level drug mules caught with loads of drugs at the border as I might otherwise be as a liberal-ish type.
As a reader, I would think there would be more great novels about the drug war and its consequences. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy is pretty great. No Country for Old Men was also published in 2005. The Power of the Dog was a huge best-selling hit. It spawned two sequels in addition to topping 500 pages. Don Winslow doesn't have a literary reputation- being more on a par with your basic best-selling writer of genre detective fiction (which he is, also, see the Neal Carey mysteries) than a "serious" writer of literary fiction. I've been avoiding reading The Power of the Dog almost since it was published out of what you might call professionally spawned aversion, but the lure of a free Audiobook proved too strong.
First of all, the narration is terrible, Ray Porter- I mean- Porter is obviously a pro, and he matches the style of the writing, but that style is tough-guy crime-detective fiction, and the portions, for example, where he narrates graphic sex from the perspective of a female character are off the chart cringe-inducing. Cringe inducing also describes much of the writing, although Winslow has his moments. Mostly those moments are the action scenes, the scenes where the major characters interact.
Still, it is hard NOT to appreciate the research. The Power of the Dog is obviously fiction, but the events depicted- specifically the relationship between anti-communist paramilitary forces in central and south American and the American drug trade and the American government at the highest levels (George Bush Senior instigated many of the policies as head of the CIA and then became President while said policies- arming right wing militants through the Mexican cartel- allegedly- took place. Because it is still ongoing, the War on Drugs is a history perhaps best told through fiction.
The Power of the Dog (2005)
by Don Winslow
As a criminal defense lawyer who frequently works in federal court, I've had a decades long interest in the "drug war" of the United States. Federal defense attorneys are frequently paid by the Court itself i.e. the United States government, so I'm maybe not as critical of drug war mainstays like mandatory minimums and the millions and millions they spend on prosecuting low level drug mules caught with loads of drugs at the border as I might otherwise be as a liberal-ish type.
As a reader, I would think there would be more great novels about the drug war and its consequences. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy is pretty great. No Country for Old Men was also published in 2005. The Power of the Dog was a huge best-selling hit. It spawned two sequels in addition to topping 500 pages. Don Winslow doesn't have a literary reputation- being more on a par with your basic best-selling writer of genre detective fiction (which he is, also, see the Neal Carey mysteries) than a "serious" writer of literary fiction. I've been avoiding reading The Power of the Dog almost since it was published out of what you might call professionally spawned aversion, but the lure of a free Audiobook proved too strong.
First of all, the narration is terrible, Ray Porter- I mean- Porter is obviously a pro, and he matches the style of the writing, but that style is tough-guy crime-detective fiction, and the portions, for example, where he narrates graphic sex from the perspective of a female character are off the chart cringe-inducing. Cringe inducing also describes much of the writing, although Winslow has his moments. Mostly those moments are the action scenes, the scenes where the major characters interact.
Still, it is hard NOT to appreciate the research. The Power of the Dog is obviously fiction, but the events depicted- specifically the relationship between anti-communist paramilitary forces in central and south American and the American drug trade and the American government at the highest levels (George Bush Senior instigated many of the policies as head of the CIA and then became President while said policies- arming right wing militants through the Mexican cartel- allegedly- took place. Because it is still ongoing, the War on Drugs is a history perhaps best told through fiction.
Pubilshed 4/14/20
Vanishing Point (2004)
by David Markson
Vanishing Point by David Markson is one of the last 40-odd titles left from the original 1001 Books list. I had some trouble tracking it down because the current edition is part of a 3 in 1 compilation of Markson's last three "experimental" novels. Vanishing Point takes the form of a series of (mostly literary) anecdotes.
What you get is material like this:
And:
And:
It makes for a a fun read, better than many so-called post-modern novels. Vanishing Pint is part of a trilogy of books written in similar fashion, so fans of literary anecdote- these bad boys are FOR YOU.
