2014 was a wonderful year for reading, even if it left much to be desired in most other respects. Here are a dozen exceptional novels I read in the past year (only some of which were published in 2014), I list these alphabetically by author because I wouldn’t dream of ranking them by perceived merit; all are outstanding. Thoughts/comments/suggestions welcomed! 1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Americanah. A Nigerian ex-pat in America becomes a successful blogger with penetrating and often humorous insights into race relations (black/white, black/black, and between and among various groups of immigrants). 2. John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van. Beautifully written story of a disfigured man who creates a by-mail adventure game. Poignant, compelling descriptions and utterly believable internal and external dialogue, as you would expect from one of the best lyricists around. 3. Roddy Doyle, The Guts. The life of Jimmy Rabbitte, years after The Commitments. Funny and sad, with sparkling dialogue and lots of musing about mortality. 4. Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A Pakistani who was ill-treated in America tells his recent life story to an American visiting Lahore; ambiguity about the roles of the narrator and the American creates great tension. 5. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland. The brother of a Indian man killed by police returns to Calcutta to marry his brother’s widow and bring her and her child to America. Sensitive portrayal of complicated intra-family relationships; another absolute gem from (in my view) the most compelling living Indian-American novelist. 6. Ian McEwan, The Children Act. A family court judge works through cases that often pit religious beliefs against legal doctrines; a boy whose apparent wishes she overrides tries to strike up a relationship, which she resists with devastating consequences . 7. Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. The title character considers himself an empty vessel. Dumped mysteriously half a lifetime ago by his four high school friends, he eventually unravels the mystery of his banishment and perhaps learns to value himself. A beautiful, dream-like, touching story. 8. Francine Prose, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. Sweeping tale set in Paris from the 20s through the early 40s; outrageous characters, an evocative portrayal of what it was like to live through the Occupation of France, and an exploration of the causes of evil and the difficulty of pinning down truth as the same events are told from different perspectives. 9. Jose Saramago, Blindness. After an epidemic of “white blindness” sweeps an unnamed city, the government responds ineptly and cruelly, and social order rapidly breaks down. Bleak and misanthropic, but with moments of grace and lots of food for thought. 10. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A humane, funny, tragic epistolary novel centered on the lives of a writer, her publisher, and several other people living on Guernsey during the German Occupation, 11. Mark Slouka, Brewster. Often tragic, beautifully written coming of age story. 12. Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch. A long but attention-grabbing novel that begins with an explosion and art theft, continues through drug abuse and a dysfunctional father/son relationship, adds in a healthy dose of fraud, and culminates in murder and near-suicide. In sum, life is hopeless but you have to throw yourself into it; bad deeds can have good outcomes and good deeds bad ones.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 02:11:42 +0000
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