Liam
Administrator
LOL, I just noticed that! ? Don't be shocked, Brooklyn-based authors mostly see the universe divided into two halves: NYC and [the Rest of the World], so Ben's little slip is nothing by comparison,?
Best reads of 2023
- Thread starter Daniel del Real
- Start date
Liam
Administrator
@Hamishe22: Curious to see McCarthy rated so highly, I tried reading one of the two books on your list and thought it was plain and uninspired. To be fair, I did not finish the book so maybe it got better, or maybe you have to read them in tandem? ?
alik-vit
Reader
Sorry, dear. If I remember correctly, it was after the second martini, I was drunk as hell and mistook "Sweetness of my sweetheart" (the title of this novel) for your appeal to me!
Hamishe22
Well-known member
Stella Maris would be completely incomprehensible without having read The Passenger. The latter can stand on its own though. These are my reviews for the two books in case you're curious why I loved them so much:
The Passenger:
There is no pleasure in the world, for me, greater than reading Cormac McCarthy. The way that he elevates the English language to the apex of its literary potential, the way that he uses extremely complex metaphors to convey thoughts and emotions that one finds simultaneously universal and novel, and how his prose is both biblical and colloquial, archaic and modern, poetic in a way completely unique to him. To continuously struggle with his bizarre vocabulary and specialized knowledge required to understanding him, but then when you do understand, the experience of the art and the discovery makes it worth it. And while I feel that The Passenger is not as dense and complicated and difficult as some of his other masterpieces (Blood Meridian for example), it still has this kind of passages enough to satisfy a McCarthy enthusiast.
The Passenger is definitely a McCarthy novel, in many ways. The prose, and the fact that an unsuspecting reader might be fooled into thinking that it's going to be a simple story within a genre framework for the writer to completely abandon the genre elements. But it's also completely different from his previous novels and provides a very new experience. I wouldn't call any of McCarthy's previous novels "psychological", but this one certainly is. It chiefly deals with grief, and personal guilt. At its heart it's the story of Bobby Western, a salvage diver who has a closer relationship with the ghosts of those he mourns rather than those who live, unable to form real relationships. These ghosts include his father, one of the inventors of the atomic bomb, and his sister, for whom he still harbors incestuous yet innocent feelings. Interspersed through the novel are short sections from the POV of the sister, as she deals with horrific hallucinations that simultaneously torment her and keep her company. We're accustomed to read McCarthy as he deals with epic, universal, and deeply philosophical subject matter, with characters like The Judge or Anton Chigurh, figures that seem to represent the devil or maybe evil gods of universe, poetic indictments of history and human nature. And while this book approaches that, including many contemplations on history and universe, it's still primarily a personal story, more about the characters' psyche in which the history and the universe are reflected. This is why this novel is so precious: not only we have a new McCarthy, we have an aspect of McCarthy we have not experienced before.
This novel is a stunning, breathtaking masterpiece. I know it has faced some negative criticism, but you have to approach it as it is rather than the expectation of what it should be. It's not really a whodunnit or a suspenseful thriller. It's not about a plot. It doesn't try to go anywhere. The long philosophical discussions and monologs are there because the novel is about a man stuck in his past, and you should focus on characterization and emotional richness rather than the plot.
