My Reading Year, 2006
I read some books this year and I'm going to blather on about a few of my favorites now.
I was surprised by how alternately compelling and upsetting I found Emmanuel Carrére's true crime book, "The Adversary," about a suburban father who has spent over a decade fabricating a very boring life to his family until one day he kills his wife and children. Carrére is a novelist and filmmaker who couldn't decide whether he wanted to write about this case until he finds himself just as compelled by the as we are reading by his book. Though it may be a cliché, and though I knew exactly what the crime was from the first few pages, I repeatedly had to close the book because I couldn't make it through the murder scene. Carrére's writing is sharp and economic and "The Adversary," at 200 pages, would be a breeze if Carrére was a hack, eager to reprint every gruesome detail. This is a much deeper book but it is all the more disturbing for that reason.
George Packer's "The Assassin Gate" is no sunnier – the book recounts the political run-up to and initial year of fighting in the Iraq War. Packer supports the initial invasion (if I remember correctly his opinion – like many at the time – is that regardless of the administration's reasons for going to war, dethroning Saddam can only be a good thing) and then, of course, becomes deeply distressed with the fiasco it becomes. The book is a great portrait of idea-making in Washington and it is also a portrait of a war zone. But first and foremost it's a book of reportage – Packer gives you his opinion because it would be more dishonest to pretend he was truly objective. He makes strong and thoughtful arguments – I promise I'm not pushing a political polemic on you – and though the first draft may have been written three years ago, he presents a picture of Iraq that the mainstream media is only now beginning to acknowledge. For example, Chapter 10 is entitled "Civil War?" and Packer's answer, three years ago, was an unequivocal "Yes."
Lawrence Weschler's "Everything That Rises" is an art book – I guess. It's a book about a) the way in which art converges with art in very bizarre ways (here's an amateur example), b) the way in which life and life converge (this one's going to blow your mind), and c) the way art and life converge (this from Weschler, the pro). Maybe it's an exaggeration to say that this book will change your life but it will, or can, change the way you look at everything around you. In the book, Weschler writes about his daughter teasing him that he sees these convergences everywhere. Well, the same thing happened to me. And then it happened to Jennifer. And then, well… to other people I know. I feel like I'm shortchanging the book a but by simply giving you hyperlinks instead of extra blather, so how about this: the first two books I talked about are great but they could very likely depress the hell out of you. "Everything That Rises" will brighten your day or perhaps – without the use of pharmaceuticals – 'squeegee clean your third eye'.
I read three books by Javier Marías this year and there's another one at the top of my reading pile. I linked to a couple articles on Marías and went on a bit about him here. His books take some getting used to. It's not that there slow, it's that Marías intentionally paces them oddly to make you pay attention to certain things you might be likely to breeze past. (This is not pure conjecture on my part, it was all confirmed and/or spelled out for the otherwise illiterate in the current issue of The Paris Review, which features an interview with Marías that you should read only if you enjoy reading their Art of Fiction interviews or if you're off the deep-end for Marías like some of us.) Once I got used to the pace, I found Marías addictive and strangely exhilarating. I'd compared reading him to drinking a strong liquor and that comparison still makes sense to me: once you get started, it's hard to stop; the experience is both exhilarating and debilitating (you feel it when you pull yourself away from a Marías book); and you become very irritating to those around you who aren't taking part (as evident from J's reaction to my reading aloud the longest and most labyrinthine Marías sentences). If you're going to give Marías a shot (and – do I need to say it? – please do), start with "A Man of Feeling," the short novel about an Opera singer who meets a woman on a train, or with "When I Was Mortal," the story collection. If you like those, try Volume One of "Your Face Tomorrow," which is a story about a modern spy and a sort of unmystery from a half-century earlier. "Voyage Along the Horizon," which I also read this year, is Marías' second novel, a book inside a book inside – I think – another book. It's good but a completely different style than Marías' newest works.
Upamanyu Chatterjee's "English, August" is a novel about a post-collegiate kid who takes a government job that he really doesn't enjoy. There's something hugely satisfying in reading a story of dissatisfaction in your surroundings set in somewhere I find utterly foreign.
I love Samantha Hunt's stories but read her first novel, "The Seas," last January and now can't think of all that much to say about it. What it lacks in logic it makes up for in cleverness.
"Deep Blues" by (not that) Robert Palmer is the book about the blues that I've always wanted to read but never knew existed. It's a portrait of early blues musicians and a cultural history of the blues. Most importantly, Robert Palmer knows to shoehorn in oddball anecdotes even if they don't fit the narrative.
Chuck Klosterman's "Killing Yourself to Live," like "Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs," is hilarious and hugely entertaining. It leaves you wanting not just to read more Klosterman (his monthly Esquire columns help) but to have him by your side, constantly over thinking your life but remaining there with you, as though tacitly supporting your every choice.
For good crime novels I turned to Ian Rankin and George Pelecanos and I plan to read more of each this year. In the second or third chapter of Pelecanos' "Shoedog," he does exactly what I wanted my first novel to do in the space of maybe 30 pages. And "Shoedog" is supposed to be one of his least impressive books.
These excellent books are also well worth your time: David Mitchell's "Black Swan Green," Jeremy Mercer's "Time Was Soft There" (a memoir by a crime journalist who flees Canada and ends up living in the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris), Michael Chabon's "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" (which I reread from a few year's back), Albert Snachez Pinol's "Cold Skin," Paul Collin's "Banvard's Folly" and Phillip K. Dick's "Radio Free Albemuth."
