Thursday, December 29, 2011

Best of 2011

I rarely do best-ofs. I hate being constrained to five stars on Goodreads. I find it hard to quantify quality. That being said, here's my top five for the year:

1. Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale
The book is about a thief who becomes lost in time, a magical-realist New York City, and a splendid white horse. More than that I can't say.
What I love best is beautiful prose. This delivered in spades. If I had to detract from its beauties, I might say that the characters are sketched more than well-drawn; but, though I hate to say things like this, the characters weren't what it's about: it's about a world of magic and winter and beauty. It evokes the feeling of cold through its prose.

2. Ferenc Karinthy, Metropole
A linguist becomes lost on a trip to Helsinki and finds himself in a city where no intelligible language is spoken.
I hesitate to put this, if only because I finished it yesterday, so I don't know if it will stand out for me in a month's time. However, I think it will: again, not about plot, but about language. It's about the possibility of communication; it's about alienation; it's about desperation. If it has faults, it's in the end, which is rather abrupt; but since the plot is unimportant, it's very hard to end. It is a testimony to Karinthy's skill that a book with only one character is gripping all the way through.

3. The Fantastic Imagination II
It's perhaps unfair to put a collection as one of your best books of the year, but this one was nearly flawless. The Fantastic Imagination I and II are collections of mainly older fantasy stories, with a couple of contemporary stores at the end. They give an excellent introduction to the history of the genre. II especially was well-selected; there was, I think, only one story that really disappointed me. I included the fantastic Come Lady Death, by Peter S. Beagle, but that was the only stand-out, while I enjoyed Lord Dunsany's story, C. L. Moore's enough to buy a full book, and certainly Ursula Le Guin's.

4. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmund Dantès is framed and imprisoned for being a supporter of Napoleon; while in prison he learns of a fabulous treasure. He gets out and uses it to take revenge on those who have wronged him.
The Count of Monte Cristo is perhaps the most famous revenge fantasy ever. It's a thousand pages that fly by. I love Dumas' style; it's comfort reading for me. Surprisingly, it's not particularly swash-buckling: much of it is financial intrigue and people being cutting at balls. Fortunately, I like financial intrigue and people being cutting at balls. It's interesting how much of Dumas is based on money. Forcing people to ruin themselves is also a large part of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.

5. Angelica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial
A series of stories about emperors of a certain city.
She manages variation of character in her emperors; they're not one-dimensional ruler-stereotypes but rather living and breathing people. The world conveyed through the stories feels real and strong; she succeeds by half-telling things in giving a feel of history. That is, she doesn't tell all the history, but that's because it's been lost, and there's a real sense of its having once existed. The whole history of our world isn't known, but there's a sense of history in everything; that same sense was present in this. And besides, her prose is gorgeous.

Tomorrow: Five worst, because I'm far better at being cutting than at gushing. Both are hard, however, since I had more of a mediocre reading year than anything. I read a lot, but nothing particularly stands out as terrible or amazing.

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