Stella Maris:
Stella Maris is a companion piece to The Passenger, but while The Passenger might be McCarthy's most accessible novel, Stella Maris might be the least. The entire novel is a series of conversations between a patient and her therapist, and the conversations are incredibly dense and unwelcoming, dealing with topics like science, philosophy, and mathematics in very granular and difficult details and of course there is no plot connecting these disjointed discussions together. Not only that, the novel even retroactively makes The Passenger even more difficult, casting doubt and uncertainty about the events of that book, and creating far more questions than answers. However, if a reader is not deterred by any of this, I believe that Alicia Western is interesting enough of a character to stick with, with her incredibly intriguing thoughts and tragic personality, and I was very glad to get to know her better. This is character study at its purest and most effective form, and for those of us who love little more for characters, it's simply one of the best. Together with The Passenger, these two novels are an incredible swan song to cap off the career of one of the greatest literary giants of all time.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Most of the books I read this year were either European, Non-European novels and poetry. I only read one Memoir this year, and that was Nabokov's superb Speak, Memory. Hence my categorization.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Happy that you included Elytis' Axion Esti. I think that's his masterpiece. Anytime I read it, am always blown. And those phrases: hail girls, and in the beginning, the light... So soothing.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
I did read Cela's The Hive. One of the most fascinating aspects of the novel is how compact it was; and its cinematic scope as well. The bees range from musicians to poets all living under the hive, in three days during the Franco era. And wonderful also is in how Cela's described their spiritually and mental desolation. In many ways, I respect him. He gets better anytime I read him. And happy also is another book you included Death in Venice by Mann. That's outstanding.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Actually, the journals I keep helped. (I usually write longer reflections of books there, which I keep very short beachse of the word count. I thought I had lost the entries for 2018--2021, but I just retrieved them, found that I have read more works that I imagined. So going to do some revision.) Although most books I have read and truly loved and left huge impact, I don't usually forget them that easily.
Phil D
Well-known member
What struck me as curious was that you grouped a lot of European poetry in with "Non-European Novels", implying that it has more in common with "Non-European Novels" than it does with "European Novels".
You're welcome to categorise things however you like, of course – I just mean to say that either "Novels" and "Poetry" or "European Literature" and "Non-European Literature" seem like more obvious dichotomies.
Daniel del Real
Moderator
?? Alejandro Zambra, Poeta Chileno
?? Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
?? Kakuta Mitsuyo, The Eight Day
?? Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, La Plus Secrète Mémoire des Hommes
?? Daniel Kehlmann, Tyll
?? Itamar Vieira Jr., Tordo Arado
?? Mushanokōji Saneatsu, Friendship
?? Enchi Fumiko, The Waiting Years
?? Andrey Kurkov, Grey Bees
?? Ádám Bodor, Birds of Verhovina
?? Yu Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
?? Kakuta Mitsuyo, The Eight Day
?? Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, La Plus Secrète Mémoire des Hommes
?? Daniel Kehlmann, Tyll
?? Itamar Vieira Jr., Tordo Arado
?? Mushanokōji Saneatsu, Friendship
?? Enchi Fumiko, The Waiting Years
?? Andrey Kurkov, Grey Bees
?? Ádám Bodor, Birds of Verhovina
Last edited:
Phil D
Well-known member
In order, or all about the same?
redhead
Blahblahblah
An unexpected latecomer has popped up on my list: Treacle Walker by Alan Garner. I picked it up at a post-Christmas sale and was blown away by it. A negative review on Goodreads described it as Can Xue crossed with David Lowery's The Green Knight (in a negative sense), but ironically that description was like catnip for me. It might even be my overall favorite from this year.
Stevie B
Current Member
Your catnip is my kryptonite.
Daniel del Real
Moderator
Poeta chileno was probably the best, but there's no particular order for the rest.
Verkhovensky
Well-known member
??Daniel Kehlmann, Tyll
??José Eduardo Agualusa, My Father's Wives
??Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium
??Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
??Leo Tolstoy, War and Pece
??Jon Fosse, Morning and Evening
??Abdulrazak Gurnah, Paradise
??Andrzej Szczypiorski, A Mass for Arras
+ a little bit cheating
??Per Olov Enquist, The Visit of the Royal Physician
The last one is "cheating" since I actually finished it yesterday, but since I've read more than 3/4 of the book in 2023 I'll put it here for this thread.
No particular order for anything.
I've read 47 books in 2023 (counting Enquist as 2023 read) so around 1/5 of that are what I think will be my favourites. Around 1/5 was completely meh and the rest 3/5 were solid to very good.
