Below is a list of the books I managed to read in 2014.
Fiction
- Canada—Richard
Ford
- The
Observations—Jane Harris
- The
Blueflower (reread)—Penelope Fitzgerald
- The
Misfortunates—Dimitri Verhulst
- The
Girl in Polka Dot Dress—Beryl Bainbridge
- Hotel
Savoy—Joseph Roth
- The
Cut—George Pelecanos
- May
We Be Forgiven—A.M. Homes
- The
Wasp Factory—Iain Banks
- The
Painter of Silence—Georgina Harding
- Sweet
Tooth—Ian McEwan
- England’s
Lane—Joseph Connolly
- The
Best Exotic Merigold Hotel—Deborah Moggach
- The
Last Runaway—Tracy Chevalier
- The
Temple Goers—Aatish Taseer
- A
Possible Life—Sebastian Faulks
- Two
Brothers—Ben Elton
- The
Catcher in the Rye (re-read)—J.D. Salinger
- Never
Let Me Go (re-read)—Kazuho Ishiguro
- The
Mask of Dimitrios—Eric Ambler
- Infinite
Jest—David Foster Wallace
- Gone
Girl—Gillian Flynn
- Hotel
Du Lac (re-read)—Anita Brookner
- The
People in the Photo—Helene Gestern
- The
Hundred Year Old Man . . .—Jonas Jonasson
- Love
(re-read)—Toni Morison
- Wolf
Hall—Hilary Mantel
- Narrow
Road to Deep North—Richard Flanagan
- L’Mour
Actually—Melanie Jones
Non-Fiction
- An
Interrupted Life—Etty Hillesum
- Me
Talk Pretty One Day—David Sedaris
- Whatever
it is I don’t Like It—Howard Jacobson
- The
Romantic Economist—William Nicolson
- Past
It Notes—Maureen Lipmann
- Dear
Lupin . . . Letter to A Wayward Son—Roger Mortimer
- A
Dangerous Method—John Kerr
- Confessions
of A New York Taxi Driver—Eugene Salomon
- Shakespeare—Bill
Bryson
- Red
Love: Story of An East German Family—Maxim Leo
I have heard people saying that
the world can be divided into those who have read Ulysses and those who haven’t (I come in the second category,
although the book is prominently displayed on my bookshelf. It is a modern
classic and one of these days I am going to get round to read it.) I have also
heard people describing Gravity’s
Rainbow and Infinite Jest
in similar—either or—vein.
The underlying theme about such
books, depending on how clever/snooty you are, is that the books are so deep
that only someone with an IQ high enough to withstand Stephen Fry’s questions on
the QI would understand them (so not many). You might be forgiven for
considering such people as a bit narcissistic. They are special; they belong to
an elite literary group of people who inhabit a higher plane of existence that
involves reading books (in prominent places such as underground tube, parks)
most wouldn’t go anywhere near five miles of, snacking in organic cafes,
starting book groups, starting book-blogs etcetera). If, on the other hand, you
are in the habit of telling it as it is, a habit commonly seen in those who are
scarred by the self-realization that they are not clever enough and have spent their
entire lives rebelling against things they suspect they are not sophisticated
enough to appreciate, you might say that these novels are essentially
unreadable totems, which are not worth bothering with. As regards Infinite Jest, I can suggest that a third
category be created: those who started
reading the novel with great enthusiasm and determination, but gave up before
they completed reading the full novel. I started reading Infinite Jest in the
summer of 2014, when I was on a vacation for 3 weeks. My (as it turned out
overambitious) plan was to finish reading the novel during the vacation.
Keeping aside the advisability of reading a novel like Infinite Jest while on a holiday, the folly of assuming that I
could finish reading it in three weeks can only be compared with the disaster
that was Operation Barbarossa. I finished roughly 70% of the novel (give credit
where it is due), on vacation. I carried on reading the novel in the three
weeks after I returned from vacation. By that time I had read nothing but Infinite Jest for 6 weeks and
finished about 85% of it. At that stage I decided that I needed a break from
the novel if I was to be able to maintain my sanity which would go a long way
towards realizing my ambition of finishing it. I thought to myself that I would
read a couple of light reads and then return to Infinite Jest. That has not happened. I really am cheating by
including Infinite Jest in the
list of books I read in 2014; however, I decided to include it because the book
is almost read, and, without it, the number of books I read in 2014 comes to
38. That does not feel right. 39 books, while considerably lower than the books
I read in previous years, is one more than 38 books, which makes me feel good.
