ILX BOOKS OF THE 00s: THE RESULTS! (or: Ismael compiles his reading list, 2010-2019)

xpost

I think this is my favourite novel by one of my favourite writers. I've always had a basic problem with the realist novel that it misses the essential point of fiction, that it is "made up". Iain M Banks seems endlessly effortlessly inventive, creating whole universes of previously unimaginable worlds, entities, dilemmas. I'm probably not going to convert any non-SF fans by saying that much of the story takes place inside the body of a behemothaur, forever travelling around the edge of the galaxy in a mysterious air sphere lit by orbiting sun-moons, but hey. SF is bedevilled by aliens that are just people in a suit, but with Banks, the specifics of his creations, their ecology, history, philosophy, actually drive the plots. He is also both serious and playful, and this is in part a meditation on death for people for whom death is optional. The whole Culture sequence is an effort to first imagine a perfect society and then pick at it, like a scab.

Yeah ok, the 'perfect' society is unobtainable and he always was exploring its limits - but in LtW he gave it cancer.

t went some way to justifiying those who saw the Culture as a parody of America and American foreign policy, which it never was.

Ledge, have you read Matter yet? Pretty explicit take on "liberal interventionism" that actually annoyed me slightly in the same way. Still good, though.

Don't you think the problems/contradictions of the Culture were always there? Like the explanation of the Idiran war in Consider Phlebas?

I haven't read enough of the books (or read them in the right order, since I think Look to Windward was my first) to comment, but even LtW seems pretty starry-eyed to me! I mean LtW may go "here is a small scab upon this vast utopia", but coming from reading the bubbling landscape of black death pustules that most future-society SF offers...

(PS no disrespect to less utopic fiction but a change is nice)

I've always had a basic problem with the realist novel that it misses the essential point of fiction, that it is "made up".

I can maybe concede that this is the main trait of the term 'fiction', but as my old friend B.S. Johnson says, "fiction and the novel are not synonymous". Do you really think this is the main point of writing?

xxp I did read Matter, but I just took it as an enjoyable romp, the political parallels didn't jump out to me nearly as much as in some of his others (prob should reread it then) - which also are definite takes on "liberal intervention", but not as a parody of America, more as a critique of its methods and motivations.

Obv the Idiran war was presented as a pretty clear dilemma, what with the peace faction 'n' all, but the justification was still pretty clear and understandable even from a liberal perspective.

utopic

Whoops "dystopic" but "utopian", who designed this crummy language anyway

"dystopic"

really?

Am enjoying this - didn't vote, because I had a sudden access of internet gloom, which meant I missed out on some music nominations as well - but like a few here I don't read an awful lot of contemporary fiction, and the only thing I would have suggested that I don't think did get suggested would have been the translation of Journey By Moonlight (Rix/Szerb).

And well, what can I say Ismael, I loved Experience, probably my favourite Martin Amis. Thought it was well-structured, interesting and on occasion moving and funny. I did take exception to a couple of the bits of whining, which I didn't think showed much poise (and the balance, poise and tone is very much what I liked about the book).

Anti that specific Wheen as well. That sort of thing can feel so pat - I bought it for a Telegraphy reading, the whole world's going to hell relation, cos it's the sort of thing he'd like. There's stuff you find yourself nodding to of course, but it's the whole audience reaction thing/baiting aspect to it that I'm uneasy with. I'd rather people were involved in speculative and unusual theory and philosophy than writing that sort of thing basically.

am worried that the latest robert jordan book came to late to clinch #1 in this

Hm, Google says -topian over -topic by about 10:1 for both so I can only assume that some treasured book of my youth had a blurb abt "dystopic" on the back.

Sorry for derail, carry on!

