What is the best book that you read last year?

[bendk]

I know this thread is a little late in coming, but what was your favorite book that you read in 2020?

For me it was Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov, John Glad (Translator). Penguin Books.


Shalamov, who spent nearly 20 years imprisoned in the Soviet gulag, writes fictionalized episodes of memories he acquired while in this hellish situation.

It is a dark read, but filled with wisdom and keen insight into the human condition. And it is often infused with a sardonic humor.

I was rummaging through my book boxes and this one caught my eye. Most of the stories are short. I've owned this book for years, but never got around to reading it. I didn't read any reviews prior to reading the book. When I finished it, I did read a couple of pages of Goodreads reviews. While it is almost universally praised, no one brought up the humorous aspect of the text. I doubted my memory, so I went back through the book to check my jottings. My little 'F's (funny) litter the margins, so I stand by my contention that it is also funny. (But maybe it's just me.)

I loved the book so much that I went and searched to see if Shalamov had written anything else. NYRB Classics published two of his works: a new translation of Kolyma Stories and a book titled Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories. Donald Rayfield (Translator)

The Penguin volume that I read had just over 500 pages. The two books by NYRB contained over 1200 pages! (Kolyma Stories over 700 pages alone). I was very pleased about this, but puzzled. How could a volume differ by over 200 pages? It gets more confusing. I bought both of the NYRB volumes and perused them. Some of the stories in the Penguin book of Kolyma Tales were not even in the Kolyma Stories book, but rather in the Sketches of the Criminal World book. I have yet to research how each selected which stories to include and the history of the text, but the main point I wanted to bring up is this: I reread some of the stories in the newer translation and found they had lost their humor. I can only vouch for the Penguin volume and the John Glad translation. The Rayfield translation may be fine, but I haven't read enough of it to weigh in.

[gveranon]

Seiobo There Below, by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (trans. Ottilie Mulzet)

This is one of the best books I've ever read. An absolute masterpiece from beginning to end. It's not a novel, not even quite a series of linked stories (some sections are more story-like than others). Some parts could be called "religious horror," I suppose, but that term has a genre feel that isn't right. Other parts could be described as "literature of the sublime." Much of it is devoted to (quite various) descriptions of the enormous concentration and attention involved in the making of great art, and to the dangerous, uncanny power of that art for both the artist and the beholder. Krasznahorkai puts this across with enormous and precise attention to detail in his prose, and if you're not appreciating what he's doing it will break your own attention span for sure. But I was enthralled with it and had to keep reading. I want to reread it. Some would probably say that this way of looking at art should be demystified, but, man, read the book!

After Seiobo, I read Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance. I especially liked the latter, which contains numerous long passages that seem very Ligottian.

I was surprised and puzzled by this statement, from a recent (paywalled) Paris Review interview with Krasznahorkai:

Quote

"I’ve said a thousand times that I always wanted to write just one book. I wasn’t satisfied with the first [Satantango], and that’s why I wrote the second [Melancholy]. I wasn’t satisfied with the second, so I wrote the third [War and War], and so on. Now, with Baron, I can close this story. With this novel I can prove that I really wrote just one book in my life. This is the book—Satantango, Melancholy, War and War, and Baron. This is my one book."

He doesn't quite seem to be disowning his other books, because he is still writing, and later in the interview he talks about more recent works (while calling them "small things, not a big construction"). But I can't imagine how he could write something as magisterial and astonishing as Seiobo and then (apparently) exclude it from his oeuvre.

I plan to read War and War and Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (volumes three and four of his "one book") in the near future. Although those novels look very good to me, I doubt that they will change my mind as to what his one book is.

[Revenant]

Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James.

I finally took the time to read them all together. I loved every single one of them. Some more the others certainly, but there wasn't a wasted story in the whole book. He may be the best ghost story writer of all time, in my opinion.