Anyway, what did I think of the novel? At the risk of adding nothing new or
original to the plethora of reviews and opinions that pullulate the Net, I
would say that the book in part is unbearably tedious, but also absolutely
brilliant (not at the same time). The late David Foster Wallace had an
encyclopaedic knowledge of drugs of recreation. His knowledge of the philosophy
of Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) is like that of someone who has had first-hand
experience of this self-help group which has a lot of takers in America. The
novel has three strands, which are very loosely connected. I must confess that
I have not been able to figure out what the book is about; but I have read only
85% of it. There is no reason to believe that insight would not be gained when I
finish the remainder of the novel. I do plan to finish reading the novel in
2015.
The year started for me
(book-reading wise) on a good note. I read Richard Ford's Canada and loved it. In Canada Ford returns to the type of
story-telling that marked his earlier novels before he chose to become a
literary novelist with Sportswriter.
Canada is still a literary
novel, I think, but it is very plot-driven, with not much of the meandering
musings that characterised Sportswriter
and the Pulitzer winning Independence
Day. The novel loses its momentum a bit midway, but picks it up again
in the last third. A very good read.
Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North
won the 2014 Booker, and for that reason I decided to read it. The novel, which
Flanagan dedicated to his father, who was the prisoner of war for the Japanese
in the Second World War and worked on the dreaded Thailand-Burma railway, reads
like a non-fiction memoir at times. Flanagan’s prose style is often described
as lyrical. On the evidence of the only book of Flanagan I have read I’d say
that the descriptors are referring to his other novels. The prose-style of The Narrow Road to Deep North is
direct, matter of fact, unostentatious, and very effective.
Sebastian Faulks’s Possible Lives was (surprisingly) a
disappointment. Surprisingly because Faulks is a superb story teller, a weaver
of different strands of narrative into a coherent whole. (A week in December is a case in
point.) Possible Lives is an
unremarkable attempt by Faulks to weave together different stories which, in
themselves, are not particularly riveting, and don’t come together to form a
whole.
Also disappointing was the late
Iain Bank’s cult debut novel, The Wasp
Factory. I have had this novel on my shelf for years (because I like to
have cult novels on my shelf placed prominently), but got round to read it only
last year because it was chosen by the book group I have been trying politely
to disengage from for several months. I simply did not get into the novel.
Perhaps when it first came out decades ago The Wasp Factory blew the critics’ socks off by the audacity of
its story-line; however, the next generation of readers having grown up reading
the likes of The Silence of the Lambs
earlier, wouldn’t find it as shocking as that.
Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth was (surprisingly) a
winner. This is the first novel of McEwan in the past ten years that I enjoyed
reading. It tells the story of a woman who, when she was a university student
in Cambridge, was recruited by the British Intelligence Service. There is the
usual McEwan twist at the end (no novel of McEwan is complete without a twist);
but on the whole McEwan, to my great relief, concentrated more on the story and
less on gimmicks. Sweet Tooth
was a very entertaining read.
In The Mask of Dimitrios, we find Eric Ambler, the granddad of
espionage novels, sadly, largely neglected these days, is in fine form. It is
the story of the elusive Dimitrios,who is followed by an amateur British
journalist. There are twists galore, and Ambler keeps the reader guessing and
interested till the end. In the 1930s Ambler wrote six espionage novels which
sealed his reputation as a thriller writer. The Mask of Dimitrios is generally considered to be his best
novel. I wouldn’t know that (only because I have not read all of his novels
published during this decade).
Like everyone else I read Gone Girl (though I missed watching
the film). Entertaining but stretches the limits of your credulity to the
length of Siberia as it progresses. The end was a bit unconvincing—a bit of a
cop out if you ask me. This book was lent to me by a friend whose usual staple
of books comprises misery memoirs (how I overcame my horrendous childhood which
I spent eating out of beans and fellating my father etcetera) or stories. She
gave me this book threatening that if I did not like it would be an
incontrovertible proof that something was wrong with me. I told her that I
liked the book. (In the interpersonal context I follow the safe policy of being
scrupulously polite on people’s faces, and prefer to bitch on their back.) Gone Girl is not a dreadful book,
but I can’t understand the big hoo-ha surrounding it.
