I've had a slow reading year. The statistics from my end-of-year post for 2007 put me to shame - I read 82 books. This time I've only managed 51 (full statistical break-down at the bottom of the post). Admittedly that isn't counting all the dull Archives and Records Management textbooks that I've read since April, when I started my distance-learning MSc but, still... To add insult to injury, of the 52 books I have read, there haven't been too many I can recommend to you in a 'best of' post. A lot of the new fiction that I've tried this year has lacked lustre, although this is probably more a result of my reading choices than the quality of contemporary fiction in 2008. I know there must be brilliant new fiction out there, because my fellow bloggers have been reading it. I just seem to have made some bad choices. Consequently this has been a year for the Classics, and particularly for Victorian novels, which have dominated my imagination since last January.
by Wilkie Collins (January)
This was my first foray into Wilkie Collins and a very successful one. Not because of the plot (which I already knew) or the innovative structure (of letters, diaries, and first person narratives), but because of the characters, most particularly Marian Holcombe and Count Fosco. I never got around the writing about it - a running theme this year - but if I had, I would have probably concurred with John Sutherland that Marian is one of the more interesting women in Victorian fiction. And Count Fosco is a great moustache twirling villain, the prototype for hundreds of fiendishly intelligent baddies since. Ifound it hard to resist its charms. I admit that my love for it is in spite of its weaknesses: the plot turns on some very silly coincidences, and a highly unlikely fiddle with parish registers, and ends up infantalising every woman in sight (except for Marian who escapes this treatment because, well, she's ugly).
by Ron Currie (February)
This was, hands down, the best contemporary fiction I read this year. To say that I loved it is something of an understatement; I really, really loved it. I read it for a two-part review of the shortlist for the William L Crawford Award for First Fantasy Fiction at Strange Horizons, and was devastated when it didn't win. Here is a snippet of what I wrote then:
The concept alone makes me giddy. God is actually dead. He died in a Janjaweed raid on a refugee camp in Darfur, sometime during 2004, having taken the form of a Dinka tribeswoman in order to go amongst His people. Omnipresent but hardly omnipotent, He was as powerless as anyone else to stop the suffering and pain around him, although He felt guilty and very sorry about it all. When death came, it came to Him as well. His corpse is subsequently eaten by a pack of hyenas, who inherit His all-knowingness (and incredible isolation) and spread the news of His demise around the world.
What follows is a series of aftermath stories, thematically linked but equally as capable of standing alone. (The American edition was subtitled "Fiction by Ron Currie, Jr," thus complicating the relationship between short and long form fiction.) In one, "Indian Summer," a group of college friends make a suicide pact in the face of the ensuing breakdown of order and society; in another, "False Idols," a psychiatrist battles against an epidemic of child-worship that has emerged to fill the God vacuum; and in another, one of the hyenas who ate God explains the horror of feeling everything. Finally, in "The Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of Spirit" East and West fight a war over diametrically opposed ontologies—Postmodern Anthropology, which is relativist, and Evolutionary Psychology, which is positivist. The stories nest into each other chronologically, but are otherwise (mostly) non-continuous. They’re vignettes, and character studies, and conjectures about what the world would do without its favorite crutch. Without exception, they’re excellent.
by Anthony Trollope (February)
Kirsty at Other Stories has recently undergone a conversion to the charms of Anthony Trollope, similar to the one I had in February. I couldn't believe how fresh, funny and eccentric he was. All of my expectations - of some dowdy, reactive gentleman - were shattered.
by Elizabeth Gaskell (March)
The third Victorian novel on my list, and no surprises here. I always enjoy Elizabeth Gaskell's novels, and this was no exception. Yes, it teams with cloying sentiment at times, but it is still a vigorous book about industrial strife and the people caught in its wheels. I think it is refreshing to see Victorian life from the perspective of the northern worker - I so often short-cut to a vision of the period mashed together from Dickens and the Brontes, constituted of London and the rural wilderness. I was surprised to learn that it was a favourite Gaskell novel amongst my colleagues though, not because it was sub-standard but because I couldn't imagine anything replacing North and South in my affections.
