BOOKS OF 2020: What I Read During "That Awful Year"
I'm not even going to mention what a mind-blowing year 2020 was. You, Reader, already know. So my intro paragraph to my Books of 2020 is simple and sweet. Some of these books I absolutely loved, others I liked; some I did not like at all.
The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin is one of the best books I read all year. PW (Publishers Weekly) says "Grushin has imagined both Sukhanov's carefully managed life and his richly troubling personal history with a detailed intensity that fruitfully echoes Solzhenitsyn and John O'Hara." I think she did it better. I love this book.
February gave me The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul and The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning. I didn't particularly like The Enigma of Arrival, which Naipaul referred to as a novel more than autobiography. The experience was like listening to paint dry in Welsh. The Great Fortune however is the first of the Balkan Trilogy by Ms. Manning, and I found it hard to put down, like something from Masterpiece Theatre but less balmy.
Which brings me to March, and the second and third books of the Trilogy, The Spoilt City, and Friends and Heroes, which did not disappoint, neither in story nor in characters. I can't wait to read Ms. Manning's Levantine Trilogy. John Berger's G. is a strange novel, and rather unsatisfying. I'm not a literary critic so I feel I can use unexpounded adjectives and unclear, prejudicial judgements. I guess I didn't get the point.
And then came April, with Alice Munro's Selected Stories, which began my devotional allegiance to this Nobel Prize winner. I loved these Canadian north stories, mostly of the first half of the previous century, my century, and I couldn't wait to read more. James Purdy's On Glory's Course is one hell of a novel. My penchant for midwestern and/or southern gothic has kept my interest in Purdy for many years. And this book is hilarious, shocking, unbelievable in its social grotesqueness. Give me more. An elegant, informative book by Pete Hamill entitled Downtown provided quite the dose of pre-1990s New York sentimentality and homesickness.
In June, I finished Iain Pear's An Instance of the Fingerpost, it is a big book, which like Neal Stephenson's wide expansive novels, is so intricate and fascinating, you honestly end up giving yourself to the 17th century, and gladly so, in order to right the wrongs of the characters' misfortunes. I also read another book in the Islam Quintet by Tariq Ali: Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree. Again in the vein of a family saga, I like this book very much; the history of Islamic people in Spain after the Christians have retaken control of the Iberian peninsula is one not often broached thoroughly in our schools when we study Western Civ of the 15th century. (Sorry, that sentence sounds pedantic.) Another book of short stories, Istanbul Noir, edited by Mustafa Ziyalan, portrays some pretty weird, comical yet bizarre predicaments in the seedy parts of modern Istanbul. As the title suggests, it involves murder, sex, religion, and revenge constantly.
In July, another volume in the Islam Quintet, The Stone Woman by Tariq Ali, joins my small pantheon of one of the best books I read all year. Istanbul shortly before the end of the 19th century, and again a family saga in the midst of the Ottoman Empire's pending collapse.
August. Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light, the continuation of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, gives us more and fresh insight into the fierce insanity of Henry VIII and his courtiers and the disposability of men and women at the drop of a hat. Beautifully written. Wendell Berry, as you may recall from my reading transports during 2019, kept the "my favorite writers" banner going with Andy Catlett: Early Travels. Naturally it makes sense to read the books that came prior to this one. Also in August, I read Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, a mystery in the same vein as Akunin's Czarist Russian hero Fandorin, but this time in a small provincial town peopled with ambitious Orthodox priests, vicious government bureaucrats, and outrageous potholes of the aristocracy. Not as good as his Fandorin books.
Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction is a fascinating and horrifying book about, well...we are the Sixth Extinction my friends. And what with the last four years of an administration in D.C. that gave no thought to global warming and polluting rivers and raping forests and destroying wetlands, what do you expect? I would have said, yes, and I do, that our time has come. Except, now, we have some chance of reversing the idiocy of climate change nay-sayers. Naturally, I won't be around for the planet's turnaround. But it's a good book. L.P. Hartley's 1953 novel The Go-Between has always been one I'd been meaning to read since early college days; as PW says, "A combination of knowing and not-knowing is this novel's driving force." My God it could be so frustrating at times.
