The Best Book I Read This Year

If I'm asked to pick the best book I read this year, new or old, fiction or non-fiction, I have to give that title to Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone.

Part Cormac McCarthy, part W.S. Merwin, Woodrell's prose does everything I require from the lyrical, poetic descriptions to the detail-oriented background information without ever getting tripped up. The book does not even stumble. Even though the reader knows the likely outcome, or becomes convinced of it along side the protagonist, the story remains compelling.

One of the main reasons for the book's success is the power of its protagonist Ree Dolly. It is hard not to get behind this sort of bold character and encourage her along even as she makes horrible mistakes. While Ree is such a compelling character, a teenage girl forced to care for her mother and two younger brothers, this is no Catcher in the Rye or any other book carried on the back of an outrageous character. This book is propelled more by the quality of the storytelling than a unique character.

Winter's Bone accomplishes so much for a short novel, which is why it surpasses some of the larger books I read this year. It manages to be traditional without being stodgy. It's nearly a mystery (the section in which I found the book stocked at my local independent bookstore) without being simply plot based. And it has no gimmick.

If I'd have been thinking earlier this season I would have given a copy of the book to everyone on my list. Instead, you'll have to pick it up yourself.

The Xmas Haul

Another snowstorm and a work overload have kept me from posting a thing this week. I did want to take a moment to share the titles I received this Christmas.

I always ask for (and receive) these short story collections: 2007 Pushcart Prize XXXI: Best of the Small Presses, which includes everyone from W.S. Merwin to Kate Braverman; Best American Short Stories 2006, which includes Thomas McGuane and of course Alice Munro; The 2006 O. Henry Prize Stories (though this one I had to buy myself--with a gift card).

Then I received a couple books on craft: Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell and The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman, as well as the No Plot? No Problem Novel Writing Kit which is, if nothing else, novel.

Then under the tree was The View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro, and with the remaining amount on the gift card I bought from the bargain section at Tattered Cover Things You Should Know by A.M. Homes, and High Lonesome: Selected Stories 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol Oates.

Now, it's a lot of books, I know, but I will make the pledge this year that I will read everyone and not just pick and choose my way through these short story collections.

So, what books did you get or give this year?

"Let me ask you something..."

As the city shuttered itself in fear of serial killers this summer, Ron Horton found himself having an odd conversation with an old drinking buddy. "Let me ask you something," Horton remembers his friend, Samuel John Dieteman, sliding over to tell him between beers in June. "Do you know what it's like to kill a man?"
"How would I know?"
"Well," Horton recalls Dieteman saying, "neither did I until the last few months."

Serial killings informant breaks silence

Rejection Collection - The Journal

I got this rejection early this week from The Journal for my story "This Is What He Does." The best part of this one is if you read the second sentence as "We have read it with care and regret." Sounds about right.

Holiday Cheer

There's always been something creepy and heartening about Bing and Bowie.



And this Washington Post story tells us a little more about just how weird this all was. If only all holiday specials played "Heroes."

Digging Out

After a week of heavy snows and much too much snow (and high-centering my car and apparently doing serious damage to my catalytic converter), I've not been paying much attention to anything (except the presents I still need to buy). So, please excuse the light posting. I'll catch up with the world eventually.

My year in books

Twenty five books in year without classes and while finishing my MFA thesis doesn't sound too bad. I'm calling it at twenty five because you can see my current read is Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land and I don't anticipate finishing it in the next two weeks. There have been good books and there have been bad. Now, keep in mind that when we talk about merit in such terms we are looking at it through one reader's perspective.

Let's start with the bad books I read this year. Now I knew Bad Twin, written by a fictional character Gary Troupe, was going to be a bad book, but Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep came with a lot of praise and I was surprised to be so annoyed by it. The other surprisingly bad book was Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City.

Then there were the classics I was glad to get to, but didn't move me too much like Portnoy's Complaint, The Sound and the Fury, Herzog, A Farewell to Arms, and To the Lighthouse. And more recent books that didn't do too much for me, Slow Man, Never Let Me Go, The Feast of Love, The Bushwhacked Piano, and Everyman.

Now on to the good. The three bad books above were all read directly after Charles D'Ambrosio's short story collection The Dead Fish Museum. That book is so good that it could make many actually good books look bad. This was also the year I discovered Cormac McCarthy. Suttree knocked me out of my boots. I haven’t been as compelled to read as I was while reading those nearly 400 pages. I did get to The Road this year and I do think it deserves all the praise it's been getting, but it was so darn depressing. And it just wasn't as good as Suttree. Then Joyce Carol Oates's We Were The Mulvaneys also made a difference for me, as did Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping and, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird. While I learned this year that I may have set my standards too high, it's good to know that there are books out there, both old and new, that can reach them.

Of course one book I read has to be the best book I read this year, but I'll save that for another post.