Vanishing Point (2004)
by David Markson
Vanishing Point by David Markson is one of the last 40-odd titles left from the original 1001 Books list. I had some trouble tracking it down because the current edition is part of a 3 in 1 compilation of Markson's last three "experimental" novels. Vanishing Point takes the form of a series of (mostly literary) anecdotes.
What you get is material like this:
At thirty-seven, in Key West, Ernest Hemingway badly marked up Wallace Stevens’ face in a never fully explained fistfight. Stevens was fifty-seven when it happened.
And:
Superb administrative talent, Kafka’s superiors at the insurance company said he possessed.
And:
I don’t understand them. To me that’s not literature. Said Cormac McCarthy of Henry James and Marcel Proust.
It makes for a a fun read, better than many so-called post-modern novels. Vanishing Pint is part of a trilogy of books written in similar fashion, so fans of literary anecdote- these bad boys are FOR YOU.
 |
| Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah |
Desertion (2005)
by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Another patented shocker from the Nobel Committee this year when British-Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah- virtually out of print everywhere except his homebased of the UK, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gurnah wasn't even the third or fourth most likely AFRICAN winner according to the oddsmakers in the run-up to the prize. Like everyone else, I went running to the library, only to find that the LA public library only had a couple of Gurnah titles in their collection (he has published ten novels, the last was in 2020.) Of those two, Desertion is the only book I've been able to get.
Gurnah's win must be seen as a blow to Nuruddin Farah(16/1 odds), another expatriated African author, it seems like both traverse similar thematic territory. Obviously reading an author for the first time AFTER the win a major literary award precludes you from making any kind of independent assessment, except if that it the entire point- a literary take-down.
Personally, I liked but didn't love Desertion. There is no doubting that it shows Gurnah at the top of his powers- seamlessly weaving a multi-generational family saga while skillfully depicting characters of different times, places, genders, ethnicities and socio-economic status. One of the most difficult areas of post-colonial literature is getting both sides right, something Gurnah accomplishes here. Like Farah's Somalia, Gurnah's Tanzania exists between west and east. Colonial Tanzania was very much a poly-glot place, with immigrants from the Persian Gulf and India intertwined into the local African population even before Europeans arrived.
Published 1/24/22
Red Dust (2004)
by Yoss
Yoss is the pen name for Cuban author Jose Sanchez Gomez. Red Dust is the first in a series of science fiction book set in a dystopian future where the Earth functions as a variation on the "Third World Vacation Paradise" locales of the past and present. You might say that Earth is like Cuba in this series of books, where aliens travel to Earth seeking fun, pleasure and adventure. Humans are allowed to participate in limited ways, many are employed in the tourism industry, others are sex workers. A very lucky few get to leave Earth to travel as entertainers (the one depiction of such a character in Red Dust works as a kind of self-immolating phoenix, tearing himself to literal pieces every night, and then regenerated afterward by advanced alien technology. There are only a handful of alien races who have chosen to make themselves known to human kind, and the different stories spin around the various interactions between these aliens and different humans, looking for a way off Earth.
Published 3/9/22
Fledgling (2005)
by Octavia Butler
Despite the fact that Mary Shelley essentially invented modern science fiction when she wrote Frankenstein, the story of science fiction and fantasy is of a genre dominated by white, male writers. What can a reader do except seek out contemporary voices that AREN'T written by the same type of writers and then assisting in helping those writers achieve canonical status in whatever ways a lay person can- you could call it keeping the flame alive.
There is no question that Butler has to be on a short list for elevation into the late 20th century, early 21st century science fiction/fantasy canon since her death in 2006. Fledging was last book she finished while she was alive, it's the first volume in a projected series about Shori, a young vampire (called "Ina" in the mythology of the book) who awakens as the only survivor of a massacre that has wiped out everyone around her. Much of Fledgling revolves around the process of self discovery required of Shori because vampire healing does not regenerate memories, only brain tissue.
