A Year in Distractions: Literature 2009
With the advent of 2010 coming, and because I am procrastinating my finals by all means necessary, I have taken the time to compile lists of my favorite distractions–aka media, the arts, etc–from the previous year. The rules are not that the cultural item was released this past year, but rather that I consumed it this year and affected me enough in 2009 to write about it.
Literature:
10. Without Feathers by Woody Allen
A great collection of short stories from one of my favorite comedians/thinkers–the two are one in the same when you boil it down. In Without Feathers, which title stems from a quote from Emily Dickinson saying “Hope is a thing with feathers,” Allen covers a the typical Woody Allen motifs: atheism, the absurd, high culture, Jewish culture, etc.. My personal favorites were: “Death (A Play),” “The Whore of Mensa,” “God (A Play),” and “If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists.”
9. Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon
This was a fun little book from one of my favorite authors. It focuses on the summer after graduating college, which, if you were like me, was full of debauchery. The main character, the son of a Jewish mob boss, falls in love, with what in our times would be considered a hipster girl and a gay male. The story is very Gatsby-esque, which makes sense because Chabon wrote the book inspired by The Great Gatsby–and I read soon after reading Mysteries. The ending is a bit weak, but the rest of the book is phenomenal.
8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
This is one of those books that I have always wanted to get around to reading, but something always gets in the way. It is a fun little romp through science-fiction, absurdity, humanism, death, space, irony, etc. I ripped through this book…. the sequels not so much, but this one is a fun little read.
7. The Virgin Suicides by Jefferey Eugenides
After reading Middlesex this year, I picked up The Virgin Suicides, which was, in my opinion, not better, but was easier to relate to. I grew up with a bunch of crazy religious people and could never really understand their mindsets, which is the struggle of the protagonists all had. The book was written in first person plural and that added a whole other dimension to the story. I have yet to see the film, but, if it is half as good as the book, it should be enjoyable.
6. Candide by Voltaire
I cannot say how many times Candide has been recommended to me by a wide variety of people. It is a story for a skeptic atheist. There is nothing but comical misfortune for the main character, which provide me with non-stop amusement.
5. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
This novel was one of the last novels I read in 2009. It won the Booker Award in 1998 and is about two former lovers of Molly Lane. At Molly’s funeral they discuss their lives, where they are and where they are going, and Molly’s other lovers. Clive, a composer, and Vernon, a newspaper editor, begin to get entangled with another one of Molly’s ex-lovers, who is the Foreign Secretary and hopeful PM candidate. The two friends begin a downward dissent that leads them to despise each other and start planning “vengeance.” After reading this book, I thought: “I need to read this again.”
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
There was something about this novel that I just truly love. I think it was because I projected on Mr. Gray. Not the whole homosexual subtext, but more about the innocence that Gray projects, which he is not and uses as a mask. I felt connected to this character because no one cannot understand him and he hides a secret no one can see. For me it is my anti-theism, desire for power, and love of a certain plant, which I hide behind a baby face. For Gray it was his homosexuality, love of wealth & status, and opium.
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez,
One of my dearest friends told me this was one of his favorite books and after reading it I can totally understand. This novel, which I will have to read again because of all the Aurelianos, was like having a good friend with me. That is not to say I was necessarily thinking about my friend, but more that Márquez has such a intimate writer’s voice that I felt immediately like I had a friend right next to me. There is such an immense understanding of the human condition in this book that it is no surprise that it help Márquez win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
2. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
A family friend gave this book to me before I headed back to the East Coast. It took me a while to get to it, which I very much regret. It is a story about a post-apocalyptic world that was destroyed because of, more or less, climate change. It is frighteningly real and sobering. There is a lot of humanity in this novel, which was why I was drawn to it so much.
1. Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Quite possibly the meanest/awesomest critique of religion. The book is not necessarily a critique of religion, but 20 pages left of the book, it sticks it to the religious mindset–hardcore! Atwood is a beautiful writer and this book was a stunning achievement, which won the Booker Award. It is a novel that has multiple story lines going at all times and revolves around the story of Iris and her sister Laura’s growing up in a town outside Tornoto during the Great Depression and in the present tense as Iris is writing a book about her life. Throughout Blind Assassin there is another book, suppossedly written by Laura, called Blind Assassin, which chronicles the affair of a young woman and a atheist-Marxist Pulp Science fiction writer. They drink bootlegged scotch, talk about life and politics, and have wild passionate sex. It is awesome! This was the best and most enjoyable read I have had since The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
