BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014

Fanfare.....

Well, occasionally I do a "Book of the Month" when I read something I am especially impressed by, or I feel I need to raise the tone a bit, but here is a list of the books I most enjoyed during 2014


The Skull & The Nightingale  Michael Irwin

I think I wrote about this earlier in the year, I thought it was fab, very well done, even if I didn't like the end.

A rather different, gruesome book was Ian Banks' The Wasp Factory - but it was gruesome with a point, and I thought it was brilliant.

The Hare with Amber eyes by Edmund de Waal - which was the most brilliant account of wealthy, secular Jews in Paris and Vienna in the 19th-20thC - just utterly fascinating sort of history.

Andrey Kurzov's  Death and the Penguin and Penguin Lost were a brilliant pair of books, which gave immense insight into post-Soviet Ukraine/Russia/Chechnya - grim and funny in the best tradition.

Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union is the best detective book I've ever read, because the language is so fantastic and inventive and the plot is just ludicrous.  It's a new school of "ludicrous realism" if you like - or that sort of Ionesco like absurdism... except that it all ties together so beautifully.  It is one of those books that makes me feel "why do I bother?"

Other contenders (I didn't read too much dreck this year) include Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, Anne Patchett's State of Wonder,  William Falkener's As I lay dying,  Balzac's  The Black Sheep - and the even more fabulous Cousin Bette.   The Letters from Liselotte of course, which have had their own blog entry - Zola's  The Ladies' Paradise (although I prefer the French title Au Bonheur des Dames)  Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart which was a revelation.

I realise now that I have read virtually none of the contemporary "must read" books - I daresay I will in a few years' time.  The one major re-read this year was Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell which did not in the least disappoint on second reading... I still love it.

Book of the Month: The Skull & The Nightingale

The Skull & The Nightingale by Michael Irwin
I was lent this book by my friend Anna T, and I ignored it for a couple of months, as one often does with books one has been forcibly lent.  However, knowing I would be seeing her next week I thought I should have a look at it.

The first two or three pages took some getting used to - they were written in a style of English no longer common, and required study - but after that I became completely immersed in it.  The novel is set in the C18th and the author is a Professor of English Lit who specialises in that period, so the language and the literary references were, as far as I could see, spot on.  It is that miraculous item, an intelligent book that is also a page turner.  It was all going very nicely, I loved it - the discussion about how we use art to disguise the passions - with particular reference to Richardson's Clarissa was very interesting - and seeing it played out in the book was clever.  The skull represents, I suppose human mortality - and our intellect, the vanity of our intellect - the brain goes, only the skull remains, the nightingale is the symbol of love, pastoral romance etc. which acts as cover for our lust.  All very clever.  However, it can be enjoyed without the enquiry into symbolism, since the plot and the main character's story are so good.

As is often the case with books I read the last 50 or so pages in a phrenzy to know what would happen - and then sadly, I was disappointed.  Clearly my reading of the character of Fenwick was "wrong" - the action he took was not what I expected.  He has already shown the reader that his reports to his godfather are often not completely true - are we also to assume that his presentation of his self to us is also not true... that he is much more like his godfather than we realise?  Is he an unreliable narrator in wig and breeches?   I think that must be the conclusion... I did not think such a skilled novel could have such a bumpy ending otherwise.   I wonder if it was done to allow the possibility of a sequel?  I found it very difficult that the Fenwick character had made the choice he made - to have made the other choice open to him might have smacked too much of "happy ending" which is of course not fashionable in literary novels - but nevertheless I was disappointed by it - he could have had the "happy ending" together with some thoughtful disquisition which might have tied matters up.  Anyway, anyway.... a great book really.  I will be surprised if I read any contemporary novels I like better this year.