2018 in Books

Keeping the tradition alive. This year I read what is likely a record lowest number of books perhaps since high school. After the richness of last year's reading, 2018 was a bit humdrum, and there are a fair number of 2-star works on here. Nonetheless, here's what I read:

Nonfiction

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

For nearly six years I slowly made my way through this work. At one point Gibbon mentions “historians of blood” – which I am not. I have very little interest in battles, rulers, and such. The work continues through the entirety of the Byzantine era, and Gibbon does not consider the exercise complete until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1493. Thousands of names and hundreds of battles later, I remember almost no details, and consider it mostly a waste, except for Gibbon’s amusing asides and reflections.

Well Met: Renaissance Faires & The American Counterculture by Rachel Lee Rubin

Noticeably repetitive, Rubin still manages to make a strong point in her work tracing the role of the Faire’s origins in the 1960s to the utopian visions of that decade to the continuing role as a safe space for genderqueer patrons and others. The last chapter is perhaps the oddest, looking at the role of faire in literature, but all in all a worthwhile study.

Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould

Thirty years have passed since Gould’s popular account of the Cambrian and the now-more-famous Burgess Shale. The basic thrust is that contingency is more important to evolution than popularly considered. This volume is the record-holder for longest on my shelf, having stayed there from either late middle or early high school. Having tackled his more complex academic work last year I found Wonderful Life to be more accessible, but a little bit overstuffed.

These Truths by Jill Lepore

A massive, 800-page history of the United States, from Columbus to Trump. The focus is fairly exclusively political, and, excepting some troubling omissions (in particular Native American citizenship when citizenship is one of her main themes), it is a very worthwhile, and arguably very important book to read.

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

Quick, fascinating, and significant. Lewis charts how an administrative hollowing-out of the US government (focusing on the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce) poses an unexpected risk to our country – even more, actually, than someone (who finds the idea of "hollowing out"  fairly scary) might already expect.

Fiction

Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

Just prior to Brave New World Huxley wrote this very funny, but also rather acidic, account of intellectual pretensions in England in the 1920s. The cast is based on real personalities (DH Lawrence, Oswald Mosley, Huxley himself) but that fact is in no way necessary to enjoy the work.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

One of those works I had meant to read for some time. I had greatly disliked the movie, but this showed me that was more Jack Nicholson, and not the main character. Problematic and dated, of course, but in all I understand why its reputation holds, and could see myself recommending this to the right person.

Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo

Perhaps if I’d encountered Svevo’s work before Joyce, or Woolf, or other, better, Modernists, I’d have more appreciation for his style. As is the main character is what is now considered a stock unreliable narrator, a sort of pre-stream-of-consciousness version of Roth’s Portnoy.

Devil on the Cross by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

In an ongoing attempt to broaden horizons I figured I’d read this classic by a Kenyan author who wrote the work while imprisoned. Not all that surprising, then, that the resulting work is a bit preachy and defiantly righteous – it reminded me of Lang’s Metropolis in tone – while having some interesting experimental structure.

Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara

After slogging through psychological portraits that I found unpleasant, O’Hara’s cast was wonderfully human, tragic without a capital ‘T’, and relatable. His use of language and description was also vivid, a quality I was starting to miss.

A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

A fun spy novel – indeed, apparently the “birth of the modern spy novel” – which has a typical fast-paced plot and lots of fun twists and turns.

The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata

Interesting in blending the aging father’s psychology with the unpleasantness of dealing with his adult children’s struggling marriages. A good read.

As kingfishers catch fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins

My father bought me the complete Penguin Little Black Classics. These short (50-ish page) volumes are often extracts. Many, being short stories and extracts, I will not bother to include here. However, this volume was a selection of Hopkins’ best poetic work, which I thoroughly enjoyed, as one previously unfamiliar with his verse.

The nightingales are drunk by Hafez

Another Penguin LBC, this one containing the poetry of Hafez, a Sufi writer of the 1200s. Along with Sadi, Rumi, and Omar Khayyam, Hafez is considered a master, and I was glad to finally engage with his work.

Remember, body by CP Cavafy

Yet another Penguin LBC – and another poet whom I’d never bothered to get to, and whose work was powerful and excellent. For each of these LBCs mentioned, there are another three which are not; but this work was very enjoyable.

Independent People by Halldor Laxness

A peasant epic of the highest order, with a strong message of how finance can come to ruin good, hardworking people – a seemingly timeless moral, given its native Icelandic setting’s recent banking woes. Has the common issues of books of a certain age with regards to women and others, but as its written from the tonal point of view of the bigoted and stubborn sheep-crofter, perhaps that’s a narrative license.

Dear Life by Alice Munro

The Canadian Nobel laureate’s collection of recent short fiction left a mark – the stories are excellent, and clearly destined to be classics. Oddly, their power was blunted, perhaps, by the fact that so many modern short story authors are so indebted to her now-commonplace narrative and time-hopping style.

The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela

A short, violent existentialist work of life in rural Spain lived by an unreliable couple of sets of narrators. A definite page-turner and intriguing work with a lack of moral but lots of profound reflections.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

It’s genuinely odd to read a war novel, anymore, that is triumphal and holds a nineteenth century view of battle as glorious – which Crane’s work balances with a wide-eyed realism. Definitely the best work of fiction I’ve read concerning the Civil War.

The Loa of the Divine Narcissus By Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

This short, and increasingly famous allegorical play is worth reading as a document of the attempts to intertwine the indigenous and Spanish cultures of Mexico. Like Montaigne’s famous essay “On Cannibals” there is a level of rare and worthwhile moral / spiritual relativism.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

I gave up caring about Jim around 200 pages in, and found the conclusion to be of little help. Only if you are over the moon for Heart of Darkness would I recommend. It is not as good.

Rhinoceros and Other Plays by Eugene Ionesco

Rhinoceros is an excellent work, one of the best 20^th century plays I’ve read. The other two works (The Leader and The Future is in Eggs)…are not. In fact, they’re fairly dreadful.

Graphic Novels

The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman et al.

I enjoyed Sandman a great deal, but never enough to further seek out its spin-offs. So when this volume was given as a gift I perused it, enjoyed it, and shelved it. If you like Sandman this is up your alley.

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso

The emotional void which meets the characters in light of the most vivid horror is why Drnaso’s work is so heralded, and even shortlisted (a graphic novel first) for the Booker. Is it… reasonable? expected? A success? if the book leaves you in a void as well? I don’t really know, but I was nevertheless left feeling that folks could probably get something out of reading this work.

Locke and Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

What begins as compelling horror turns into a generational mystery, and a relatively straightforward one. Still, with good art and characters, and a solid, if increasingly tired out-of-sync narrative style, this was one of the better graphic novels I’ve read in a good long time.

Top 5 of 2018

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

These Truths by Jill Lepore

The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela

Appointment in Samara by John O’Hara

Locke and Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Unlike last year, where I had too many 5-star books, I read no 5-star works this year, but these are all very good, 4-star works.