[ToALonelyPeace]

I've read fifty pages of Kolyma Tales before I stopped. 2020 was a lazy year for me, I'll have restart on that book this year.
The best book I read last year was "The Cynic Philosophers: from Diogenes to Julian" (Robert Dobbin). It's a 277 pages book of pessimistic and cynical quotes from our prehistorical forebears to our postmodernism contemporaries. The intro even has a special treat "Interview with a Nihilist" where the anonymous Dr. X tells us how he has arrived at nihilism "Let me tell you how it happened, how one day the mysterious secret was revealed to me. When I understood-astonished that I was to be one of the ordained few-I laughed aloud, laughed more intensely than I'd ever laughed before. So this was it!-pandemonium and suffering are divine design!..."
I would recommend it you like to read dark aphorisms. I'll probably re-read it again this year.

[Side Real Press]

I have a 'Goodreads' account under the imaginative moniker of 'Side Real Press' and comment upon ('reviews' seems too strong a word) pretty much every book I read, for good or ill.

Of the eighty or so read this year only six got the 'five-star' rating.

Pieter and Rita Boogaart's 'A272 - An Ode To A Road' (Pallas Athene), a delightfully eccentric journey down a road looking at delightfully eccentric stuff en-route.

Colin Insole's 'Moon In A Silver Bag' (Ex-Occidente), a re-issue of his first two extra-ordinary numinous novellas plus an extra piece and the poster - one of my favourite living authors. Essential reading and still criminally neglected.

Vladimir Nabakov's 'Lolita', as disturbing and obsessive as everyone else says it is. Can't imagine why it's taken me so long to read it.

Sarban's - 'Ringstones and Other Curious Tales' (Tartarus). The only Sarban I hadn't read. The newly discovered 'Number 14' is especially wonderful.

Benjamin Tweddell's - 'A Crown Of Dusk And Sorrow' (Ex-Occidente) Atmospheric novella with strong earthy elements. Perfectly complemented by its design and artwork.

Cathy Ward - 'Liberty Realm' (Strange Attractor). Beautiful fetishtic, artwork, equally sexily presented in large format and top quality reproduction.


Take your pick!

[Teetering-Crutches]

All Hallow's Eve - Charles Williams
Beauty of the Deathcap - Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze
The Tenant - Roland Topor (finally borrowed a copy)

The first story in Paul Auster's 'New York Trilogy' was really thrilling, then I found everything that followed missing some of the magic.

Then I read "Book of Illusions" by Auster, and didn't like it at all, not sure how people on here regard Auster... would be curious if any other books carry the weirdness of City of Glass.

[Michael]

Witch Cult Abbey by Mark Samuels. Phenomenal.

[miguel1984]

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti; this last one was a reread.

[xylokopos]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

Seiobo There Below, by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (trans. Ottilie Mulzet) .......

Thank you for this, Seiobo has been resting on my bookshelves for a few years now, still trying to find time to read it. He is a magnificent beast of a writer, Krasznahorkai, isn't he? I too read Satantango and was captivated. As you also noticed, there are quite a few affinities between him and Ligotti. And those massive sentences...

I have read a few of his interviews, was not familiar with the one you mentioned. Generally speaking, it is good to take the various declarations European novelists make about their work/their Big Plan/their projected Magnum Opus/ their Unified Vision/etc. with a grain of salt. K. grew up in Communist Hungary, he now lives in a village and travels to China and Japan a lot - he is one of the most important writers today, but he also plays the part of being a writer. I find that Europeans have a higher tolerance threshold for pretentiousness or perhaps we are more forgiving towards this type of thing.

I wonder if K. has read Ligotti. I also think how utterly magnificent a Hungarian translation of Ligotti by K. would be.

The best book I read last year might be Weisman's The World Without Us.

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by miguel1984

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti; this last one was a reread.

If I included rereads, I would add The Nightwatches of Bonaventura which is one of my favorite books. In addition to the English translation, I have three German editions: One with the illustrations of Bruno Goldschmitt, one with the illustrations of Lovis Corinth, and a 1916 edition with wonderful cover art that I keep in view on my bookshelf.