September began with Peter Taylor's The Old Forest and Other Stories. Writing in the NYT, Robert Towers said: "Although he is younger than the others, Peter Taylor belongs essentially to that generation of writers - John O'Hara, John Cheever, and the early Irwin Shaw - whose names, glimpsed at the end of a New Yorker story in the 1950s, flashed like a red signal to the casual peruser of cartoons and ads: Stop skimming! Go back. Read." These are important stories, and often they hurt, so get ready to be uncomfortable. And finally I regain myself with another volume of Alice Munro's work, Family Furnishings: Stories 1995-2014, every bit as wonderful as the Selected Stories.
October. Kem Nunn's The Dogs of Winter is a very good book; an unusual kind of mystery; riveting (in case you need that word). Says Simon & Schuster, "it is a portrait of two men and an appealing yet troubled young woman set against an unforgettable background of stark and violent beauty." I followed that up with yet another best book of the year: The Overstory by Richard Powers. I couldn't get enough of this book; its ecological slant, its condensing of time, and its brilliant scientific and horticultural tagalongs are in a word breathtaking. Yes, I said it. Breathtaking. It is so relevant now I can't emphasize more strongly. Cuba and the Night by Pico Iyer (one of my heroes) is so depressing a narrative about such a depressing place as Castro-era Havana, you don't know how you're going to finish it. You could finish it, because it could have been interesting. But it wasn't.
November gave me Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter's charming novel about Hollywood and a little village on the coast of Italy, about 1961 and the current era--a good read.
In December it was roundup time. I finally finished Lydia Davis's The Collected Stories, and now I no longer have to read anything else from her again. I thought this book was a fraud: flash fiction, one sentence stories, tongue-in-cheek fancy clever monotonous condescension, and I really think you should just move on. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson is a wonderful book. It's about North Korea during the time of the current dictator's father, and it is often extremely difficult to take, but once you do, it's well worth the time. I love this book. Martin Stannard's Biography of Muriel Spark is an excellent read, at times hilarious and at times unnerving. If you like her work, you'll find her life a bit bumpy. Robert Harris' An Officer and a Spy tells the furiously frustrating story of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus and the French nation's despicable anti-semitism. It's told from the point of view of an investigating officer trying to piece together many forgotten clues and vicious betrayals. Yes, it will give you a little angina pectoris, because you cannot believe that things have changed so little over Time. And last but not least, Muriel Spark's The Mandelbaum Gate. I love what PW says about it: "The story, per se, has more physical activity than any she has written and it can and may be read as an intrigue with touches of the absurd. Sometimes it's as chimerical as a Dead Sea scroll. But always it has grace, humor and a lively astonishment." And it's such a pleasure to read. And that's true. I recommend that you have a glass of water standing by whenever you read it though; you're in the Middle East don't forget.
February gave me The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul and The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning. I didn't particularly like The Enigma of Arrival, which Naipaul referred to as a novel more than autobiography. The experience was like listening to paint dry in Welsh. The Great Fortune however is the first of the Balkan Trilogy by Ms. Manning, and I found it hard to put down, like something from Masterpiece Theatre but less balmy.
Which brings me to March, and the second and third books of the Trilogy, The Spoilt City, and Friends and Heroes, which did not disappoint, neither in story nor in characters. I can't wait to read Ms. Manning's Levantine Trilogy. John Berger's G. is a strange novel, and rather unsatisfying. I'm not a literary critic so I feel I can use unexpounded adjectives and unclear, prejudicial judgements. I guess I didn't get the point.
