Another year, another 35-40 books I read and didn't review. Last year, I didn't even get an end-of-year top 10 posted; this year, I am.
As always happens, when I read through my list, I realized what a wonderful year of reading it had been. Of the 60 books I completed, I only disliked a couple (which shall remain unnamed) and even those, I considered worthwhile. There were less graphic novels and less new authors this year; there was more nonfiction--including Madwoman in the Attic, which I've been chipping away at for years; there was a little less international lit, which I hope to recitfy in 2025.
And so without further ado, here are the peaks of the pages for 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
In the Eye of the Wild - Nastassja Martin
Who knew a book about being mauled by a bear could be so existentially upsetting?
In the Eye of the Wild - Nastassja Martin
Who knew a book about being mauled by a bear could be so existentially upsetting?
The Children's Bach - Helen Garner
I was going to say that this reminded me of the Australian The Man Who Loved Children, then I remembered that's already Australian.
I was going to say that this reminded me of the Australian The Man Who Loved Children, then I remembered that's already Australian.
Falling Man - Don DeLillo
Not DeLillo's best, but the first 3/4ths reframe 9/11 in a way I wouldn't have expected to work at all.
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Finally got around to reading the "funniest novel of all time" and it was indeed very funny. And bleak, my god, it's bleak as hell.
Finally got around to reading the "funniest novel of all time" and it was indeed very funny. And bleak, my god, it's bleak as hell.
Pew - Catherine Lacey
Another member of the 75%er club--I wasn't satisfied with the ending but the journey to get there was as compelling as it gets.
Monologue of a Dog: Poems - Wisława Szymborska
I rarely remember new poems for long, but the title poem of this collection is going to be with me forever.
My Documents - Alejandro Zambra
My second Zambra opens with one of the most jarring nd precise short stories I've ever read, and that's not nothing.
Lapvona - Otessah Moshfegh
This book is disgusting and probably nihilistic and I'm not sure it holds together really, but also, I liked it.
American Demagogue: The Great Awakening and the Rise and Fall of Populism - J. D. Dickey
If you want to know what George Whitfield and Donald Trump (who doesn't appear in this book) have in common, this is the book for you.
House Made of Dawn - N. Scott Momaday
This probably would've been in my top 10 if I'd reviewed it when I read it. A great modernist Native American novel.
My top 10 this year were fairly easy to determine, but unlike many years, actually ranking them was difficult, partially because of the amount of nonfiction that made the cut. So take this ranking with a spoonful of salt, and read all of these wherever I've ranked them.
10. Robinson - Muriel Spark
Spark's second novel could have been made for me in a laboratory. I love Robinsonades, Spark, locked room mysteries, and short funny books. This was all four, a ripping and cynical tale of a group of castaways on the titular island, at the mercy of the titular character. A little triumph.
9. The Changeling - Joy Williams
My least favorite of Williams' novels so far, The Changeling is still one of the best and strangest books I read this year. It's a mysterious and often macabre examination of woman-and-motherhood, almost a thematic retelling of Williams' State of Grace, but much weirder and bleaker. I still don't know what to
My least favorite of Williams' novels so far, The Changeling is still one of the best and strangest books I read this year. It's a mysterious and often macabre examination of woman-and-motherhood, almost a thematic retelling of Williams' State of Grace, but much weirder and bleaker. I still don't know what to
make of the closing pages but the final sentence haunted me all year.
8. Reaganland - Rick Perlstein
The other magesterial work of nonfiction, besides Madwoman, that I read this year. My timing was spot on, since most of the book is really about Carter--it ends on election night 1980. I spent most of the book almost as frustrated with Jimmy as I was with Ronnie, and by the time I finished I'd resolved to read Perlstein's other 3 books on the rise of conservatism. And isn't that really the highest compliment you can pay an author?
The other magesterial work of nonfiction, besides Madwoman, that I read this year. My timing was spot on, since most of the book is really about Carter--it ends on election night 1980. I spent most of the book almost as frustrated with Jimmy as I was with Ronnie, and by the time I finished I'd resolved to read Perlstein's other 3 books on the rise of conservatism. And isn't that really the highest compliment you can pay an author?
7. The Wall - Marlen Haushofer
The second Robinsonade on my list is a much stranger beast on paper, and yet, maybe not in practice. While the premise--a woman wakes to find that she's been trapped in the country with no other humans behind an invisible wall--might sound like science fiction, the book itself has more in common with Robinson Crusoe than Under the Dome. Long and riviting passages about nature and survival butt up against shocking and inevitable climaxes.
6. Clock Without Hands - Carson McCullers
Another unexpectedly timely book, not because it's about racism, which is always timely, but because the form the racism takes, that of the proper, upstanding, even charming, Judge is so well-wrought that you can't help but see him in all of the kindly, helpful people in your life who nevertheless prioritize their own fears and prejudices over the well-being of others.
5. H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald
I've been blessed, for most of my life, to suffer very little loss, until the last decade when mortality came home to roost. And H is for Hawk captures the complexity of the grief of sudden loss better than almost anything else I've read. It really is a book about hawks too--it's just a book about Hawks that will probably make you bawl like a baby.
4. Too Much Happiness - Alice Munro
Every Munro collection is good; every Munro collection is dark. But this one was better and darker than most. Child's Play is surely one of the bleakest things in Munro's bibliography, and almost every story has a moment or two of shocking violence. Perhaps there's a little less anger here than in something like Runaway; or maybe the anger is just made more concrete here.
3. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich
My fourth Erdrich novel is my favorite so far. An inveterate Graham Greene stan, I couldn't help but love a book about a priest who does the right thing in the wrong way. The explorations of gender, faith, and the American West all came together here in a way I found both techincally impressive--does anyone write prose better than Erdrich?--and moving at the same time.
2. Story of of the Lost Child - Elena Ferrante
I can't believe I've read all four of Ferrante's Neopolitian novels--for my money, the best extended narrative in modern literature--and haven't reviewed any of them. And part of me feels like this should really be my number one book, since it nailed the ending, wrapping up the story of Lenu, Lila, and their entire neighborhood over the course of 60 years as perfectly as anyone could.
1. Solenoid - Mircea Cărtăresc
I don't know what exactly to say about Solenoid. Like many of the other books I enjoyed this year, it feels impossible that it should work. It's too long, too strange, too gross, too avant garde, too indulgent--and yet, the surreal story of a man whose life is circumscribed by forces beyond his control or comprehension works perfectly, an expertly calibrated novel that takes ideas so bleak as to be nearly Lovecraftian and winnows them to the fine point, repeated for 12 straight pages: HELP ME. And by the time the novel ends, we think there's a slight chance that someone--or something--may.
I don't know what exactly to say about Solenoid. Like many of the other books I enjoyed this year, it feels impossible that it should work. It's too long, too strange, too gross, too avant garde, too indulgent--and yet, the surreal story of a man whose life is circumscribed by forces beyond his control or comprehension works perfectly, an expertly calibrated novel that takes ideas so bleak as to be nearly Lovecraftian and winnows them to the fine point, repeated for 12 straight pages: HELP ME. And by the time the novel ends, we think there's a slight chance that someone--or something--may.
And that's all! Here's to an ever better 2025. Thanks to the few readers of this blog and especially to my blog partner and friend Chris, without whom my literary life would be far less rich and this blog would be far more empty.
No comments:
Post a Comment