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Every single thrill seems to be against the law...
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I've been remiss, apparently, in posting these reviews. So, from the year-end issue of the Vancouver Sun (and by special request):
What worked for me: LOOK BACK I A reckoning based on having read 150-plus books this year
Robert J. Wiersema -- Special to the Sun
Saturday, December 31, 2005
I always approach year-end best-of lists with trepidation, for two reasons. Not only is the measure of artistic merit almost entirely subjective, but also it's impossible for any reader, amateur or professional, to have read more than a fraction of the 100,000-plus books published in any year.
So, instead of a best-of list, I give you a reckoning. As the full-on frenzy of the fall publishing season fades and the gin haze of the holidays begins to abate, these are the most memorable of the more than 150 books I've read during the last 365 days.
CANADIAN FICTION
The year 2005 was fruitful for CanLit. Among the finest novels of the year are two I felt were shoo-ins for the major literary prizes.
I was crushed when neither Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road nor Michael Crummey's The Wreckage was even shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and when Boyden failed to win a Governor-General's Literary Award. They wuz robbed, I tells ya.
Three Day Road is one of the most electrifying debut novels in recent memory. Each of its interweaving storylines (a harrowing account of the First World War, as witnessed by two Cree soldiers, and a keenly observed journey into Canada's North and, more subtly, into the realm of memory and myth) is rich enough to stand as a novel on its own.
Three Day Road seems destined to become a Canadian classic.
Following on the heels of his astonishing debut, River Thieves, Newfoundland writer Michael Crummey shifted gears with The Wreckage. A historical tale of war (this time, the Second World War in the Pacific), it's also a powerful love story that reckons with the reality of love, rather than its cliches. The novel transcends the mundane, and its closing pages put the seal of greatness on it.
In a different vein, Andrew Pyper's The Wildfire Season is deft and powerful storytelling. Drawing on thriller elements and pacing, with significant psychological complexity and a keen eye for characterization, Pyper's account of murder and peril within an arson-stoked forest fire makes for breakneck reading.
Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad is a retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. Part of The Myths, an international series launched this fall, it seems a natural fit for Atwood. She underscores many of her pet themes (gender relations, the nature of female image) with a savage wit and barely suppressed sense of reckless joy.
I found myself in the critical mainstream with my admiration for Lisa Moore's Alligator, which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. A fragmentary crystal-sharp parsing of a broad spectrum of society in St. John's, Nfld., Alligator is an impressive first novel from Moore, whose short stories have earned her an international reputation.
I was outside of the critical pack, however, with my fondness for John Irving's Until I Find You. Many reviewers found it bloated and self-indulgent, but I couldn't get enough of this tale of a young actor trying to uncover the secrets of his past. Much was made of Irving's attempts to reconcile his personal demons through the book, but I was impressed by how he re-evaluates and reframes his entire oeuvre in this one work. I stand by my judgment.
CANADIAN NON-FICTION
The pickings were no less rich on the non-fiction side of the Canadian book trade, with several titles of significant local interest.
In The Golden Spruce, Vancouver journalist John Valliant not only chronicles the "murder" of a vaunted golden spruce on the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) but also manages to produce a compelling historical survey of B.C.'s logging industry, an insight into the environmental movement and a glimpse into the mind of Grant Hadwin, the logger turned environmentalist whose disappearance remains a mystery.
A multifaceted masterwork, The Golden Spruce deserves its Governor-General's Award.
Under the Bridge, Rebecca Godfrey's account of the murder of Victoria schoolgirl Reena Virk and the trials of her killers, is easily one of the most harrowing non-fiction books of the year.
Godfrey, who grew up in Victoria (she now lives in New York), spent more than five years immersing herself in Victoria's youth culture and interviewing many of the people involved. In the book, she cannily shifts perspectives, which allows for insights not only into the legalities of the case but also into the minds of the teens involved. This is a dark ride.
Broadening the focus, Gary Geddes' Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things is nothing less than a re-examination of history as we know it. Following cryptic mentions of a journey to America by Huishen, a fifth-century Buddhist monk, the Sooke writer and poet undertakes an odyssey from Afghanistan (mere hours before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks) through China and across the Pacific to Central America.