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami began May. In the manner of noir novels mixed with absurdist current popular culture, I found this to be a good read. Don't forget now, I was in month three of our pandemic lockdown, and retreating into books every moment I could get was and still is a relief that I cannot articulate fully. Jonathan Raban's Passage to Juneau is a strange but edifying account of just that, a boat trip to Juneau, Alaska, and the breakup of a marriage. Robert Olen Butler's A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain is a collection of short stories that I found intriguing, mainly because they are about immigrants from Vietnam becoming new individuals in the USA. I liked it very much.
In July, another volume in the Islam Quintet, The Stone Woman by Tariq Ali, joins my small pantheon of one of the best books I read all year. Istanbul shortly before the end of the 19th century, and again a family saga in the midst of the Ottoman Empire's pending collapse.
August. Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light, the continuation of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, gives us more and fresh insight into the fierce insanity of Henry VIII and his courtiers and the disposability of men and women at the drop of a hat. Beautifully written. Wendell Berry, as you may recall from my reading transports during 2019, kept the "my favorite writers" banner going with Andy Catlett: Early Travels. Naturally it makes sense to read the books that came prior to this one. Also in August, I read Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, a mystery in the same vein as Akunin's Czarist Russian hero Fandorin, but this time in a small provincial town peopled with ambitious Orthodox priests, vicious government bureaucrats, and outrageous potholes of the aristocracy. Not as good as his Fandorin books.
September began with Peter Taylor's The Old Forest and Other Stories. Writing in the NYT, Robert Towers said: "Although he is younger than the others, Peter Taylor belongs essentially to that generation of writers - John O'Hara, John Cheever, and the early Irwin Shaw - whose names, glimpsed at the end of a New Yorker story in the 1950s, flashed like a red signal to the casual peruser of cartoons and ads: Stop skimming! Go back. Read." These are important stories, and often they hurt, so get ready to be uncomfortable. And finally I regain myself with another volume of Alice Munro's work, Family Furnishings: Stories 1995-2014, every bit as wonderful as the Selected Stories.
October. Kem Nunn's The Dogs of Winter is a very good book; an unusual kind of mystery; riveting (in case you need that word). Says Simon & Schuster, "it is a portrait of two men and an appealing yet troubled young woman set against an unforgettable background of stark and violent beauty." I followed that up with yet another best book of the year: The Overstory by Richard Powers. I couldn't get enough of this book; its ecological slant, its condensing of time, and its brilliant scientific and horticultural tagalongs are in a word breathtaking. Yes, I said it. Breathtaking. It is so relevant now I can't emphasize more strongly. Cuba and the Night by Pico Iyer (one of my heroes) is so depressing a narrative about such a depressing place as Castro-era Havana, you don't know how you're going to finish it. You could finish it, because it could have been interesting. But it wasn't.
In December it was roundup time. I finally finished Lydia Davis's The Collected Stories, and now I no longer have to read anything else from her again. I thought this book was a fraud: flash fiction, one sentence stories, tongue-in-cheek fancy clever monotonous condescension, and I really think you should just move on. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson is a wonderful book. It's about North Korea during the time of the current dictator's father, and it is often extremely difficult to take, but once you do, it's well worth the time. I love this book. Martin Stannard's Biography of Muriel Spark is an excellent read, at times hilarious and at times unnerving. If you like her work, you'll find her life a bit bumpy. Robert Harris' An Officer and a Spy tells the furiously frustrating story of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus and the French nation's despicable anti-semitism. It's told from the point of view of an investigating officer trying to piece together many forgotten clues and vicious betrayals. Yes, it will give you a little angina pectoris, because you cannot believe that things have changed so little over Time. And last but not least, Muriel Spark's The Mandelbaum Gate. I love what PW says about it: "The story, per se, has more physical activity than any she has written and it can and may be read as an intrigue with touches of the absurd. Sometimes it's as chimerical as a Dead Sea scroll. But always it has grace, humor and a lively astonishment." And it's such a pleasure to read. And that's true. I recommend that you have a glass of water standing by whenever you read it though; you're in the Middle East don't forget.
