Brent's Top 10 of 2010

What a great year of reading! Except for the top 2, these are not in order.

Top 10 of 2010

Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The last book I read this year was also the best. It didn’t unseat The Brothers Karamazov for my favorite novel, but Demons had me from the first page. It’s got everything I look for in a novel: great characters, interesting ideas, a plot that keeps moving and, in the Pevear/Volkhonsky translation, really nice prose. Well worth the month it took to read. Recommend for kids with Che Guevera in their t-shirts.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace is my favorite author that should still be living. Shorter then Infinite Jest, but possibly more difficult, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men never shies away from the dark side of human nature; indeed, without the postmodern games Wallace plays, it might be too dark to even be palatable. Wallace infuses the darkness with enough beauty to keep it from growing too oppressive, but BIWHM is the toughest book I read this year, for more than one reason. Recommended for people who aren’t contemplating suicide.

Wise Blood by Flannery O’Conner
This barely missed the top 10. A dark southern gothic tale of sin and redemption, populated by unnerving but somehow relatable characters. Recommended for street preachers.

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Possibly the bleakest portrait of Hollywood ever to see print, Nathanael West’s little fable features a cast of despicable characters doing despicable things, and shocks without even trying. That we don’t want the entire cast to die in a fire is a testament to West’s characterization skills. Recommended for aspiring actors.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
David Mitchell’s newest novel spans from the Netherlands to Japan, following a Dutch shipping company and the eponymous Jacob de Zoet over fifty years. Surprising, beautiful, moving, and challenging, Mitchell is still one of my favorite authors. Recommended for pasty white guys.

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
A completely unexpected bombshell, Ford Madox Ford’s quietly devastating masterpiece came out of nowhere and depressed me for weeks. Chris wrote about it extensively; I didn’t, but loved it anyway. Recommended for fans of sadness, non-linear timelines.

Emma by Jane Austen
This year I read both Emma and Pride and Prejudice. P&P has the name recognition, but Emma barely edges it out as the better book. With all the dark novels I read this year, Austen was a little ray of light. Reading her, even at her most scathing, is a joy, and I’m embarrassed that I let her embarrassing fanbase keep me from reading her for so long. Recommended for guys who think they’re too cool to read Austen.

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
Graham Greene in hedonism mode is nearly as good as Greene in Catholic mode. Exploring the flip side of his most famous themes, he leaves it to the reader to decide what’s right and wrong. Also, it’s really funny. Recommended for my aunt.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Written entirely in a broken, cryptic dialectic, Riddley Walker shouldn’t work at all, yet somehow manages not only to be believable but affecting. Pro-tip: read it out loud. Recommended for people with a long attention span.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton turns in a surreal performance with this, a spy novel that eventually goes… well, I won’t spoil it. Short, sweet, and a real joy to read, I recommend this for everyone.

Honorable Mentions:

77 Dream Songs by John Berryman
John Berryman turned my onto poetry. Some of the most beautiful stuff I read all year.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
The best science fiction novel I’ve ever read. Also the year’s most depressing book not by David Foster Wallace.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A great meditation on predestination and God’s authority, disguised as a fable about a girl’s school.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
My first foray into magical realism sucked. Should have started with one of the major works.

Sandman Slim by Richard Kardrey
Ugh.

Top 10 for '10

Without further ado, here are the best ten books I read this year. For inconsistent reasons, I am not including Shakespeare, who is so undoubtedly awesome I don't even feel like talking about him, and some of the books I have already read, like Riddley Walker and Pride and Prejudice, though those are really fantastic.

10.) Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence -- I am deeply suspicious of the underlying message of Lady Chatterley's Lover, which seems to me to be tediously reactionary in its idealization of the sexual act. But reading it was a sheer joy; I have read very few better-written books, if any.

9.) A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene -- The story of a man who tries to run from himself and from God, but finds them, together, waiting in the leper colonies of Africa. Probably deserves to be "canonized" with the quartet of Greene's "serious" novels (and it's certainly better than The End of the Affair).

8.) The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark -- I could have easily included The Only Problem here instead, but this one sort of epitomizes Sparkian elegance. It's the story of a girls' organization in war-era Britain, but that only scratches the surface: Really, it's the story of time, and death, and a reminder of their constant presence.

7.) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov -- Russian, satirical, fraught with religious imagery and talking cats: Brent should have read this years ago.

6.) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh -- Probably the most dogmatic book I have ever read that I thought was successful, and that includes Graham Greene. There is no ambiguity that religious belief is a good--perhaps the only good--in Brideshead, but Waugh's sharp sense of humor and character make it compelling instead of preachy.

5.) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte -- Are there Austen-style Jane Eyre sequels yet? If not, why not? It makes me think about Pride and Prejudice if someone had given it to a screenwriting hack to be "punched up," and the film that comes out in March should be awesome.

4.) A Room with a View by EM Forster -- This is a stranger book than it lets on, always subverting expectations. It is not, as it pretends to be, a book about an English girl on a trip to Italy. It may be a satire. It may have a happy ending. I am not sure.

3.) The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco -- What would Sherlock Holmes be like if he were, oh, say, a Franciscan monk? A big, brain-wracking puzzle box of a book. Not for the faint of heart.

2.) Emma by Jane Austen -- My ex-girlfriend suggested recently that carrying around Jane Austen books makes me look gay. If that's true, then I am the gayest gay that ever gayed, but that's okay, because Emma will keep me company in my bachelorhood.

1.) The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford -- I realize that this is a blatant violation of the rules I set on myself at the outset (I read this before, in high school) but I did say they were inconsistent. The Good Soldier is a novel of not understanding, the best book that has ever been written where the narrator makes no pretenses to know anything. Confusion--religious, sexual, epistemological--is its principal dynamic, and it is wonderful to lose yourself in.


Honorable Mention:

The Only Problem by Muriel Spark
The Complete Stories by Graham Greene
God's Grace by Bernard Malamud
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury


Dishonorable Mention:

The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole
The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
The Finishing School by Muriel Spark