Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1994

xp

Haven't read all of Moore's novels, but I think I agree: short fiction is where she is strongest. That said, I do like whatever Anagrams is supposed to be.

and strangest

Hooray the polls are back! I've only read the banks & the eco & the murakami but at least I haven't read captain corelli's mandolin. It's the only murakami I've read and it didn't do much for me, the eco is mid tier and the banks is very inventive so that I guess.

i guess the crossing is the one after all the pretty horses. in which case I've read that, and the banks, obv, and the murakami (can't remember).

i think insomnia is the one after i gave up on Stephen King (last one i read was named after a woman but can't remember if it was Delores or Rose, and i don't recognise the plot of insomnia)

I am fond of Gaddis, but that's an uneven novel. I like the Lorrie Moore.

2002 me is all Murakami - that book destroyed me. 2021 is all Lorrie Moore. I'll go with that.

wind-up bird didn't stick with me much compared to the few others of his i've read

learning from these threads that i haven't actually read many 90s books, just the murakami and i have a vague memory of reading that lethem but have no memory of what it was like

Have only read the Murakami and McCarthy, the former contains interesting facts about wigs and the latter interesting facts about wolves. I went wigs over wolves but it was a close-run thing.

(turns out i haven't read the murakami, have read another two, but not that one)

Gun with Occasional Music is GREAT and I voted for it. Agree with other Lorrie Moore fans that Frog Hospital isn't the thing of hers to vote for (though I think I liked it.)

quite liked wind-up bird before discovering that every single one of his novels involved a woman who disappeared (and maybe some jazz and probably cats)

enjoyed gun with occasional music but am not comfortable calling it the best of a year

It doesn't have to be the best of the year, it just has to be the best on this list

The operative word is "favourite".

learning from these threads that i haven't actually read many 90s books

Gotta say, since I started doing these there hasn't been a period where I've been as lost trying to find what to include. Dunno if they truly were bad years for lit, if the good stuff just hasn't been canonized yet or if it's just my ignorance.

Also the UK section is like 70% Doctor Who and Judge Dread novels now.

Interested in Kelman and maybe Hollinghurst

The Kelman is good, wd've been my other choice

quite liked wind-up bird before discovering that every single one of his novels involved a woman who disappeared (and maybe some jazz and probably cats)

enjoyed gun with occasional music but am not comfortable calling it the best of a year

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted "Wind-Up Bird"

The only one I've read is the Lethem and I didn't care much for it.

I should say, the Kelman is also really good, but I can't say I remember much about it, just that I thought the dialect was going to be barrier but it was so well-written that I ended up finding the dialect totally transparent.

every single one of his novels involved a woman who disappeared (and maybe some jazz and probably cats)

+ spaghetti. + running

think the running is a later (post-2000) development, "exoticised Western pop culture and geography" is a mainstay throughout

i know but i couldn't resist listing every murakami touchstone

+ fetishisation of random female body parts e.g. earlobes

+ wells

otm

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1995

Pereira maintains is the one I was anticipating in the last thread! Read it earlier this year & loved it, the gradual move away from trivialities is so well controlled (& whether the concerns of the literary mag count among the trivialities is an open q) - I also really enjoyed how the prose style has a superficial similarity to Bernhard but to such different effect