Recently finished books?

[Bjorn]

Neal Stephenson, Anathem (USA)

Far too long, far too in love with its own clever ideas, and not nearly as much fun as the smart but completely insane Snow Crash. The last third, which is actually quite good, only barely draws the book out of - worth reading, but I wouldn't blame anyone who gives up after 200 pages.

[Daniel del Real]

Rodrigo Rey Rosa: Caballeriza (The Stable)
Interesting thriller-style account of an episode in a Guatemalan horse-breeding estate where corruption and violence is rampant.

I've heard nothing but good comments about Rey Rosa. Unfortunately his books are not widely spread across Mexico. I recently saw a book of short stories edited by a Mexican publishing group. I might start there. I think Anagrama also has one or two of his books.

[Daniel del Real]

Roberto Bolaño, La Universidad Desconocida (The Unknown University) +

[Daniel del Real]

Ismail Kadare, The Niche of Shame +
Good novel but paling in comparison with the greatest from Kadare. Dull at the beggining, much better towards the end. If only he'd written more about the "Cra-cra" instead of head going this way, head going the other way, would've been so much better.

[Liam]

The Táin, translated by Ciaran Carson (2007).

Unforgettable. I mean, jaw-on-the-table type of unforgettable.

I highly recommend this medieval Irish heroic cycle to the rest of you.

"...he rested his brow against the hill..."

L.

[Mirabell]

finished a couple of books while on holiday in snowed-under East Germany

Wolverine: Old Man Logan, Mark Millar et al. Both disappointing and excellent.

The Instructions, Adam Levin. Brilliant.

Halting State, Charles Stross. B-Grade Crichton Pastiche

Söhne und Planeten, Clemens J. Setz

Kraken, China Miéville. Liked it less than TC&TC, but China can do no wrong.

and the last book I finished in 2010

Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware. Indulgent, but incredibly well made.

No books finished this year so far. Meh.

[waxwing]

Sunflower by Gyula Krudy

I still haven't fully digested the intense over-the-top Romanticism. The translation is very poetic but with a couple of instances of some jarring slang. I especially chuckled when a character spouted "hot-diggity-dog." There's a character, Pistoli. referred to as a Hungarian Falstaff, and his downfall dominates the last section of the novel, it's very moving and scary, and makes me want to read some more Krudy.

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

I had planned to read the 12 novels of A Dance to the Music of Time one novel per month in 2011. I found the first one so absorbing I will have to deep-six that notion.

[JTolle]

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

I had planned to read the 12 novels of A Dance to the Music of Time one novel per month in 2011. I found the first one so absorbing I will have to deep-six that notion.

I'm very glad to hear that at least the first of these novels isn't the slog I was suspicious it might be. I'm hoping to make 2011 a year of longer reads after an overabundance of poetry, essays, and short novels last year and I was thinking of working through either A Dance to the Music of Time or In Search of Lost Time, I might be leaning toward Powell with this recommendation.

[Daniel del Real]

Jean Echenoz, Je M'en Vais
Yasunari Kawabata, The Master of Go

[waalkwriter]

Finally you like something that is not Faulkner. Great for you Waalk,

Hey. That's not true at all. I might take it back if you keep acting like that :P I think you should be more worried that I really liked an author you are also found of.

[Mirabell]

I'm very glad to hear that at least the first of these novels isn't the slog I was suspicious it might be. I'm hoping to make 2011 a year of longer reads after an overabundance of poetry, essays, and short novels last year and I was thinking of working through either A Dance to the Music of Time or In Search of Lost Time, I might be leaning toward Powell with this recommendation.

I read Proust a year ago in French (had to read/reread the whole Recherche for exams) and these books are among the best I ever read. Ever. Evaaar. This is not to disparage Powell, but I seriously doubt he's as good as the mustachio'd Frenchman. Because very, very, very few writers are. Not all of the Recherche is as good as its best books but even the somewhat lesser last books are great by other writers' standards.

[Colonel Green]

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I'm not really convinced by Mantel's depiction of Thomas Cromwell vis a vis the historical record, but as a work of historical fiction it's quite impressive. This Cromwell is quite an interesting character on his own, and Mantel's depictions of the usual suspects of these stories are generally quite interesting (though she seems unnecessarily hard on More while conversely being rather indulgent of Henry VIII). Though given the planned sequel, perhaps that will change as the lead character's POV does.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

And with this, I've now read something by all of the American Nobel Laureates. Anyhoo, this is a decent social satire, and I would probably have liked it more had I been reading it at the time; much like the long-since-played-out "everyone in the 1950s is secretly miserable" genre, this sort of satire of middle class conformists is exceedingly familiar. Of course, the reason it's so familiar is that a lot of people were copying Lewis and some other early writers, but there you go. Some very enjoyable writing, all the same.

[JTolle]

I read Proust a year ago in French (had to read/reread the whole Recherche for exams) and these books are among the best I ever read. Ever. Evaaar. This is to disparage Powell, but I seriously doubt he's as good as the mustachio'd Frenchman. Because very, very, very few writers are. Not all of the Recherche is as good as its best books but even the somewhat lesser last books are great by other writers' standards.

