A Year in 13 Books

Last year, I rounded up my blog by posting the full list of what I'd read in the previous 12 months. This time, I'm going to focus on the thirteen books which defined my year - they weren't all released in 2015, and they aren't necessarily the best books I read either, but they are ones which have provoked the strongest reactions, for good or ill.

The Vegetarian

The start to 2015 was awful. Already struggling with a recurrence of my depression and self-harming, I suffered a bereavement early in the month which sent me spiralling further down. For the first time in my life, I couldn't concentrate on reading. I forced myself through the books I'd agreed to review, not wanting to let anyone down, but in general wine was taking the place of fiction as an escape route. Only the most intense of books could really break through and make an impression on me, and fortunately I found one in The Vegetarian by Han Kang. The narrative begins with a Bartleby-esque act of defiance, as a South Korean housewife asserts herself by refusing to eat meat; this act of will starts a process which will lead to her being ostracised by her family, divorced and finally sectioned. From the ultra-vivid cover design onwards, The Vegetarian is an intoxicating experience; visceral scenes of domestic abuse are contrasted with surreal passages, as the narrator’s initial act of defiance turns into a more fundamental metamorphosis.

The Dark Half

After a month where I only read review copies which I'd committed myself to, February was a period of comfort reading. For some reason, I was drawn to Stephen King. I'd really enjoyed his novels as a young teenager, but had pretty much ignored them since. My first stop was The Dark Half, King's weirdly meta story of an author who attempts to 'kill off' his nom de plume, only for the alter-ego to manifest itself in physical form, demanding to be bought back to life. As with any King, it can be overly folksy, and very silly at times, but there are also brilliant passages where he addresses the blurred lines between fiction and reality in authors' minds, and the psychological effects of addiction. Written by a novelist who was clearly addressing his own demons, The Dark Half was a way back into reading for pleasure.

The Utopia Experiment

Another book to make an impact in February was The Utopia Experiment, Dylan Evans' memoir of the experiment in post-apocalyptic living he created in the Scottish Highlands, and subsequent mental breakdown. The Utopia Experiment is funny, tragic and wise, but in particular I identified with the way Evans was drawn to the subject of apocalypse, extinction and social collapse as his mental health deteriorated, a process I'd experienced the previous year (my internet search history was frightening). Over the course of his time in the Highlands, he concludes that the problem with communal living is having to interact with the type of people who want to live in a commune; the wisest creature there turns out to be his cat Socrates, who ‘saw no value in subjecting himself to the wind and rain. He had nothing to prove. He just wanted to be warm and cosy. So he spent most nights enjoying the hospitality of some local farmer or other, probably curled up by an open fire, far away from the privations of Utopia.’

Chasing the Scream

I should confess that I’ve never liked Johann Hari. I’ve often agreed with him, but always felt vaguely uncomfortable about it. So I wasn’t expecting Chasing the Scream to make as much of an impact on me as it did. Avoiding the temptation to place himself at the centre of the narrative, Hari provides a deeply researched and enlightening history of prohibition, from the early twentieth century onwards. The passages on the hounding of Billie Holiday are especially affecting, and there was plenty I didn’t know about. I’d never found pro-legalisation arguments particularly convincing before, but Chasing the Scream has made me reconsider my views in quite a profound way. At the beginning of Chasing the Scream, Hari talks about his own struggles with prescription drugs, which I could relate to, as they were pretty much the only thing keeping me going at the time, but the strength of the book comes from his analysis of the failure of prohibition through the decades, and the motivations of the people who have supported it. The same subject is examined from a different point of view in ZeroZeroZero by Gomorra author Roberto Saviano. An expert on the modern mafia, Saviano focusses more on the modern drug cartels, and the increasingly business-like organisation of these multi-national concerns. Written in a more novelistic style, Saviano’s book doesn’t have the range of Chasing the Scream, but is equally powerful; the two are well worth reading together.

The Seed Collectors

As a big fan of The End of Mr Y, I'd been looking forward to The Seed Collectors, but had a nagging worry that it would be the 'Goldfinch' to Mr Y's Secret History. The experience of reading it was quite the journey. Starting out in aga saga territory, Scarlett Thomas gradually throws more and more into the pot: talking robins, hallucinogenic plants, gurus, disappearing explorers, flying, bondage, books which turn into whatever their owner needs to read at that time... It's hard to explain exactly how weird the book is, but I can't imagine that a big publisher would take a risk on something like this from a debut novelist. Thank god they did though, as I get the feeling that it might just be a work of genius. There are huge problems with it, but I'd always rather read something wild, ambitious and flawed than self-contained and perfect. As the novel goes on, Thomas starts to introduce ideas about cosmic consciousness, which chimed with what I’d learned from Transcendental Meditation, and also references the Vedas and The Upanishad, making the whole thing a strangely illuminating and spiritual experience. I was never totally sure what Thomas was doing, or what it all meant, which made this one of the most exciting books I’ve read in a long time.

