Short list: Black Mass by John Gray

I haven't read a book published in 2007 yet. And considering how slow I usually read, chances are I won't. Then again, unless one of my favorite authors publishes a book, rarely do I read new releases.

Here's the first of the lists that I've seen for the year.

Of the fiction, I've read three, including Tree of Smoke, which also won the NBA, and Then We Came to the End, and The Savage Detectives. The one I most enjoyed was Ferris' book, although I think Johnson's was the more significant literary achievment. Man Gone Down looks interesting to me, and I'll probably pick that up.

None of the NF books look especially interesting to me, but, as I've repeatedly pointed out, I don't really read NF. One exception, however, is the book The Year of Living Biblically. It was wonderful, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It was smart, funny, and witty. It was, also, not obvious at all. The book treated its subject with delicacy and consideration. Jacobs did not make easy targets of even the most extreme practictioners he encountered, and found dignity and value in all sorts of unexpected places.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kendocubano,

Where’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on that list?!

Cultural Amnesia by Clive James. Outstanding work from my favourite Aussie brother.

House of Meetings by Martin Amis. Everyone ignores him these days, but he carries on producing singular fiction.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
Where’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on that list?!

Obviously, you were being at least somewhat facetious, but I think it's a question that's worth talking about. I don't think you'll see the book on many lists, unless they're specifically listing children's books.

Clearly, as a publishing phenomenon, the book should top any and all lists. No book, ever, has generated the sort of excitement that this one did. The only thing I can think of even remotely similar, is the crowds at New York Harbour waiting for the last installment of "The Olde Curiousity Shop" to find out the fate of Little Nell.

However, lit critics, appropriately I think, are more concerned with literary merit than social scope. On that score, ...Deathly Hallows may not score. I admire Ms Rowling's achievement, and have read and enjoyed all of the books. Her greatest accomplishments, imo, are the ability to sustain a narrative over 4100 pages, with excellent consistency, and the creation of a group of characters with sufficient emotional resonance, that we care whether they live or die.

In genre, however, I think the HP books are fairly conventional bildungsromanen, crossed with fantasy genre elements. The books appropriate chunks of LoTR, His Dark Materials, AC Doyle and the "public school" novels, of which Tom Brown's School Days is probably the best known example. As such, they are overwhelmingly "plot driven."

I think Rowling's weaknesses are primarily language weaknesses. Her prose is, imo, clunky and meandering. In addition, her dialogue seems, at times, to come out of graphic novels, all breathless exclamation points and headlines.

The books are thematically simple. Good vs evil. Tolerance vs bigotry. Life vs death. With the exceptions of certain revelations in the last book, the characters are quite two dimensional. There is very little ambiguity or subtlety. This is fine for children and adolescents, but limits the books, imo, to the ghetto of "childrens' books."

In the end, much as I enjoyed the series, I don't think it "does" for literature what other, more adult writers have done. Ironically, I do believe that these books will be read for 100 years and more, by generation after generation of children, perhaps long after the DeLillos or Pynchons are relegated to the specialists' or enthusiasts' bookshelves.

Once again, k/c and the sunshine band, you took the words right outta my mouth.

I began reading the first novel shortly after the publication of the second, and I couldn't get past the first few pages for days. Her writing is shockingly bad for a lot of that book.

Harry, Rowling, had already garnered attention; I smelt a big phenomenon coming though, and bookslut that I am, steeled my teeth and plunged in beyond the initial dislike.

The only thing that kept me reading was an identification with Harry. I too was orphaned at an early age, I too had periods of living with grotesque uncles and aunts, I too was an only child grown a little too old for my years.

So I cried a little at watching a boy like myself find love and acceptance blah, blah, but I never forgave Rowling and her editors for producing such sloppy, clunky prose.

I have read the entire drama with erratic pleasure. She has a great gift for creating new things, new fetishes, but I wouldn't dream of sticking her in an end year best of.

Which reminds me, where the hell is the next Pullman novel. Now there is a man who can enter any list, anywhere, anytime.

I don't know when it was published, but I read it this year: Cell by Stephen King.

Then We Came to the End=Awesome

Slate's best books for 2007 list was posted this week as well. Then We Came to the End has seemingly turned up on every list this year. Unfortunately, my library does not have it yet, but I plan to get it when they do.

That and Tree of Smoke. Interesting to see What is the What on this list as well. AV Club had rated it highly, but I hadn't seen it reviewed in many of the big publications. The fiction lists are looking like all the books I read this year.

Deathly Hallows is probably the only 2007 book that I've read... but it's so good so that's fine

Stay away from Before I Wake - Robert Wiersema

Promising first 50 pages, but then turns into predictable good vs. evil church thingy. Couldn't wait to skim last half and get on with my life....

Back to Micheal Connolly, maybe some old Neil Gaiman. Anyone read American Gods?? Good??

Oh yeah...Didn't mind Scott Smith's The Ruins (now on paperback). It's no A Simple Plan, but kept me on the edge. Recommended if you want a scare....and his writing is good...fresh...