2016 was a really good year for Zach and Books. It's very rare that I wonder consistently, from book to book, whether or not I'll ever be satisfied again after such an incredible narrative. I'll detail them in the order I read them this year (not including smaller/unfinished works that I partook in this year).
Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote - A wonderful collection of short stories by Truman Capote. The book was dusty and hidden in the bottom of an old box from ye olde college days, a gift from an old English Major compatriot in my freshman year who was sad to see me go on to major in Biology for a whole whopping half-semester. She graduated later that semester and told me that I had a mind for stories and that I'd enjoy this and another book she gave me by Willa Cather, "The Troll Gardens". Once more an unknown author. Surrounded by the effluvia of my pride, I took the books graciously, she graduated and got married like all Biola Graduates are wont to do, and I promptly forgot them until I'd been graduated with my english degree hung on a wall these two years, simpering in my personal slough of despond.
Truman was delightful. The previous year was filled with Roberto Bolaño and an unhealthy load of Haruki Murakami, and I'd left no room for my humor or wit to be engaged. These two authors, focussed on the depravity and the unknown, had left me grasping in the dark. Seeking reprieve from my (beautiful) edition of "Moby Dick", I found "Music for Chameleons" sitting on a stack of things to sort in my room for the new year and thought I'd take that with me on my day off, a light book for a light day. It was halfway through my bagel sandwich, choking, that I realized that I'd been too flippant with the nature of this collection of short stories (or recollections, if you prefer), and found myself hypnotized and entertained more than I'd been by a book in years.
Capote's short stories seem to be small vignettes of his own fantastical life, some almost a prototype of sorts for his "In Cold Blood", the greater known of his works (which I have yet to read, as well). His writing is economical and sharp, and his dialogue more realistic than the conversations you have with your loved ones. It goes without saying that all the recommendations I make on my blog come with high commendations, but I feel that of all the books featured here this would be the most approachable and appreciated by the everyman.
New York Trilogy by Paul Auster - I haven't read much Raymond Chandler in recent years, "Maltese Falcon" continues to collect dust on my shelf, and I've only read one Agatha Christie mystery in the last four years, but I'd like to think that Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy" has absolved some of these egregious sins. If you were unaware by the associations, Paul Auster has crafted three novella in the noir/detective/mystery genres whose underlying message focuses on identity. A pretty, you know, vague and huge topic.
I thoroughly enjoyed the three novella ("City of Glass", "Ghosts", and "The Locked Room") as a deconstruction of the crime fiction genre, and the cold stare into the deep abyss of solipsism. A hard-boiled detective can only be so hard, so boiled, and Paul Auster does dances elegantly on the fine-line between the heavy-handed and the obscure. His characters are simultaneously relatable and ethereal (or infernal, depending on the book), and the conceits are always fascinating and provocative.
Come for the existential dread, stay for the crippling anxiety.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin - One of the best pieces of science fiction I've ever read, and my first dive into an Ursula Le Guin novel. Perhaps the greatest uncertainty the average reader has nowadays with being recommended a book within the genre of sci-fi is the perceived execution: joining some unfortunately-named character (typically consists of X's and unpronouncable jumbles of consonants with all manner of weird apostrophe and accents), we venture through some post apocalypse/proto-human land wherein drinks are blue, things fly, and some hugely controversial modern thought is celebrated while some common practice is lambasted as ancient or beneath their culture, etc.et .ce .t c. e.t c.e t. c.e t. c. et. .c e.t . c.
Le Guin either knows to avoid this or just knows better altogether, as her characters and settings are real and corporeal despite their nomenclature and physicality. The daughter of a writer and an anthropologist, she learned the delicate balance of a world and its inhabitants and her writing proves so masterfully in "The Left Hand of Darkness". The concerns of the characters are entirely human and, I think, and interesting topic for musing given today's societal context; her understanding and execution of a sexless race belies a deeper elocution about sex and culture, both elementary and sophisticated.
If you enjoy a healthy dose of sociology with your fiction, look no further; Le Guin is the master.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - I believe I've done an
authentic Nathan Lane guffaw twice in my life. The first time was when I was told men were inherently good. The second was when I was sitting in a Hidden House coffee shop reading "A Confederacy of Dunces" and had to leave the shop because I was disturbing my fellow reformed-hipster-xtian customers and a grandma.
I've laughed before, plenty of times. In fact, unlike some, I'm unable to number the times I've laughed here, in my time on Earth. But never before have I laughed so raucously because of the written word. Never before have I had to put a book down and catch my breath, repeating lines out loud as though to preserve them in this fleshy realm before banishing them back to the pages in my hands. Never before have I beheld the belch as such an incredible bodily act, the intestines as such a holy labyrinth...
John Kennedy Toole is one of the last great satirists we've seen—and I mean that beyond the humor, beyond the vulgar jokes that are sooooooooo so so so good. Toole captures a unique facet of human depravity that can be found so commonly today in the Internet Troll. Ignatius Riley, the main character of this fantastic novel, embodies the One and True "M'lady", the "Edgelord", the abnoxious "Anon", that infernal Youtube commenter... And in witnessing the utter ridiculousness of such a person, a certain levity is bestowed upon the reader. "Oh, I'm not the only one that's noticed folks like this!" or "Well, I'm happy to know that they have a rough go of it as well." or "babhbwhbahbwahbwhabahahhahahahahah", all proper responses, and a metaphorical peptobysmol in this future where our every action is witnessed and rated by a host of anonymous ne're-do-wells, hellbent on the destruction of goodness and progress. The book, similarly to Capote's aforementioned work, did wonders for my well-being and probably added two more years to my life.
If you're looking for a good romp, this is it.
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco - The final book I finished before the end of this year, and what a work it was. Umberto Eco claims that the reason he wrote this book began with the simple premise, "I began writing in March of 1978, prodded by a seminal idea: I felt like poisoning a monk". But, as he concludes in a post-script to the work, he had to build quite a world around it in order to achieve a work of this nature within the specific parameters he had constructed.
Surely the reason this book has wiggled its way into one of my favorite books of all time was the story, but perhaps moreso than the story was the methodology with which Eco wrote it. Piece by piece, he constructed the narrative based on meticulous historical fact, until the story that formed before him was much more nuanced than the poisoning of a monk; it became a conversation on 14th century Christendom, and probably one of my favorite discussions on Christendom as a whole. The work is simultaneously humbling and affirming, with a sobering reflection for the reader: not much has changed in the controversies of Christianity since the 14th century, and perhaps before that.
The work is not necessarily a Christian one, though the subject matter may be so. It merely tells a tale within that context, which is such a rare and wondrous thing this day in age where anything remotely Christian must either tie itself warts and all to the religion, or deny it and claim obstinate apposition. There is a fear today of objectively viewing the religion through the perspective of fiction without underlying intentions, I think a weakness on both fronts.
"The Name of the Rose" is a fantastic murder mystery, and has actually had a more acute effect on my faith in recent years than any theologian or book on such topics. And I think that's something that anybody should experience, despite any grievances or misgivings they may have with Judeo-Christian thought in general, as Eco is able to write in such a way that you are hermetically sealed from any proselytizing. A masterfully written work and my favorite of 2016.
Honorable Mention
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin - A fascinating world, but nothing you've never read before. The story and character are fairly predictable. I am excited to read the other two books if only to explore more of Le Guin's Earthsea universe.