Wishing you a belated Happy New Year and an early Happy Groundhog's Day, your friend,
Adam
I was surprised by how alternately compelling and upsetting I found Emmanuel Carrére's true crime book, "The Adversary," about a suburban father who has spent over a decade fabricating a very boring life to his family until one day he kills his wife and children. Carrére is a novelist and filmmaker who couldn't decide whether he wanted to write about this case until he finds himself just as compelled by the as we are reading by his book. Though it may be a cliché, and though I knew exactly what the crime was from the first few pages, I repeatedly had to close the book because I couldn't make it through the murder scene. Carrére's writing is sharp and economic and "The Adversary," at 200 pages, would be a breeze if Carrére was a hack, eager to reprint every gruesome detail. This is a much deeper book but it is all the more disturbing for that reason.
George Packer's "The Assassin Gate" is no sunnier – the book recounts the political run-up to and initial year of fighting in the Iraq War. Packer supports the initial invasion (if I remember correctly his opinion – like many at the time – is that regardless of the administration's reasons for going to war, dethroning Saddam can only be a good thing) and then, of course, becomes deeply distressed with the fiasco it becomes. The book is a great portrait of idea-making in Washington and it is also a portrait of a war zone. But first and foremost it's a book of reportage – Packer gives you his opinion because it would be more dishonest to pretend he was truly objective. He makes strong and thoughtful arguments – I promise I'm not pushing a political polemic on you – and though the first draft may have been written three years ago, he presents a picture of Iraq that the mainstream media is only now beginning to acknowledge. For example, Chapter 10 is entitled "Civil War?" and Packer's answer, three years ago, was an unequivocal "Yes."
Lawrence Weschler's "Everything That Rises" is an art book – I guess. It's a book about a) the way in which art converges with art in very bizarre ways (here's an amateur example), b) the way in which life and life converge (this one's going to blow your mind), and c) the way art and life converge (this from Weschler, the pro). Maybe it's an exaggeration to say that this book will change your life but it will, or can, change the way you look at everything around you. In the book, Weschler writes about his daughter teasing him that he sees these convergences everywhere. Well, the same thing happened to me. And then it happened to Jennifer. And then, well… to other people I know. I feel like I'm shortchanging the book a but by simply giving you hyperlinks instead of extra blather, so how about this: the first two books I talked about are great but they could very likely depress the hell out of you. "Everything That Rises" will brighten your day or perhaps – without the use of pharmaceuticals – 'squeegee clean your third eye'.
I read three books by Javier Marías this year and there's another one at the top of my reading pile. I linked to a couple articles on Marías and went on a bit about him here. His books take some getting used to. It's not that there slow, it's that Marías intentionally paces them oddly to make you pay attention to certain things you might be likely to breeze past. (This is not pure conjecture on my part, it was all confirmed and/or spelled out for the otherwise illiterate in the current issue of The Paris Review, which features an interview with Marías that you should read only if you enjoy reading their Art of Fiction interviews or if you're off the deep-end for Marías like some of us.) Once I got used to the pace, I found Marías addictive and strangely exhilarating. I'd compared reading him to drinking a strong liquor and that comparison still makes sense to me: once you get started, it's hard to stop; the experience is both exhilarating and debilitating (you feel it when you pull yourself away from a Marías book); and you become very irritating to those around you who aren't taking part (as evident from J's reaction to my reading aloud the longest and most labyrinthine Marías sentences). If you're going to give Marías a shot (and – do I need to say it? – please do), start with "A Man of Feeling," the short novel about an Opera singer who meets a woman on a train, or with "When I Was Mortal," the story collection. If you like those, try Volume One of "Your Face Tomorrow," which is a story about a modern spy and a sort of unmystery from a half-century earlier. "Voyage Along the Horizon," which I also read this year, is Marías' second novel, a book inside a book inside – I think – another book. It's good but a completely different style than Marías' newest works.
Upamanyu Chatterjee's "English, August" is a novel about a post-collegiate kid who takes a government job that he really doesn't enjoy. There's something hugely satisfying in reading a story of dissatisfaction in your surroundings set in somewhere I find utterly foreign.
I love Samantha Hunt's stories but read her first novel, "The Seas," last January and now can't think of all that much to say about it. What it lacks in logic it makes up for in cleverness.
"Deep Blues" by (not that) Robert Palmer is the book about the blues that I've always wanted to read but never knew existed. It's a portrait of early blues musicians and a cultural history of the blues. Most importantly, Robert Palmer knows to shoehorn in oddball anecdotes even if they don't fit the narrative.
Chuck Klosterman's "Killing Yourself to Live," like "Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs," is hilarious and hugely entertaining. It leaves you wanting not just to read more Klosterman (his monthly Esquire columns help) but to have him by your side, constantly over thinking your life but remaining there with you, as though tacitly supporting your every choice.
For good crime novels I turned to Ian Rankin and George Pelecanos and I plan to read more of each this year. In the second or third chapter of Pelecanos' "Shoedog," he does exactly what I wanted my first novel to do in the space of maybe 30 pages. And "Shoedog" is supposed to be one of his least impressive books.
These excellent books are also well worth your time: David Mitchell's "Black Swan Green," Jeremy Mercer's "Time Was Soft There" (a memoir by a crime journalist who flees Canada and ends up living in the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris), Michael Chabon's "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" (which I reread from a few year's back), Albert Snachez Pinol's "Cold Skin," Paul Collin's "Banvard's Folly" and Phillip K. Dick's "Radio Free Albemuth."
Wishing you a belated Happy New Year and an early Happy Groundhog's Day, your friend,
Adam
Labels: 2006 books
posted by Adam at 12:57 AM
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