Geddes is an uneasy traveller, which contributes to the charm of his account.
You may be surprised to learn that Donald Akenson's An Irish History of Civilization probably gave me more hours of pleasure than any other Canadian book this year. Part of that is due to length: Spread over two volumes, the Irish History runs to more than 1,500 pages, with never a dull moment.
Queen's University prof Akenson traces the Irish diaspora from Paul of Tarsus in 15 BC to Billy Graham in the early 1970s. Hundreds of vignettes and narrative fragments fashion a kaleidoscopic overview of Western culture with Ireland at its centre.
INTERNATIONAL NON-FICTION
I confess to having managed to avoid most new books about Iraq, American political scandal and the conflict in the Middle East, in favour of, well, frankly, anything else.
The big news from south of the border is the recent publication of The Complete New Yorker, a must-have for every home library.
Spread over eight DVD-ROMs, the New Yorker archives are a treasure chest of fiction (including the long-lost Salinger short stories and more Alice Munro than you can shake a stick at), essays (including the first publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring) and reportage (including the debuts of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and John Hersey's Hiroshima.)
I suspect ophthalmologists will love this collection: Poring over the magazine's voluminous back pages can't be good for the eyes.
Mary Roach's book, Spook, is timeless reading of a different sort. Her previous bestseller, Stiff, chronicled the physical afterlife of the human body. In her latest, an inquiry into the human soul, she pursues the paranormal with hilarity and razor wit.
I spent much fruitful time this year with California novelist Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. Conceived in the wake of 9/11, it's part writing seminar, part canny survey (of 100 novels, classic and contemporary.) This book is a master class in fiction.
INTERNATIONAL FICTION
Creators of fiction outside of Canada were in fine form this year.
New York writer Michael Cunningham produced Specimen Days, a fantasia on history, destiny and redemption. Set in New York in three separate time frames, it mixes genres and approaches in pursuit of deeper fictional truths.
It never explicitly touches on Sept. 11 but was unmistakably shaped by those events. It serves as something of a conciliation with history and forces outside of our control.
Best known for his legal thrillers, Chicago writer Scott Turow also turned to history. His novel, Ordinary Heroes, is framed with a contemporary storyline: Stewart Dubinsky (a bit player from Presumed Innocent) discovers a series of letters and a manuscript written by his father during the Second World War. The papers reveal a previously unimagined life for Stewart's father, including a court martial, a cat-and-mouse pursuit of a possible double agent and a love story.
Turow makes it all look easy.
"Easy," however, is not the word to describe The Evening Land: Lord Byron's Novel, the latest book by John Crowley (whose Little, Big is one of my favourite novels.)
The Evening Land is a complex, nested novel of literary and biographical reconstruction. It involves a novel Lord Byron is rumoured to have begun, though not completed. A rich interweaving of history and biography, it's a stunning, rewarding work from a writer who deserves much wider fame.
No one can say that Neil Gaiman hasn't caught people's attention. With his latest novel, Anansi Boys, the fantasist and comic book writer revisits the world of American Gods, a world in which gods have flesh. And children, apparently.
A droll comedy of manners with elements of mystery, thriller and romance thrown in, it chronicles the misadventures of the two sons of Anansi following the death of the old man, the African trickster god (and spider.)
Though not as ambitious as American Gods, Anansi Boys is charming.
Finally, it seems strange to rave about the story of a 90 year-old man who buys himself a 14 year-old virgin to celebrate his birthday, but in the hands of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, such a story is marvelous. Never salacious and with a heart full to bursting, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is an evocation of age and regret, of passion and loss, whose force defies its size and seeming casualness of tone.
It isn't One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it's a perfect book for looking back, on a lifetime or a year. With days short and endings near, it seems an appropriate place to finish.
In his last feature, Victoria writer, bookseller and critic Robert J. Wiersema recommended eight books about Christmas.
And that's the kind of year it was.
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willietheshakes) wrote,
