I've
decided to reward the best book I read of each year with a nice
trophyless award, and figured that the only sane way to do such a thing
would be to split the year into four, hold a massive scrap between all
the books I read in each quarter, and finally pit the four bloodied
finalists against each other in a battle to the death, where only one
can stand supreme over the pulped carnage of everything else I've read
that year. So let's get started, and get the pugilists that I've passed
my eyes over between January and March into a cage and arm them with
barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bats:
In
the first quarter of 2012, I've read the following books: Submarine,
Blood Meridian, Porno, White Fang, Post Office, The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle, A Brief History of Time, and London Fields. Let battle
commence!
To
start with, I think we can comfortably have London Fields fed rat
poison by Oliver Tate from Submarine, as it's the only book I've read so
far this year that I didn't like. There were good things about it but
they were outweighed by the tedious bad ones, so it's an early casualty
of the battle. Submarine, I did like, but after a really good and funny
start the book seemed to lose its way the further it went on, and I
think I learned more about how not to write from Submarine than anything
else. Submarine gets a smack overdose from Porno and crawls into the
corner to quietly leave the competition. Porno suffers from the fact
that it's never quite going to live up to the amazing Trainspotting, and
though the excitement of the continuing misadventures of the characters
portrayed so well in the original novel keeps you turning the page,
ultimately when I finished the book I felt slightly hollow, and realised
it was because the sequel wasn't half as good. A super-charged rabid
White Fang leaps at Porno and tears its throat out, words pouring from
the wound and leaking all over the arena. White Fang I loved, there are
some fantastic moments in it and the whole story really challenges your
perspective of the world, but unfortunately it's just a bit small I
think to be considered as my Book of the Year. It's more of a novella,
and with its energy expended in dispatching Porno, White Fang
exhaustedly curls into a ball and gently passes away. Meanwhile, as
tempestuous war rallies all around it, Post Office sits on the floor and
drinks itself to death. I really enjoyed reading this book, and it's a
perfect example of how a well-crafted character (or just a thin
representation of the author) can be so enjoyable that a book can be a
great read without having too much of a plot, but overall, in comparison
with the other books in the battle, I think Post Office is just a
little too lightweight to win.
I'm
now left with three books, all of which I think are amazing, all of
which I rate as five star reads, and I'm finding it very difficult to
choose a winner. A Brief History of Time was probably the most
fascinating thing I've ever read, and considering I usually find
non-fiction a bit of a struggle, I surprising didn't have any problems
getting through this masterpiece. I've decided it's not going to win,
but I can't really think of any reason why; perhaps it's just the fact
that I'll always side with fiction over fact. But Brief History is so
good that it doesn't deserve to be slaughtered for the sake of
gratuitous sport, so it instead closes its eyes and opens them in
another galaxy, at another time, is judged by somebody who prefers
non-fiction, and wins the Most Enthralling Book of All Time Award.
So
I'm left with Blood Meridian and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, trading
blows to see which will be added to my shortlist for Book of the Year.
In this pugilistic competition I've constructed it's tempting to
psychologically give Meridian the edge, as the book is so full of
crushing violence that in any real fight it would kick the hell out of
any book alive. Blood Meridian confirmed my belief, after reading No
Country for Old Men and The Road, that Cormac McCarthy might well be the
best writer alive, and this is a doubly complimetary statement as an
initial look at his work made me think that he was a terrible writer.
McCarthy is so good that it's almost impoosible to learn from him: he's a
true original and any attempt to take anything from him would
immediately smack of horrible plagiarism. I can't wait to read more of
his novels. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle was also the third book I'd read
by Haruki Murakami, and while with his first two I found some tiny
indefinable quality missing, with Wind-up Bird everything came together
and made for an absolutely thrilling read, the best surrealism I've ever
seen on a page, the most twisted and wonderful characters, and a
roller-coaster ride through modern Japanese history that clouded my mind
for weeks with thoughts of nuclear war. It's a really tough choice
between the two, as I'd have to say that they're both among the top 10
books I've ever read, but I feel like I could read Wind-up Bird again
right now, and probably get ten times more out of it than I did the
first time, so I think it's going to have to be crowned the champ.
Wind-up Bird gets out its big bowie knife and replicating perhaps the
best (certainly the most emotive) scene from the book, pins Blood
Meridian to the ground and slices its cover away inch by inch like
orange peel, leaving Meridian naked and dying on the ground. Wind-up
Bird holds the cover aloft and tweets in delight at its victory.
The best book I read between January and March is: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Woo hoo!
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