Review of My 2010 Reading List

Oh, didn’t I do well with my 2010 resolution to write more than one blog a year? I’m sure you were all dazzled by my detailed descriptions of my fortnight training in Kabul, entertained by my account of our house swap to Berlin over the summer, and intrigued by my fascinating comments on the UK radio industry. No, yet again I am the balloon in the inflatable school who lets myself down and lets everyone else down too.

But what’s the point of having resolutions that you actually stick to? Achievable goals, they’re just so do-able. I’m all about the trying.

And it’s that time of year again, the time we’ve all been waiting for with baited breath, but before I reveal my reading list for 2011 in the vain belief that anyone apart from me is interested, let me allow a moment of reflection on the books I chose to accompany me through 2010.

If my memory serves me correctly, I started the year with The Collector by John Fowles and he didn’t disappoint. I’m impressed at how modern the book feels, as I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been written this year instead of nearly half a century ago. The simple device of allowing the story to be told from both the perspectives of the captor and the captive manages to accentuate the feelings of claustrophobia, and the short final section is really chilling. I remember speaking to someone who gave up on the book during Miranda’s part because they found her character too airy-fairy and I think that’s such a waste because this is one story that you really need to stick with until the very last page. Another example is Dorian by Will Self, which I only half-liked until I reached the Epilogue and then it went up a great deal in my estimation. All in all, The Collector was a great way to start the year and yet another reason to love the un-pigeonhole-able Fowles.

Lady Oracle was entertaining and excellent, as all Atwood’s works are, but reminded me yet again that I find her post-Handmaid’s Tale dystopian books far more meaty and substantial that her earlier works about dysfunctional relationships. I read The Year of the Flood while house-bound in Kabul after a bomb explosion and was completely captivated. I love how neatly it fits with Oryx and Crake, and how it doesn’t matter which order you read them in. She also has the coolest, most dry Canadian accent I’ve ever heard, bordering on monotone, as I discovered when Women’s Hour did a feature of the 25th anniversary of The Handmaid’s Tale in the Autumn.

As with most books that have transcended into the upper echelons of cult classic status, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was an interesting read but one that left me feeling a little hollow.

I had a similar experience when re-reading Catcher in the Rye this year for a potential radio programme, although the narration and character of Holden are far more intriguing to me than those in Capote’s novella, but I had the opposite when picking up To Kill A Mockingbird again in preparation to produce ‘To Kill A Mockingbird at 50’ for BBC Radio 2. That book is achingly beautiful and timeless, one of the few that deserves its universal praise.

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li wins the dubiously-titled but much-acclaimed prize of My Most Depressing Read of 2010. Beautifully written but oh so hopeless, the characters and their fates are ones that will stay with me for a long time. Highly recommended. The New York Trilogy is also one of my favourite books of the year, something I’d like to re-read even now as I think I’ll get a lot more from it second time round. I know it’s an over-used tactic but I did find it very exciting when Paul Auster appeared within the stories. It was as entertaining an author inclusion in his own work as Bret Easton Ellis‘ narrative self in Lunar Park; unfortunately, his long-awaited follow-up, Imperial Bedrooms wins Most Disappointing Book of 2010.

I’d even re-read Less Than Zero in preparation, trying and failing to find more (or any) substance or appeal in it than I had the first time, and found its sequel more than dire, lacking any of the smart gloss of Glamorama or American Psycho that makes the inevitable violence more visceral. Reading Imperial Bedrooms, I really felt as though the joke was on us, but having said all that, if a new B.E.E book was released tomorrow I’d still rush out to buy it, and watching Miranda Sawyer interview him at Latitude was one of my festival highlights of the year because he managed to be so slippery and not giving a shit yet so likeable and charming.