I can’t now remember why or how
I came to be reading The Temple Goers
by the Indian author Aatish Taseer. I must have picked it up from the library. The
novel tells the unlikely and slightly unsettling story of an unlikely and
unsettling friendship between a rich, upper class narrator and an ambitious lower
or lower-middle class man (who, we are informed, belongs to one of the higher
casts; it seems in modern India cast is not to be confused with class; you can
be poor but of higher cast, therefore properly classier than some nouveau riche
low cast person. Taseer’s novel is not about the Indian cast system; in any
case the labyrinthine cast system is so complex, I don’t think even the Indians
fully understand it themselves). The
Temple Goers is remarkable for the unashamed inspiration its prose
style derives from that of V.S. Naipaul: ruthless, cutting and pithy
observations, which, with minimum of fuss, go to the core of things. A
Naipaul-like character even makes a cameo appearance in the novel. Taseer is
obviously a fan of the great author. On the whole The Temple Goers is an uneven effort, but still worth a read.
After reading slightly
dystopian vision of modern India in The
Temple Goers, I dived into Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac more eagerly than Michael Douglas dived into
Catherine Zeta Jones. Hotel du Lac
won the 1983 Booker prize, ahead of the critic’s favourite—J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, which puzzled
many (J.G. Ballard most of all). Brookner, in a display of self-deprecation
worthy of heroines in many of her novels, declared that her novels were not
deep and Ballard’s novel ought to have been given the award. More than 30 years
later, The Empire of the Sun
is considered a modern classic, whereas Hotel
du Lac does not get talked about much. I re-read Hotel du Lac after many years.
Brookner is one of my favourite authors and Hotel du Lac, which glows with the quiet cadence of Brookner’s
measured prose, has everything in it that I like about her novels: not exactly
bursting with events, but lots quiet discussions between people in which what is
left unsaid gives you a lot of insight into human psych. I would without
hesitation have put Hotel du Lac
ahead of The Empire of the Sun
(which I didn’t like) but (with some hesitation) put it behind Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot, which was also
shortlisted for the Booker that year.
Wolf Hall, for which Hilary Mantel won the 2009
Booker, is an absolutely smashing read, the centre of at which is the shadowy
figure of Thomas Cromwell. Even if you (like me) are not a fan of historical
novels, I would recommend Wolf Hall, which crackles with wit and intrigue, and
keeps you engaged till the end. I shall read Bring Up the Bodies, the next instalment this year.
Jonas Jonasson’s The Hundred Year Old Man who Jumped out of
the Window . . . (I can’t remember the exact title) was foisted upon me
by an acquaintance who would not take a no for an answer. This novel,
originally in Swedish, was a surprise hit with the readers, apparently, by word
of mouth publicity. Its far-fetched story is told in a flat, matter of fact
tone, which is sometimes amusing, sometimes irritating, and mostly not very
riveting.
I re-read a few novels this
year, The Catcher in the Rye,
being one of them, which I read after almost 25 years, and found it as
enjoyable a read as I had as a teenager. This is a timeless classic. More than
seventy years after it was first published, it remains in circulation.
Another classic (one of the
better choices by the book group), though it has not been around for as long as
The Catcher in the Rye, was Never Let Me Go. Some of the members
pontificated endlessly whether it was a science fiction novel or not, and if it
was—which half of them thought it was—whether it was a credible science
fiction—which half of them—from the half who agreed it was science fiction—thought
it wasn’t. The other half (that is the half that didn’t think it was a science
fiction) could not agree what it was that the novel was attempting to convey on
the dubious grounds that they didn’t understand it. Of this half, some said
that they were additionally disappointed that Ishiguro eschewed the main
question which they (the members) eschewed by not clarifying what that question
was. I think Never Let Me Go
is a great novel. I am not bothered if it is a science fiction, therefore a
genre, novel. It is a surreal tale which has melancholy at its heart. I am sure
it will be read in hundred years (although I won’t be around to witness it).