Book Review: To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

It is easy to forget that Woolf is a modernist. I read and enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway, though it wasn't an easy read, and I understand the stream of consciousness, the way the thoughts and narration flit around. To the Lighthouse took this to an extreme. The first section was not unlike Mrs. Dalloway, with seemless shifts in perspective, dialogue that we get through the perspective, not direct quotes. It is not always easy to follow the concrete action, but it makes some sense. The second section of the novel drops all that came before and falls into an abstract and nearly poetic mode. We do not see things through any character's mind, except maybe that of the house itself. The language in this section is beautiful and, though we learn some things about the intervening years, nothing happens. Then the third section comes and we're given a meding of the two previous modes. We get different character's points of view, but the abstractions are so great that it's hard to really graso what they're thinking. I like the stream of consciousness and the beauty of it, but not enough of it registered with me to really take anything from it.

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées

It's not everyday that I get to point to something about Baudelaire, but now the occasion is here.

Powell's Review-a-Day features a review from Rain Taxi for a new translation of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal by Keith Waldrop. And it's not your everyday translation: The form of Waldrop's translation is versets, "a form that hovers between poetry and prose," as the book's front flap advertises.

I have long been a fan of Baudelaire and for just as long I've wanted to write my own translations of his poetry (I've translated only around a dozen). Every translation I've read seems insufficient, relying on replicating the rhyme or rhythm The words, though, are the important part. It is what Baudelaire's saying that moves me.

I don't know if this translation will give me what I want in English. I'm afraid that Waldrop is after something stylistically that compromises Baudelaire's intent. I'm willing to give it a try, though.

The relevance of the NYTBR

Dan Green at the Reading Experience evaluates NYTBR editor Sam Tannenhaus's statement that "novelists and short-story writers have begun to rediscover the uses of narrative and to find new ways of making their imagined creations more relevant to our complicated moment."

Frankly, I find this critical tic of Tanenhaus's--American fiction has abandoned narrative--rather baffling. I defy him to look at the literary fiction shelves (even allowing him to walk past the genre aisles) at Borders and Barnes and Noble and point out what books do not in fact dispense narrative in fairly heavy doses.
[...]
Let's invite the same fools and charlatans who dominate the news and opinion sections over to the Book Review and make it into the same kind of intellectual sinkhole.

I should admit that I am a bit of a traditionalist myself, but I had a similar reaction to Tannenhaus's statement. But after looking at the selections and his track record, I think he was just looking for a way of explaining why they liked more fiction this year--without really knowing what he was saying.

We must remember that any review (or best-of list) is entirely subjective. To talk about "relevance" only means that he likes "relevant" books. It shouldn't slow anyone down from writing totally irrelevant books. We might all want a good review in the NYTBR, but that's not why we're writing.

Rejection Collection - Greensboro Review

This one came yesterday from Greensboro Review for my story "The Disguise," originally sent to them in July. For such a large slip of paper, the actual rejection note is quite short and bland. This one needs some rethinking.

In addition, yesterday I received a letter from Shenandoah acknowledging receipt of my submission and pimping a subscription, including a card reprint of the journal cover. Seems like a long way to go to try and sell me a subscription. And the special writers' rate is $20--I think they could do a little better. I shouldn't complain, though, while they're reviewing my submission.

Tony Scott takes on Alice Munro

NY Times film critic A.O. Scott looks at two new books by Alice Munro, a collection of older stories titled Carried Away and a new collection of semi-autobiographical stories called The View From Castle Rock. That last one's on my wish list (hint, hint).

At least someone will read it

It may have been written to help Bush find a way out of Iraq, but now it looks like the Iraq Study Group Report is set to become a best seller(Sales soar for Iraq study group's book). I should admit that the 9/11 Commission Report is on my shelf and I'm likely to buy this thing as well. I don't know if I'm just into the whole bipartisan thing, or if it's the historical significance of it.

Now I could wander off on a rant about The Way Forward or A New Approach, but it might not be advised tonight. At least it will give everyone the cover they need. Let's move forward now.

Best books of the year?

At this time of the year and these sorts of lists appear everywhere, it is worthwhile to consider what we've read this year. What was the best book you read this year? Or what was the best book you read that was actually published this year?

Things to consider. I'll let you know my picks soon.

And still more...

The Denver Post this time: Recommend: Fiction

And though this one also includes The Road, I wouldn't give this list much credit... it also includes Thirteen Moons.

More best of...

And the Washington Post: Book World's 10 Best of the Year

At least this one has The Road.

NYTBR Best Books

I feel obligated to pass this along: NYTBR The 10 Best Books of 2006.

And... I haven't read a one. Yet.

My Other Life

Sometimes the real world catches up with you. It's the day job. I'm working like mad and too busy at work to even try to catch up with the literary world. Unfortunately i tlooks like I'm missing a good debate on bloggers' book reviews, on which I will have to comment at some point.

It is unfortunate that my time limits me from giving a more thoughtful analysis of things (if that's even possible through this medium), especially after I've started sending out the weekly newsletter.

I hope you'll stick with me during this busy season. I usually get a little loopy when I'm tired, so things could get interesting.