92. Nostalgia - Mircea Cãrtãrescu (translated 2005)
(26 points, two votes)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Mircea_cartarescu_by_cosmin_bumbutz.jpg/250px-Mircea_cartarescu_by_cosmin_bumbutz.jpg

wmlynch:
This book of five short stories is an excellent read. In prose reminiscent of Borges, Schulz and the magical realists, Cartarescu describes a Bucharest that is under tremendous stress at the end of the Communist era. This book is worth reading for the first story alone: "The Roulette Player" is about a man who takes part in public, underground Russian Roulette games and who continues to increase the stakes until there are more bullets than holes in the gun. Cartarescu deserves to be read (and translated) far more widely than he is.

I know those are the wrong accents, by the way, but I'm having to improvise using my iPhone today and they're the best I can do.

I hadn't heard of that but I like the sounds of it. +1!

Yeah, me too! (Would read anything compared to Borges, really)

Sadly seems to be out of print though but will definitely try to track it down.

The blurb reminds me of a long-forgotten book I had, also set I think in Eastern Europe, where the (probably all-male) characters started out violent and got sickeningly violent the longer it went on. The bit that sticks in my mind is where they took part in an underground racing club where the thrill was to race at top speed along a narrow residential street, knocking from the line of parked cars as many hardback books as possible, said books having been taped to the vehicles' doors. During the race an unfortunate woman woke up in one of the stationary cars and tried to get out, only to be immediately decapitated and depieditated(?) by her own passenger door.

I'd love to find it again, if anyone knows it.

(Would read anything compared to Borges, really)

Haha, yeah. I will join the ranks of those who don't know this but are intrigued.

91. Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (2009)
(26 points, two votes)

http://bestlittlebookshelf.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/malcolmgladwell2.jpg

Red Raymaker:
All of Gladwell's work is excellent but this is my favourite. It's very well written, entertaining and insightful. He doesn't quite make the point but it could be taken as a blueprint for social change.

JL:
Gladwell is an eager, sincere propagator of wrong ideas

Have only read Blink but it was moderately entertaining, but high on anecdote and supposition, low on real data, and ultimately pretty confused about its own premise.

I didn't vote as I haven't read enough contemp lit to really justify doing it but am excited to see the results anyway, so yay Ismael for doing this.

― Body Butter (a hoy hoy), 14 January 2010 16:24 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^ and will be keeping my eye out for this as a future reading list.

― Not a reactionary git, just an idiot. (darraghmac), Thursday, January 14, 2010 12:06 PM (Yesterday)

^ thank u

Can't get past his hair I'm afraid which may be why my copy of The Outliers has been lying in my 'to read' box for several months.

Late to the party but: I liked Look to Windward all right. If I remember correctly, there were too many long speeches in it! I read Consider Phlebas too and have a hard time remembering which events happened in which ones. One of them had too many long "action" sequences. Didn't feel either one was really strong in the "unbridled inventiveness" dimension -- yeah, yeah, big ringworlds, people are immortal, etc. etc. I felt like the word "trillion" was used a lot just to make things sound big. The only thing that impressed me was the names of the ships.

Reading that it seems very harsh! But I did kind of like this book and will probably read others -- just felt disappointed after hearing many times that Iain Banks was the apex of literary SF.

I wouldn't go that far. Literary space opera maybe.

I'm surprised Outliers only got two votes. I thought it was a very good book with some well thought out ideas. Thus far it seems to me that all of the books, many of them very fine ones, have found it difficult to consolidate support from a sizeable number of people voting. As Ismael has alluded to before, it seems that, at least at the bottom of the poll, that the results are quite flat. I hope that it thins out the higher up we go and I would hope that the top book will have more than just a few votes. I suppose what appears to be happening in the results thus far was likely when few people voted - which makes it all the more important that Ismael gave us the chance to weight our votes heavily in favour of our top two or three.

I think Waterstones may be organising a similar competition. I had a glance at a poster suggesting this in one of their shops yesterday - there's nothing I can find on the internet about it though. I imagine that if they get a few thousand people voting they will notice significant amounts of votes accreting to certain books (probably Meyer and Brown).

Has Ismael said how many ballots were cast?