??José Eduardo Agualusa, My Father's Wives
??Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium
??Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
??Leo Tolstoy, War and Pece
??Jon Fosse, Morning and Evening
??Abdulrazak Gurnah, Paradise
??Andrzej Szczypiorski, A Mass for Arras
+ a little bit cheating
??Per Olov Enquist, The Visit of the Royal Physician
The last one is "cheating" since I actually finished it yesterday, but since I've read more than 3/4 of the book in 2023 I'll put it here for this thread.
No particular order for anything.
I've read 47 books in 2023 (counting Enquist as 2023 read) so around 1/5 of that are what I think will be my favourites. Around 1/5 was completely meh and the rest 3/5 were solid to very good.
Daniel del Real
Moderator
Glad to see Tyll in your list, amazing novel. I had no idea he had both nationalities, German & Austrian.
The Ishiguro and Gurnah are both splendid novels.
Finally, I've always wanted to read Enquist, especially this novel. Hope I can tackle it this year.
?? Samuel Beckett- How it is, Molloy
?? Cees Nooteboom- The Following Story
?? Sadegh Hedayat- The Blind Owl
?? Adolfo Bioy Casares- The Invention of Morel
?? Tatyana Tolstaya- The Slynx
?? Mihail Sebastian- Cum am devenit huligan (How I became a hooligan)
?? Ernesto Sabato- The Tunnel
?? Anne Carson- Autobiography of Red
?? Stijn Streuvels- The Path of Life
?? Mircea Cărtărescu -Theodoros
?? Jorge Luis Borges- The Aleph and Other Stories
?? Cees Nooteboom- The Following Story
?? Sadegh Hedayat- The Blind Owl
?? Adolfo Bioy Casares- The Invention of Morel
?? Tatyana Tolstaya- The Slynx
?? Mihail Sebastian- Cum am devenit huligan (How I became a hooligan)
?? Ernesto Sabato- The Tunnel
?? Anne Carson- Autobiography of Red
?? Stijn Streuvels- The Path of Life
?? Mircea Cărtărescu -Theodoros
?? Jorge Luis Borges- The Aleph and Other Stories
tiganeasca
Moderator
Very nice to see Streuvels...and Sebastian. His name doesn't appear often in these posts. An important voice.
On the other hand, I have never been able to get very far into the Hedayat. I've tried different translations and he just doesn't speak to me...yet.
sibkron
Active member
?? Luis Goytisolo, Antagony
?? António Lobo Antunes, The Land at the End of the World
?? Jon Fosse, Aliss at the Fire
?? Max Frisch, Gantenbein
?? Noam Venevitinov, A Plan D the Day before
?? Danilo Kiš, Hourglass
?? Lars Iyer, Spurious, Dogma, Exodus
?? John Hawkes, The Lime Twig
?? Javier Marías, Berta Isla, Tomás Nevinson
?? Fernando Royuela, A Bad End
?? Antonio Moresco, The Burned
?? Ben Marcus, The Age of Wire and String
?? V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas
?? Julia Kokoshko, Perfectly False Testimonies
?? Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain
?? António Lobo Antunes, The Land at the End of the World
?? Jon Fosse, Aliss at the Fire
?? Max Frisch, Gantenbein
?? Noam Venevitinov, A Plan D the Day before
?? Danilo Kiš, Hourglass
?? Lars Iyer, Spurious, Dogma, Exodus
?? John Hawkes, The Lime Twig
?? Javier Marías, Berta Isla, Tomás Nevinson
?? Fernando Royuela, A Bad End
?? Antonio Moresco, The Burned
?? Ben Marcus, The Age of Wire and String
?? V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas
?? Julia Kokoshko, Perfectly False Testimonies
?? Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain
Phil D
Well-known member
Why did you love Antagony? I've had it on my shelf for years but I've never worked up the courage to tackle it.