My attempt to crowbar in a factual book didn’t fill me with encouragement as whilst Maria Tatar‘s Enchanted Hunters was interesting, it didn’t really tell me anything new about children’s stories and the morality tales within them. I would have preferred more spurious theories, or at least a bit of personality or ownership from the author, than obvious comments about the impact of the Brothers Grimm. Which leads me nicely onto Gunter Grass‘ The Rat, a highly confusing yet intriguing melting pot of styles that threw in the aforementioned brothers and their creations, Grass’ own creation of Oskar Matzerath (do not read this book if you aren’t acquainted with The Tin Drum as it will be even harder to follow), Grass himself, some women on a boat and the eponymous Rat. At times I was very lost, or bored, or both, but somehow I think that’s what Grass wants you to feel.

A personal highlight about this book is that I was reading it while queuing to see Kevin Eldon at The Stand during the Edinburgh Festival and my favourite comedian, Stewart Lee, came along to flyer for his wife’s show. The person in front of me was reading Wolf Hall, so Lee spotted that then The Rat, and as he handed me a flyer he said “Kevin Eldon gets a very well-read crowd at his shows. You’d never see anyone reading Gunter Grass at a Michael McIntyre gig”. With this rare opportunity to embark on a charming conversation with one of my heroes I opted for turning a charmless hue of puce and attempting a smile as I was overwhelmed into silence. The only thing I could think of saying was “well, I’m reading your book next” so I think silence was actually the best option.

Which segues neatly onto another favourite read of the year: How I Escaped My Certain Fate (the Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian) by Stewart Lee.

Look, even the cover is brilliant! Even though, dare I say it, I haven’t found his recent shows as stop-no-really-I-can’t-breathe funny since his brilliant 2006 routine about vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ, his delivery and train of thought never cease to impress. This book is a fascinating insight into his career and I hadn’t appreciated the joy of reading transcripts from shows I’ve been to until I’d opened this. Thoughtful and honest, it is also very funny. I saw a besuited gentleman reading this at Earl’s Court tube the other day and had to resist the urge to approach him with some inane comment like “that book’s great, you’re in for a treat” because the shock of a stranger offering – albeit banal – friendly chit chat may have caused him to batter me with his briefcase.

What next? Well, between the favourites and the worsties come the ‘hmmmm, they’re OK….’ titles which left me indifferent. Step forward The Island and Daniel Martin, which are disappointing because generally I fly the flag for Huxley and Fowles. The Outsider by Albert Camus also nestles under this umbrella as I just kept thinking ‘right, he doesn’t feel anything, I get it, now what?’ throughout, which I’m sure isn’t the point and probably highlights my lack of subtle literary appreciation.

Two books that exceeded my expectations were The Nice and the Good, which had an air of country romp and bracing family saga, elegantly depicted by Murdoch who didn’t take any of the characters too seriously, a feat which is refreshing in itself, and Nathanael West‘s Collected Works. Some were better than others – I wasn’t too taken with Miss Lonelyhearts, but The Dream Life of Balso Snell is off-the-scale loopy in a brilliant Lewis Carroll way, with weird scenarios merging seamlessly into other  bizarre encounters, all taking place inside a Trojan horse, of course. And The Day of the Locust is well worth reading, not least for it’s bleak depiction of Hollywood – there’s something very Mulholland Drive about it – and it’s even bleaker ending, but for the fact that one of its main characters is a useless bloke called Homer Simpson.

Sun by David Eagleman is a very easy to read yet thought-provoking set of scenarios imagining what happens to us after we die. They’re so short – some just one or two pages – that I found it hard to remember any of them so I think I’ll need to re-visit the book later on, but they did make an impression on me, mainly for the sheer variety of happy and distressing images conjured by Eagleman. And We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is absolutely brilliant and bleak, yet – as I’d feared – I now appreciate 1984 less because Orwell was clearly more than just a little bit influenced by it.

I’ve recently finished Foucault’s Pendulum which was probably my Albatross of 2010 – all 641 pages of it – and all I can say is, yes it’s very clever but I’m glad it’s over. I failed to work my way through The Original of Laura, so that will have to go on my 2011 list, and I’m currently enjoying the adventures of the Pickwick Club, so all in all – Nabokov’s posthumous paperweight notwithstanding – I’ve managed to read all of the books on my 2010 list, realising that some achievable goals are worthwhile.