On Strike Against God

My unexpected highlight of 2015 was a short novel published in 1980 by The Women's Press, which I found as part of a '10 books for £1' deal in a charity shop. Sometimes, a writer instantly strikes a chord with you. I remember reading the first paragraph of Seraphina Madsen’s novel Dodge and Burn, and thinking ‘I’ve got to publish this’; Joanna Russ’ novel had a similar effect. On Strike Against God is the story of a woman's rejection of patriarchy, a journey which sees her transform from mild academic to gun-toting revolutionary. Along the way, there are passages which perfectly lampoon mansplaining and #notallmen, decades before either phrase had been coined. This is a brilliantly splenetic book which needs to be rediscovered, and I hope I can play some part in that.

The Wallcreeper

The highlight of August came from an off-the-cuff recommendation by Anna Maconochie, who I met at the literary salon I run with Sam Mills. Talking about Dodo Ink, she said that we might discover the new Nell Zink. I'd seen Zink's novels before, but never read anything by her; intrigued, I decided to give The Wallcreeper a try. I don’t always get on well with trendy American writers; I’ve been extremely disappointed by the likes of Dave Eggers and Jonathan Lethem in recent years, and I’ve never liked Roth. This time, though, I was drawn in straightaway: a high-wire act, The Wallcreeper manages to put dislikeable characters and ultra-contemporary references front and centre, without becoming irritating. The style reminded me of Joanna Walsh, a writer who I massively admire, and gave me hope that an idiosyncratic novel by a female author on a small press could still make waves.

With the Kisses of His Mouth

After the launch of Dodo Ink was officially announced in The Bookseller, we received a number of weird and wonderful submissions from agents, including The Tryst, a brilliant, surreal erotic novella from Costa and Orange prize shortlisted author Monique Roffey. Reading the manuscript, I was inspired to go back to her memoir, With The Kisses of His Mouth. The story of her sexual awakening following her split with the love of her life, the book takes in her experiences of advertising on Craig’s List, attending tantric massage workshops, swingers’ clubs and nudist beaches in France and beyond. The genesis of The Tryst is also referenced in passing, making it all the more intriguing…

Capital / One Point Two Billion

                                                         

These two books showed how fiction and non-fiction books can complement each other. After reading Mahesh Rao’s collection One Point Two Billion, which features stories set in 13 different Indian states, I was inspired to pick up Rana Dasgupta’s Capital. Both books attempt to tell the story of a place by focussing on individual lives. In Capital, Dasgupta organises his writing into the traits which he sees as defining Delhi, illustrating each with an in depth conversation with someone who embodies these characteristics. The scope of Capital stretches from the rise of the call centre to the lingering after-effects of Empire and Partition; although notionally the story of one place, Capital becomes a searing insight into twenty-first century capitalism as a whole. As I was reading it, I constantly thought back to One Point Two Billion, seeing factual examples which deepened my understanding of Rao’s stories. Both books are excellent, but reading them in tandem is an even better experience.

They All Love Jack

I’ll always be grateful to Bruce Robinson for Withnail and I. Fortunately for him, a lot of other people are too, otherwise I doubt They All Love Jack would ever have seen the light of day, certainly not through an otherwise reputable publishing house, and definitely wouldn’t have made the Samuel Johnson longlist. This 800 page plus polemic was apparently two decades in the making, but reads like an unhinged message board discussion extended ad infinitum. The authorial tone goes beyond abrasive, to the point where I wanted to disagree with every point made on principle; there’s also something faintly misogynistic about the way that Robinson seeks to ascribe special significance to the mutilations inflicted on women’s bodies. Obviously, the killer couldn’t just have hated women - he must have been trying to re-enact masonic rituals because of some unspecified grudge against the ‘boss cop’ Charles Warren (in 1942, Gordon Cummins murdered and mutilated four women, some of them sex workers, in London: by Robinson logic, presumably he must have been making a point to Churchill or someone).

Unconnected events are lumped together, dodgy sources consulted and huge imaginative leaps made, BECAUSE MASONS. The whole thing is predicated on the idea that the establishment had to cover up the truth about the Ripper because the revelation that the wealthy songwriter Michael Maybrick was behind the murders would have bought down the government, but I’m not sure if this stands up. If Andrew Lloyd-Webber was murdering women in the East End, would the government need to send in MI5 and Special Branch to hush it up? They All Love Jack is an oddly compelling book, mainly because of all the authorial invective, but I can’t imagine too many people making it all the way to the end; I hope he got a good advance, because otherwise this is a hell of a way to waste twenty years.

Grow a Pair / I Love Dick

These two books were the spark for a project which I’ll be taking part in during 2016. Both explore female sexual expression, although they take very different approaches: Walsh’s is a collection of witty modern fairytales, while Kraus’s is somewhere between epistolary novel, essay and memoir. In the opening section of I Love Dick, Kraus and her husband collaborate in writing letters to the academic Dick Hebdige, with whom Kraus has fallen in love. In doing so, they analyse her desire from multiple perspectives, whilst projecting this erotic desire onto a silent third party. As I was reading this, I also came across a review of Grow a Pair at MinorLiterature[s], presented as a dialogue between two reviewers, xx and xy. The two pieces together made me think about ways in which writing about literature could become more collaborative and discursive – something I hope to explore in greater depth in the future.