by Lauren Liebenburg (May)
Another contemporary fiction novel I didn't get around to writing about, and a real shame because it was my pick for winner of the Orange New Writer's Award this year. A short novel set in the dying days of colonial Rhodesia, it tells the story of two white sisters, Nyree and Cia. It is told in Nyree's voice - naively poetic - and dominated by the fecund, magical landscape of her childhood; arguably Rhodesia, violent and dying, is the protagonist of the novel. I highly recommend it.
by Susan Faludi (June)
I was sent The Terror Dream in review copy, and read it avidly. Faludi is best known for her feminist writing, particularly Backlash, and this is her evaluation of the impact of 9/11 on gender roles in American society. The book was inspired by a phonecall Faludi received late in September 2001, asking her if her feminism still had a place in a society in Terror. It is a searing indightment of world media and its reversion to traditional sex-stereotyping in the wake of the attacks: of how burly fireman protecting the little woman terrified in her front room became the order of the day. Faludi's evaluation of newspaper articles and news programmes shows how decisively women were written out of the recovery process, placed in the passive back seat and policed for signs of deviant behaviour. She shows how quickly and how eagerly women writers and commentators were sidelined and/or attacked by their outlets. The second half of the book seeks to explain the trend in terms of America's frontier history and is less convincing than the journalism of the first part, but it is still a vitally important narrative to explore.
by Patrick O'Brian (June)
What can I say? We all know Patrick O'Brian is one of the most significant writers of historical fiction of all time, and that the Aubrey-Maturin series is a work of genius. I wrote about it here.
and Walking in the Shade by Doris Lessing (August-December)
This two volume autobiography has been my find of the year. You may remember that I had my doubts about Lessing's place in the literary firmament after reading the disastrous The Cleft. I'm so very glad I gave her another chance to prove herself. I'll re-read these books no doubt, with great affection. I wrote about them here, and here.
by Doris Lessing (December)
After finishing the autobiographies, I went straight on to read this, Lessing's first novel published in 1950. I won't say too much, because I have my annotated copy here with me awaiting a post, but I had to include it on this list. Reading this short, terrifying book you can see why Lessing has had the success she has, and why she deserves it. It is a beautiful, bony thing.
by Homer (October-December)
I was supposed to read Ulysses by James Joyce this year. That was my plan, and it utterly failed because I was just too busy with studying to dedicate myself to it. However, starting it and stopping it did inspire me to read the two epics that gave birth to it - The Iliad and The Odyssey. I fitted the former into my life by reading a prescribed number of pages before bed - which worked very well - and managed to gallop through the six hundred plus pages of Robert Fagles translation in just over two months. I suprised myself by enjoying it, or at least significant parts of it. There is a whole middle section that reads like the epic poem equivalent of a Die Hard movie, with endless battles and death-defying feats, not to mention actual deaths. But the rest is fascinating and heady stuff. It was shocking how little I actually knew of the story when I set down to read it; and how little I knew about the key players, particularly Achilles, who turns out to be a sulky boy-wonder, not to mention a thoroughly nasty bastard. Naming it one of my reads of 2008 seems like the height of literary snobbishness but so what?
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For those who are interested, here is this year's statistical break-down. As you'd expect I've read a little less of everything than I would like. The figures for pre-1900 reads are still dismal, but the most disappointing thing is how few books I've read in translation. Again. That was supposed to be one of my things to work on in 2008 and I failed utterly. Maybe next year.
Books read: 52
Books by men: 21
Books by women: 31
Books written by men and women together: 0
Fiction read: 43
Of the Fiction:
Novels: 36
Short story collections: 3
Novels Composed of Linked Short Stories: 3
Graphic novels: 0
Poetry: 1
Plays: 0
Speculative/SF: 15
Historical (ie. set 30 years in the past from time of writing; not including flashbacks): 8
Most works by the same author: 3 (Doris Lessing)
Nonfiction read: 10
Of the Nonfiction:
Essays: 1
Biography /Memoir: 2
History: 3
Literary Criticism: 2
Politics/World Affairs: 2
Books in translation: 2
Books that were re-reads: 0
Books that were written before 1900: 5 [still shameful!]
Books that were written after 2000: 40
~~Victoria~~