When a member of my book group
suggested that we should read a novel by Toni Morrison I suggested The Song of Solomon, which I think
is Morrison’s best novel. I wouldn’t have minded re-reading Jazz or Beloved, both of which are first rate novels. But the group
chose Love (for no reason
other than that enough copies were available in the local library). Love is a readable enough novel but
not a patch on some Morrison’s earlier great novels. As the title suggests the
novel examines different layers of through the eyes of its female
protagonists—one just about alive, another almost dead, and the third, dead. I gave
the novel seven out of ten. (Yes we mark the novel out of ten; average the
scores, and a really sad bloke amongst us updates the ranking. To Kill A Mocking Bird, I think, is
at the top for several months, I think.)
I am an admirer of the late
Penelope Fitzgerald, and have loved all of her novels bar two, which happen to
be her most celebrated novels. Blue Flower,
Fitzgerald’s take on the eighteenth century German Romantic novelist Novalis,
was the last full length novel published in Fitzgerald’s life, and is
considered by many to be her finest novel, including a rather narcissistic and
smug chap in my book group, who insisted that this book be chosen by the group
(and was terribly put out when a few amongst us had the effrontery to not love
it as much as he did. I must say that second time round I was as underwhelmed
as I was when I’d first read the novel when it came out in 1995 (I think).
I heard Ben Elton in a literary
programme talking about Two Brothers,
and decided to read the novel partly because I was intrigued to learn that the
main characters were based on Elton’s father and uncle who grew up in the Nazi
Germany, but also because the interviewer’s attitude towards Elton—who came
across as a likeable geezer—was insufferably condescending (Elton gave back as
much as he got). The interviewer clearly thought that Two Brothers was not a literary novel (I am sure he snacks in
organic cafes). Two Brother is
not a subtle novel. Not having read any of Elton’s other novels, I couldn’t say
whether this is a style he feels comfortable with, or whether he chose it to
convey to the reader the full horror of Nazi Germany and the apocalypse
awaiting the Jews. It hits you with the force of a tornado. At times the novel
reads like an elementary history lesson of the Nazi Germany; but I didn’t mind
that.
May We Be Forgiven by the
American author A.M. Homes was an enjoyable, if slightly meandering tale of
redemption. Tracy Chivalier’s The Last
Runaway was very disappointing.
Deborah Moggach’s The Best Exotic Merigold Hotel was
one of the light reads I picked up to overcome the exhaustion of Infinite Jest. Words fail me to
describe how bad the book was, so I won’t try.
I read only ten non-fiction
books in 2014, most of which were memoirs (bought on Kindle for 99 p). One
which I did not buy as an e-read, but was worth every penny was Interrupted Life, the diary of Etty
Hillesum the Dutch Jewish woman who, as it happened, lived in Amsterdam the
same time as Ann Frank, and perished in the Holocaust. The title of the diaries
(not of course chosen by Hillesum) is apt. A bit sententious at times, the book
is remarkable for the calm and serenity with which Hillesum met her fate,
without any rancour for her persecutors.
Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare is a
witty, if brief, account of the bard’s life. Bryson makes it clear that he was
commissioned to write this book and perhaps it was not a labour of love. Still
he makes it very interesting, primarily, I think, because he is incapable of
writing a boring word.
Rest of the non-fiction books
were not much to write home about. Me
Talk Pretty One Day confirmed that its writer knew how to spin an
amusing yarn, without really telling much about his life. Maxim Leo’s story of
his East German family would have been very riveting had I not read three
similar nostalgic memoirs of the long since dead GDR in the past. Past It Notes was too wordy and not
very interesting.
2014 was not a very productive
year reading-wise. With the exception of Wolf
Hall, The Mask of Dimitrios,
Canada, and Sweet Tooth, most of the novels
which I enjoyed reading were re-reads. I am hoping that 2015 would be
different, although it has not started well; I am plodding through David
Mitchell’s (the British comedian, not the novelist) whining memoir, The Back Story.
The Top Ten novels (not
including re-reads) in 2014:
1 Wolf
Hall
2 Sweet
Tooth
3 The Mask
of Dimitrios
4 Canada
5 Observations
6 May we
be Forgiven
The
Narrow Road to Deep North
8 Hotel du
Lac
9 Gone
Girl
Infinite
Jest
The best non-fiction was Etty Hillesums’s diary, followed by
Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare.