Shori is special because she can stay awake during the day because her family has embraced genetic engineering and introduced genetic materials from African-American DNA. This, apparently, is controversial in the larger Ina community, which like the stories, mostly hail from Eastern Europe and are known for their creamy whiteness. The good news is that HBO picked up the option on a prestige television version- which- I'm interested to see how they handle the fact that physically, Shori is pubescent child- described as 10 or 11 by human observers. Of course, she is, although young by Ina standards, already 70 or 80 years, old, but keeping to tropes about Vampire horniness, Butler includes a lot of hot sex between the pubescent Shori and adult men.
 |
| Meiko Kawakami |
Published 4/5/22
Heaven (2021)
by Mieko Kawakami
Here's another Booker International longlister- by Japanese author Mieko Kawakami- who made a splash last year with the translation of Breasts and Eggs, after achieving notoriety in Japan as first, a blogger, then as an interrogator of Haruki Murakami and his relationship with his female characters, and finally as a succesful novelist. Her presence on the Booker International Longlist should come as no surprise- the international market for literary fiction needs more representation of female and "other" voices from Asian language countries and particularly regional female and other voices (Kawakami writes in a distinctive Osakan dialect of Japanese.)
For me Heaven falls into that category of Japanese literature that doesn't really land- I've got a real issue getting involved with books where the main characters are Japanese children or adolescents. Such is the case here, Heaven being about the relationship between two awkward Japanese high school students.
Published 10/14/18
The Kindly Ones (2006)
by Jonathan Littell
Replaces: Adjunct by Peter Manson (UNREAD)
It's curious how The Kindly Ones, published in French in 2006 but not in English until 2009, made it into the first revision of the 1001 Books list. That first revision was published in 2008, after the French language publication but before the English translation published in 2009, meaning the inclusion was based on reading the French original. The stay on the 1001 Books list was brief, The Kindly Ones was dumped in favor of a new Paul Auster novel in 2010.
The book it replaces, Adjunct by Peter Manson, is the most unreadable book in the original 1001 Books list, and also wholly unavailable in the United States- lacking even a listing on Amazon. It's one thing for a book to be out of print on Amazon, quite another for Amazon to never have heard of said book, particularly one that was published as recently as 2009. It seems like unattainability should be a disqualifier for a book that is judged to be a reading "must," and excluding Adjunct from the first revision on this basis seems entirely fair to me.
The Kindly Ones, on the other hand, makes sense, it's a Prix Goncort (French Pulitzer, basically) winner, written by an American author in the French language. It is about that favorite subject of early 21st century European fiction, the Nazi's, specifically, the perspective of Nazi's themselves. Maxmillien Aue, the well educated, literate narrator- writer, really, of The Kindly Ones, is reflecting on his experience in World War II as a member of the SS. As he writes the book, we know that he has survived World War II and lived out a life as a Belgian silkmaker.
The Kindly Ones is his memoirs as a kind of Nazi SS Forest Gump- present at all the hits of the German atrocities of World War II in his status as first as a direct participant in the messy, early stages of Jewish elimination in the Ukraine, and then as an analyst in the Ukraine, a survivor of the decisive battle of Stalingrad, where he is shot clean through the head and survives, then as a special advisor on the problem of using Jewish labor for economic purposes instead of just killing them all.
Aue has a personal life as "interesting" as his professional life- specifically a still-dedicated sister fucker- his twin no less, a vast, poorly understood hatred for his Mother, and a non-existent relationship with his proto-Nazi father, who disappeared before Maxmillien had a chance to form a relationship. It won't surprise anyone to learn that Aue is also an active pursuer of being the receiving partner in anal sex, with boys he seeks out on the streets and bars of pre-war Berlin. All of these elements twist and turn over the almost 1000 (992) page, and I felt like my choice of the nearly 40 hour Audiobook was a solid selection over the actual book or an Ebook (impossible!) edition.
Littell spares no detail in the underlying research, which, inserted into the narrative, forms a non-fiction narrative about the events and motivations of major participants in the anti-Jewish extermination process by the Germans, from the perspective of the actors. Aue, despite his misgivings about the choice of extermination, believes it to be a "done deal," and thus beyond his pay grade to question. He is also a committed National Socialist, in the sense that he also despises the Prussian aristocracy which dominates German society in the early 20th century.