Waterstones

Oh are they now? Let's see them get Mircea Cărtărescu in their top 100.

39 ballots, emil.y. And don't fear, they do get significantly more votes as we rise (with the odd rogue result of course). It started out very flat, but turned into more of a parabola by the end.

90. Stasiland - Anna Funder (2004)
(27 points, two votes)

http://berlin-germany.ca/images/trams.jpg

one reason why the Stasi in East Germany did not open fire on crowds of demonstrators was that that said demonstrators were so heavily infiltrated by Stasi agents that they would be shooting their own. This is asserted in Anna Funder's book "Stasiland", but I don't think it is that convincing an explanation for the fall of the DDR.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, May 29, 2006 4:04 PM (3 years ago)

Communists aren't 'completely different' to fascists. They have a great deal in common, most obviously that in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union the interests of the party were identified with those of the nation at the expense of the individual and the independence of the judiciary was destroyed ... Women are assumed to be less likely to commit atrocities and start wars because women rarely commit atrocities and start wars. That's just a fact. I'm not saying women are 'good' and men are 'bad' because of hormonal or reproductive differences. I'm saying that their experiences and situations differ (as you obviously understand, because you say as much) and therefore so do their reactions to them. Unusually this is reflected in 'Stasiland', which is what makes it such an interesting and original work, though I may be biased due to its undeniable literary qualities.
― snotty moore, Saturday, September 24, 2005 10:50 PM (4 years ago)

89. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (2001)
(27 points, two votes)

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5255/patchett.jpg

Ismael Klata:
Books like this get unfairly overlooked because they're just trying to be good stories instead of thinking they're recording or changing people's worlds. This was about a hostage seige in an embassy in Latin America, with lovely detailing of the changing relationships between and among captors and hostages. Full of empathy.

Nothing, huh? These two and Suite Française are the only ones so far not to get at least some comment.

Sadly I haven't read any of the ones mentioned so far. I am actually gutted that I was away for a month and missed the nomination deadline.

I'll comment on Bel Canto: I am really glad to see it on this list, because I thought it was a compelling and lovely story, and its presence here reminds me that I want to read The Patron Saint of Liars.

Stasiland triumphs over Nixonland - but can they both hold out against Netherland? Stay tuned!

It has been so long since I read both Bel Canto and Suite Francaise that it is difficult to explain exactly why I liked them - The one thing they both have in common is that they explore how people's relationships can develop beyond the roles assigned to them at the start. For example in Suite Francaise, a relationship develops between an occupying German soldier and a woman whose house he is assigned to (similar to Captain Corelli's mandolin but not as poignant). I also agree that Bel Canto was a really lovely story - makes me wonder why I haven't read more of Patchett.

Can't get past his hair I'm afraid which may be why my copy of The Outliers has been lying in my 'to read' box for several months.

If Gladwell's writing will remind me of Georges Perec as much as his hair does, then that's someone else I need to put on my reading list.
(only just seen pic, images turned off at work)

Oops, it's non-fiction. I should really stop ruining this thread and just thank Ismael for all his hard work.

Ha, that hair comment reminded me of Perec, too.

http://i48.tinypic.com/dr9p90.jpg

"Maybe you stop with the wisecracks until you've sold ten million books, hmm?"

http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1225922827p5/15923.jpg

"Hey, chill out dude. They're just jealous they can't have such vibrant hair."

perec looks like he should be in "willow" there.

I definitely need to read Suite Française - France running up to 1940 sounds fascinating. Also, I'm not sure I can remember any other book getting such ecstatic reviews on release.

Funny, Suite Française had a lot of hype going for a while, then boink, no one seemed to care anymore. Indeed, one of the last mentions I recall of it, was a backlash article in, uh, Commentary magazine, I think?
Really need to get around to reading it -- I have a copy on my shelf, even!

