2021 in Books

Here are the books I read in 2021, with favorites at the bottom.

Non-fiction

 

Two Years Before the Mast and Twenty-Four Years After by Richard Henry Dana

Dana’s American account of life at sea in the 1830s is notable for his destination – then then-largely-unknown California. He describes places like San Diego and San Francisco, a glimpse of the territory prior to the goldrush and settlement. This edition also has him revisit the land in 1860, which adds significant interest. That said, Dana’s main account runs about 50 pages too long.

 

Collection of Sand by Italo Calvino

The essays in this collection are all in reference to something we don’t get a chance to see: a museum exhibit, a book he’s reviewing, or his travels. A few are really great, and stand on their own. But the rest fall a bit short of my expectations for Calvino.

 

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Kendi is very good writer, who uses all the tools in his toolkit to get you to understand what racism and antiracism are. There are waves of statistics, logical reasoning, historical context, anecdote, biography, metaphor – all of which blend into a coherent vision. Not since I read De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex have I encountered such a well-constructed work designed to produce a sea change in thought and behavior. An instant classic.

 

Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett

Dennett approaches the phenomenon of religion from an evolutionary standpoint, asking why something with a significant investment has survived and thrived, couched in a memetic framework. An interesting survey of where things stand (or stood, in 2006) regarding the ideas and the need for more research.

 

Why Vegan? Eating Ethically by Peter Singer

A very slim collection of Singer’s thoughts on the ethics and global/climate impact of a meat-based diet. Well worth a read for anyone unfamiliar with the realities of slaughter or with an interest in utilitarianism.

 

Fiction

 

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

A modernist novel which stylistically blends Joyce’s prose with Pound’s obnoxious poetry. Difficult and various shades of dishonest, it attempts to elevate a tragedy in ways that just miss the mark. Lowry is a great master of scenery and character, but the plot doesn’t live up to its intended grandeur.

 

Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov

My Chekhov experience was limited to his plays, which I disliked, prior to trying this collection. As I’d been told, he turned out to be one of the finest short story authors I’ve ever encountered, with brilliant descriptions, characters, and plots. In this collection of 30 stories there were a few that weren’t memorable, but the majority were.

 

A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Singer was the final American Nobel Laureate I’d not read – and this collection was a nice way to get acquainted. His storytelling techniques gave a sense of place better than person, but I was happy to join him in a shtetl, in Tel Aviv, or on Riverside Drive, to accompany him on his tales.

 

Nana by Emile Zola

A few chapters in I told people that if I never read another account of a nineteenth century drawing room it might be too soon. That said, the overall moral of the tale (debauchery and vice will be punished in the end) was fairly boring. I can see why Zola is increasingly left out of the canon.

 

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

A brick of a tome, Lavransdatter traces a woman’s life in medieval Norway, in the 1300s, from childhood to old age. Undset, who won the Nobel principally for the work, is to be commended for her command of style and description, and her rich portrayal of Lavransdatter’s inner life and thoughts. The persistent, explicit Catholic message, as always, leaves me wondering just how differently this woman’s life might have been if she didn’t wear that guilt and shame for having simply having been in love with a man…

 

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

An increasingly forgotten English Nobel Laureate, Galsworthy’s reputation rests upon this collected tome. The innovation seems to be that he approached the Victorian middle classes with irony, as we follow the unpleasant main character Soames through his destructive obsession to possess. Not a bad work, but really only worth reading if you’ve an interest in the end of Victorianism.

 

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

It’s not really fair of me to judge this book, because I picked it up not knowing it was a postmodern mystery, and those are two things which, if not done well, I find intensely unsatisfying. Pamuk’s narrative conceit, of shifting narrators each chapter, was, unfortunately rather tiresome by around 60 pages in – the characters still all sounded the same. Not until I was more than halfway through its 400 pages did it start to pick up, but it’s not an investment I can really recommend.