It is worth pointing out that much of the contents of The Kindly Ones are terribly disturbing. Littell does not shy away from describing the mechanics of massacring a village of Jews with hand guns, and his febrile dream sequences are replete with enough coprophagia and anal sex to make the Marquise de Sade blush. It also is worth pointing out fictional narratives about genocide from the perspective of the perpetrator have their value in the sense that they add to the diversity of narratives about important historical events and thus add to the chance that the memory of such events will remain alive in the memory of the descendants.
The Kindly Ones (2006)
by Jonathan Littell
Replaces: Adjunct by Peter Manson (UNREAD)
It's curious how The Kindly Ones, published in French in 2006 but not in English until 2009, made it into the first revision of the 1001 Books list. That first revision was published in 2008, after the French language publication but before the English translation published in 2009, meaning the inclusion was based on reading the French original. The stay on the 1001 Books list was brief, The Kindly Ones was dumped in favor of a new Paul Auster novel in 2010.
The book it replaces, Adjunct by Peter Manson, is the most unreadable book in the original 1001 Books list, and also wholly unavailable in the United States- lacking even a listing on Amazon. It's one thing for a book to be out of print on Amazon, quite another for Amazon to never have heard of said book, particularly one that was published as recently as 2009. It seems like unattainability should be a disqualifier for a book that is judged to be a reading "must," and excluding Adjunct from the first revision on this basis seems entirely fair to me.
The Kindly Ones, on the other hand, makes sense, it's a Prix Goncort (French Pulitzer, basically) winner, written by an American author in the French language. It is about that favorite subject of early 21st century European fiction, the Nazi's, specifically, the perspective of Nazi's themselves. Maxmillien Aue, the well educated, literate narrator- writer, really, of The Kindly Ones, is reflecting on his experience in World War II as a member of the SS. As he writes the book, we know that he has survived World War II and lived out a life as a Belgian silkmaker.
The Kindly Ones is his memoirs as a kind of Nazi SS Forest Gump- present at all the hits of the German atrocities of World War II in his status as first as a direct participant in the messy, early stages of Jewish elimination in the Ukraine, and then as an analyst in the Ukraine, a survivor of the decisive battle of Stalingrad, where he is shot clean through the head and survives, then as a special advisor on the problem of using Jewish labor for economic purposes instead of just killing them all.
Aue has a personal life as "interesting" as his professional life- specifically a still-dedicated sister fucker- his twin no less, a vast, poorly understood hatred for his Mother, and a non-existent relationship with his proto-Nazi father, who disappeared before Maxmillien had a chance to form a relationship. It won't surprise anyone to learn that Aue is also an active pursuer of being the receiving partner in anal sex, with boys he seeks out on the streets and bars of pre-war Berlin. All of these elements twist and turn over the almost 1000 (992) page, and I felt like my choice of the nearly 40 hour Audiobook was a solid selection over the actual book or an Ebook (impossible!) edition.
Littell spares no detail in the underlying research, which, inserted into the narrative, forms a non-fiction narrative about the events and motivations of major participants in the anti-Jewish extermination process by the Germans, from the perspective of the actors. Aue, despite his misgivings about the choice of extermination, believes it to be a "done deal," and thus beyond his pay grade to question. He is also a committed National Socialist, in the sense that he also despises the Prussian aristocracy which dominates German society in the early 20th century.
It is worth pointing out that much of the contents of The Kindly Ones are terribly disturbing. Littell does not shy away from describing the mechanics of massacring a village of Jews with hand guns, and his febrile dream sequences are replete with enough coprophagia and anal sex to make the Marquise de Sade blush. It also is worth pointing out fictional narratives about genocide from the perspective of the perpetrator have their value in the sense that they add to the diversity of narratives about important historical events and thus add to the chance that the memory of such events will remain alive in the memory of the descendants.
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