Enjoying this countdown a lot -- I like the slow pace you're posting them at. Sorry again for not voting, but I'm way too aware of how much good stuff I haven't read. Weak ;_;

Oh, it was in the Jewish Quarterly: http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article05e1.html?articleid=400 (by Tadzio Koelb)

Uh, dammit, I cannot even make links anymore. The title of the linked article is "Irène Némirovsky and the Death of the Critic."

Thanks Øystein. The slow pace was more about having other things to do, than because of any grand plan - but it's working quite well and we're in no rush, so I think I'll keep it leisurely.

88. Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach (2003)
(28 points, three votes)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_f0gL22kRMKs/Spqncg6TYBI/AAAAAAAAByw/Xu_vLD4LqBA/s400/Stiff-cover.jpg

excellent. Fascinating all the way through.
― James Morrison, Saturday, March 10, 2007 3:47 AM (2 years ago)

I asked for that one after seeing it mentioned at ILE somewhere! My SIL gave it to me for my birthday and said I could never make fun of her husband's wish lists again (his list is always entirely made up of obscure books about the Holocaust because he's a German history prof). I've only made it to chapter four or so in Stiff, but so far it is really great.
― Sara R-C, Saturday, March 10, 2007 7:38 PM (2 years ago)

I am enjoying "Stiff - The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach - nonfiction about the history of corpses, decomposition, funereal industry, etc. it's very fun, but don't bring it to read at breakfast, and don't try to read the funny passages aloud.
― aimurchie, Saturday, May 8, 2004 10:45 PM (5 years ago)

87. The Elementary Particles also known as Atomised - Michel Houellebecq (2000)
(28 points, four votes)

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2009/9/10/1252573627930/Michel-Houellebecq-001.jpg

Parenthetic Hound (woofwoofwoof) says:
Not sure I'd still love this, and diminishing returns over the next novel or two, but a fine piece of misanthropy in the best European tradition. Nice dash of science & repulsion at the biological facts of humanity. And I'm glad there's a lunatic, unpleasant French author with some fame about the place. Brightens things up.

Loads of great material on this in the archives too, too much to leave it all out. Here's a couple of quotes:

Houellebecq definitely has a schtick: reactionary, clinically depressed, nihilistic provocateur. The French public loves to be provoked and it has a long history in French letters with Celine being another relatively recent example. For me, it's hard to tell if this is him for real, or a series of voices he's taking on and that's what makes him vaguely interesting.
― Bill in Chicago, Saturday, September 8, 2007 12:32 PM (2 years ago)

OTM. This is the only thing that's at all interesting about MH's work: the ambiguity of the voice. He even riffs on this in Atomised, when Bruno (who, like the author began his literary career as a poet) presents his editor with a reactionary screed about "the Negro" and his ostensible sexual prowess. But it's not enough. While Houellebecq clearly intends to provoke, he's too chickenshit to follow through on his own threats. Nothing in Atomised or The Platform pushes as hard as, say, Kathy Acker. He won't even go as far as Bruno, his literary doppelganger. So, I wind up feeling cheated.
― Bob Standard, Tuesday, September 11, 2007 10:02 PM (2 years ago)

I have read 'Atomised' and saw the film based on the first one. I felt quite depressed after seeing the film, perhaps because it was on a Sunday night and I went to the cinema on my own, which prompted too much questioning on my own existence. Found them both clever, though stretching a bit too much to fit some of the arguments. According to my male friend who recommended his books:he is not mysoginistic, he just should have needed a good shag, or a few, at 18.
― Laetitia, Friday, November 23, 2001 1:00 AM (8 years ago)

But enough from me - I'm calling it a night. Squabble amongst yourselves.

did much topical political stuff make the nomination list? seeing the non-fiction above makes me think of a few things that i can't remember coming across - standard operating procedure, the dark side, political bios of bush, etc.

not sure what to say re: stasiland other than that i'm pretty sure it was one of my votes, and it's recommendable across the board not just for germany-nerds or whatever else; as a free-floating journalistic roam, a study of human nature under repression.