 

The Trial by Franz Kafka

I had higher expectations for this work – not surprisingly bureaucratic and legalese language is dull. It’s not a bad work, but I still preferred selected scenes and Kafka’s short works a bit more.

 

Herzog by Saul Bellow

My recollection is of enjoying Augie March, I think, but not really remembering it – I only recalled a feeling, and none of the plot or characters. So I decided to try out Herzog. This work seems doomed, due to a profusion of topical references, to age very badly. It’s philosophical musings border and sometimes cross into obnoxious pedantism (which the text itself acknowledges). It’ll be some time until I pick up Bellow again.

 

The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy

Sebastian Dangerfield is a piece of shit who beats women, neglects his child, starts fights in pubs, exposes himself in public and runs amok, and drinks. This is all supposed to be comical. His story is told in modernist prose, which doesn’t endear it.

 

Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke

A beautiful, astonishing, collection of ten poems – the epitome of the famed poet’s output and career. In gorgeous, evocative, language, Rilke shows us to an emotional and intellectual threshold.

 

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Here’s a book I wanted to like this far more than I did – the last 150 pages were fairly insufferable. The premise was fine, if not great: a woman keeps different notebooks detailing different aspects of her life. By the time we get to the titular golden notebook, though, I had lost all interest, and actively disliked the characters and plot.

 

Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

I came to this a Didion fan, but having never read her fiction, I was a little apprehensive. I was not disappointed – the story is fabulously written, and captures the Vegas – L.A. zeitgeist of the 1960s. Just the right length, Didion uses her prose well.

 

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

This book is actually loathsome. Every. Single. Chapter. goes out of its way to be misogynistic. The hatred and venom towards women that suffuses the work is just gross, and central to the work and its message. That message is also breathtakingly stupid: Zorba steals, is an absent father and rampant misogynist, and murders – but it’s all fine, because he has joie de vivre! Nothing some dancing and wine can’t fix! Offensive, shallow, existentialism that hopefully will soon be removed from any serious discussions of 20^th century literature.

 

Ruined by Lynn Nottage

Having won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama – twice – Nottage has established herself among the premiere American playwrights of the early 21^st century, so I was eager to read her work. Ruined is a masterful work set in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, at a bar and brothel, whose main characters are the prostitutes who work there. At turns devastating and uplifting, a definite worthwhile read.

 

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

I’d enjoyed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a great deal – but upon reading Beckett’s Waiting for Godot felt retroactively cheated. So I was hesitant to engage Stoppard again. My wariness was for naught, as it happens, because Arcadia is a magnificent play (although, again, having read Byatt’s Possession earlier…). An excellent time-hopping story.

 

The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson

After working my way through 1700 poems, I’m inclined to believe that she has around a score of great pieces, and maybe a hundred or so good works besides. But the ratio of quality to drivel and dross was unfortunate. If interested, find a ‘selected works’ instead of a complete.

 

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I was a bit wary of reading another Morrison novel after ‘Beloved’, because how could anything else measure up? That said, ‘Solomon’ is a wonderful work, with nearly the same level of brilliant craft and quite possibly greater enjoyment. Worth reading for anyone familiar with her work, or wanting to be.

 

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

You know, I didn’t set out, 18 months ago, to only read novels about terrible husbands and self-pitying men, but jeez. Harry Angstrom is a very unpleasant asshole who pathetically clings onto his glory days of being a basketball star in high school while he lets his life unravel. Updike has a tremendous command of language – but why he used it for this story is a bit beyond me.

 

Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes

This slim epic tale – post-Homer but pre-Classical, tells of Jason and his crew of Argonauts as they sail for the golden fleece. The first two sections tell of their tribulations on the way to their destination, the third, and easily best, tells of Jason and Medea and securing the fleece, and a hurried fourth section relates their return home. Nice, if you’re interested in Greek myths, and your edition is annotated.

 

Top 5 6!

 

Arcadia

Play It As It Lays

How to Be an Antiracist

The Duino Elegies

Song of Solomon

Ruined