Well, I did read Swann's Way. And yes, yes, yes, unbelievable! I was literally entranced. I've been needing to read the rest since I finished it. The answer is clear. After I finish DeLillo, despite the immensity of the project, I'll try desperately to read both throughout the year. I probably won't finish either but it's nice to have a goal. Thanks.

[Stiffelio]

Mario Vargas Llosa: El Sueño del Celta
Vargas Llosa's first post-Nobel and much anticipated novel about Roger Casement. Meticulously researched, deftly constructed novel about the falling of grace of a romantic idealist. Had it been written by anybody else I would have pronounced it as excellent, but for VLL's standards I honestly don't think it belongs with his best work. I will try to write a few more lines about it.

Fernando Vallejo: El Don de la Vida +
This is Vallejo at his sarcastic, politically incorrect, blasphemous best (or worst?). The title (The Gift of Life) is ironic as the novel is mostly about nostalgia and the wish for death, structured as a long conversation between a first person autobiographical narrator and death herself. Not for everybody but I loved it.

César Aira: El Divorcio
I read this short novel to close 2010 and did so with a smile. Aira is getting better and better with each book, or rather, I'm becoming addicted to his style which, the more I read, the more I find deeply rooted in Borges.........but Borges on LSD! I love Aira's unpredictability. This one is about the multiplicity of stories contained in one chancy moment.

[Daniel del Real]

Mario Vargas Llosa: El Sueño del Celta
Vargas Llosa's first post-Nobel and much anticipated novel about Roger Casement. Meticulously researched, deftly constructed novel about the falling of grace of a romantic idealist. Had it been written by anybody else I would have pronounced it as excellent, but for VLL's standards I honestly don't think it belongs with his best work. I will try to write a few more lines about it.

Fernando Vallejo: El Don de la Vida +
This is Vallejo at his sarcastic, politically incorrect, blasphemous best (or worst?). The title (The Gift of Life) is ironic as the novel is mostly about nostalgia and the wish for death, structured as a long conversation between a first person autobiographical narrator and death herself. Not for everybody but I loved it.

César Aira: El Divorcio
I read this short novel to close 2010 and did so with a smile. Aira is getting better and better with each book, or rather, I'm becoming addicted to his style which, the more I read, the more I find deeply rooted in Borges.........but Borges on LSD! I love Aira's unpredictability. This one is about the multiplicity of stories contained in one chancy moment.

Interest selection of Latin American writers. After reading La Vírgen de los Sicarios by Vallejo, which I dislike, I think I'm done for some time with him. It's really funny to listen him in a conference but page after page of the same rants against everything is too much, even for me. His books are well written, but nothing extraordinary, so the form is nothing great either.

I have El Sueño del Celta waiting to be read. However I wouldn't consider it the first post-Nobel book. Although it was published after Nobel, he had been working on it for the the last few years and when he was announced as Nobel winner the novel was already finished.

[Daniel del Real]

Mia Couto, Venenos de Deus, Remédios do Diabo (Poisons of God, Remedies from the Devil)
A true gem very early in this year. Didn't expect it. A pleasant surprise

[Bjorn]

Kristian Lundberg, Yarden (Sweden)
Justly praised little gem; a modern-day reinvention of the classic Scandinavian proletarian novel. Lundberg is an acclaimed poet, which pays about as well as you'd imagine, so having wasted his youth on poetry and drugs the only thing that remains if he wants his kid to eat is the lowest of minimum-wage jobs - unloading ships in Malmö harbour in the middle of the winter, hired by the hour, never knowing if he'll make enough to buy food next month. Terse, poetic, harsh.

AA Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner (UK) and
It's been way too long since I re-read these. Warms you up better than a blanket.

Indra Sinha, Animal's People (UK)
Imagine Vikram Seth's Q&A (that's Slumdog Millionaire to movie fans) if it had actually been well written and had a cast of interesting characters... plus a very foul-mouthed narrator. Liked it, but not perfect. Will try to write more about it.

[Eric]

Interesting, Björn, that people are still writing proletarian novels in Sweden. I thought that a Kristian Lundberg was a Christian poet. Is this the same one? (Winnie the Pooh must be a bit of a contrast!)

[Eric]

Tove Jansson: Trollvinter

Just finished reading something relatively light over Christmas - a Moomin book. What is interesting about this book is that it indeed says something to adults, as well as children. Jansson always introduces dark aspects of life into her Moomin books, which makes them less anodyne and goody-goody than some children's literature. And it is this aspect which makes the Moomin books palatable for adults.

The security of the home is contrasted with the snowy winter and wide open spaces. The summer nostalgia of the bathing hut near the sea is in sharp contrast with the snowdrifts. There are a number of invisible creatures, but the visible ones are the usual suspects that are in many of the Moomin books, for instance the tiny but spiteful Lilla My (Little My in English) and the typically bumptious, self-centred, but ultimately kind-hearted Hemulen (who reminds me of some Helsinki Swedish-speakers - Jansson was one herself, but much more low-key).

In between, I read a few of Tove Jansson's stories for adult consumption. She was a very perceptive observer and describer of human nature.

[learna]

Light in August by William Faulkner.

It is a deep description or even investigation of despair, internal tension and the racial conflict of America. And the combination of the general idea of the novel and Faulkner's style looks perfect.

+