Tuesday, December 25, 2018

The Best Books I Read in 2018

In no particular order:

  • Anatheism, by Richard Kearney
  • Battling to the End, by René Girard
  • New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich
  • Songs of Kabir, translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
  • Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
  • Feel Free, by Zadie Smith
  • Shyness and Dignity, by Dag Solstad
  • It All Adds Up, by Saul Bellow
  • The Way of the World, by Nicolas Bouvier
  • All for Nothing, by Walter Kempowski
  • Swansong 1945, by Walter Kempowski
  • Why They Can't Write, by John Warner
  • Monsters, by Karen Brennan
  • Half-Earth, by E. O. Wilson
  • The Kingdom, by Emmanuel Carrère
  • Why Orwell Matters, by Christopher Hitchens
  • Why I Write, by George Orwell
  • The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
  • Selected Exaggerations, by Peter Sloterdijk
  • Reclaiming Conversation, by Sherry Turkle
  • On Murder, Mourning, and Melancholia, by Sigmund Freud
  • Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson
  • Bitter Green, by Martin Corless-Smith
  • The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Love as Human Freedom, by Paul A. Kottman
  • American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin, by Terrance Hayes
  • Building a Better Teacher, by Elizabeth Green
  • The Art of Loving, by Erich Fromm
  • No Name in the Street, by James Baldwin
  • The One by Whom Scandal Comes, by René Girard

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Theory of the Novel, by Guido Mazzoni

The collapse of Socratic metaphysics, of theology — the death of God, or the gods — and science's dismantling of the concept of the soul have deprived ethics of any claim to absolute truth.

The novel has replaced ethics with aesthetics as the principal justification for life and the source of transcendent meaning in the world. It returned meaning to life by positing, as an absolute value, the aesthetic value of each life in its unfolding. Our lives, according to the novel, are not meaningful to the extent that they are good or evil but because of their particularity (by which we mean freedom): however contingently, we live, desire, fail, triumph, survive, in our own little ways, in the broader chaos that followed from the death of God (a chaos, of course, that had always been there, but hidden from view by the gods we had made to disguise it).

By the gods' collapse we are returned to life: the novel has mapped our return and recorded our efforts to live alone, in the Real. Those efforts, to the extent that they are free, are beautiful: the novel presupposes that they are beautiful or it would not exist.

All for Nothing, by Walter Kempowski

I bought All for Nothing out of habit some months ago: it had received exuberant reviews in the New Yorker, in The Guardian; and I still like to think of myself as someone who buys novels that receive exuberant reviews.

But upon buying it, even before buying it, I undoubtedly thought, Why bother, Eric? You'll never read it.

After all, there are, in my bedroom, in my living room, high stacks of novels I've bought and not read. The thought of reading them fills me with dread. I've done so much reading over the years! a lifetime of reading. I can't bear it any longer, this more-of-the-same.

But for some reason, back in July, I picked up All for Nothing. And — a small wonder — I didn't, after a few pages, set it aside. I was taken by its fragmentary structure, by its innovative use of free indirect discourse, by its wry humor, by its author's eye for the right — but not too right (if there is such a thing) — detail.

I read it on a flight to New York, and spoke glowingly of it to my friend there, and I read a bit more of it upon returning home. And then I got to Chapter 12, which is called "The Offensive," and I stopped reading.

The novel concerns itself with the Russian Army's assault on East Prussia during the final weeks of World War II. That assault begins on page 174 of a 343-page book: so, at the book's midpoint. The first half of the book focuses on the daily — mostly inconsequential — rituals of a single German household in Mitkau, not far from Konigsberg. We get to know the occupants of the household, with their various idiosyncrasies, small dreams, schemes, pleasures and secrets. And we know, as they proceed with their small lives, what's coming: unimaginable horror.

I wasn't equipped, in early August, to witness the horror. So I stopped reading when the Russian offensive began.

But yesterday, feeling, for reasons I can't explain, stronger than usual, I picked up the book, and over the last 24 hours I finished it.

Now, this afternoon, I've decided to begin to recuperate — "to regain," "to take back" — myself (my self) by writing this note: All for Nothing is an absolute masterpiece, one of the best novels I've ever read, a joy, devastating, and a clear-eyed affirmation, despite all, of life and the world's beauty. It will be read, I hope, for as long as novels are read.

I don't know yet if passing judgement on the book in this fashion will help me recuperate from what it has done to me. Probably, it occurs to me, I shouldn't want to recuperate. After all, when I was a boy, and strong, I read to be changed forever. Reading should still, I hope, have that kind of power, if one can — will — let it.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

The Best Books I Read in 2017

In a mildly particular order:

  • Compass, by Matias Énard
  • Agamemnon's Daughter, by Ismail Kadare
  • Escape from Freedom, by Erich Fromm
  • Theory of the Novel, by Guido Mazzoni
  • Love as Human Freedom, by Paul A. Kottman
  • In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes
  • Dark Ecology, by Timothy Morton
  • Almost No Memory, by Lydia Davis
  • The Blind Owl, by Sadegh Hedayat
  • Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward
  • Kingdom Cons, by Yuri Herrera
  • The Last Wolf, by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
  • Translation as Transhumance, by Mireille Gansel
  • Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid
  • The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, by Michael McCarthy
  • On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder
  • Perfect Wave, by Dave Hickey
  • Lives Other Than My Own, by Emmanuel Carrère
  • Like Death, by Guy de Maupassant
  • Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong, by Gary Giddins

Joyous applause and a special mention for two extraordinary new translations:

  • The Odyssey, as translated by Emily Wilson
  • The Golden Ass, as translated by Sarah Ruden