I don't seem to have read that many books last year, or maybe it's just that some of them were rather thick.
As it was the Dickens bi-centenary I was going to read a few of his thick novels that I hadn't already read, but in the end two were enough. "Dombey and Son" has all the usual comic and tear-jerking elements, many-layered plot and host of well drawn characters. "Martin Chuzzlewit" is particularly amusing in its put down of Americans; it's interesting to see how little love was lost between the British and them already a century and a half ago (or maybe historically post American Revolution that should be 'still'). Afterwards I contented myself with David Lean's film of "Oliver Twist" and a BBC "David Copperfield" featuring among others a very cute pre Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe as the boy David. No, rereading all of them was going to be too much like hard work: it takes a degree of patience and determination to plough through Dickens for all his good points.
A somewhat thinner comic novel from the 19thC was Thackeray's "Barry Lyndon" which is terrific fun, faster moving and lighter than Dickens (also of course an excellent Kubrick film).
Another thick novel was Grosman's "Life and fate", a Soviet attempt at « War and Peace » set around the battle for Stalingrad and actually banned in the USSR for its not too flattering portrayal of society. It's certainly not as good as Tolstoy but pretty interesting, though admittedly rather bleak.
On the recent fiction front I read Ian McEwan's latest novel "Sweet tooth" about spying in the 70's which I enjoyed.
Julian Barne's "Arthur and George" is based on the true story of a man wrongly accused of killing horses and Conan Doyle who took up his cause.
Kathryn Stockett's highly successful "the Help" is also based on the true stories of black servants working for white families in the Southern States in the 60s.
Philip Roth's family saga "American Pastoral" is the tale of how a Jewish immigrant's son's quest to be an all American hero is wrecked by his daughter's anti-Vietnam war terrorist activities. It starts well but in the end I found its inconclusiveness rather frustrating.
Last year's Graham Greene was his late and comic "Monsignor Quixote" a delightful road trip through Franco's Spain between a priest in disgrace and a communist former mayor, affording plenty of opportunities for amusing philosophical discussions.
In a gesture towards reading in German I read the fascinating "die Purpurlinie" written by Wolfram Fleischhauer (a colleague of mine) which explores the possible story behind the curious painting in the Louvre of two naked women in a bath-tub, one pinching the other's nipple.
On to genuine history and biography. My (re)reading of Gibbon took me through volume 2 of "Decline and Fall" but faltered around Justinian in volume 3.
I think the book I most enjoyed last year was Edmund De Waal's "The Hare with amber eyes" which is a history of his Jewish family, the Ephrussis who originated as grain merchants in Odessa moving on to become important financiers in Vienna and Paris. The main character in the section on late 19thC Paris was one of the models for Proust's Swann. He amassed a collection of Japanese miniature sculptures or 'netsuke' including the hare with amber eyes of the title. The collection passed as a wedding present to the Vienna branch of the family who are described in the next section from the apogee of the Austro-Hungarian empire with the cultural and intellectual ferment in Vienna, through to the Anschluss by the Nazis and the inevitable catastrophe for the family. The netsuke collection survives and comes back to Japan with the author's uncle who settles in Tokyo. It's a fascinating and beautifully told story covering some momentous periods in European history as experienced by family members.
Alex Ross's "the Rest is noise" is a stimulating and broad account of the history of 20thC classical music, refreshingly free from the critics' common obsession with Schoenberg and his un-listenable successors, and instead keen to present enthusiastically all the many strands interwoven in the serious music of the last century, in a way whch had me reaching for some of the less listened to parts of my CD collection.
Last year's De Botton was "Essays in love" which dissects in his usual amusing and insightful way the psychological and philosophical implications of progress through a love affair. This prompted me also to re-read Alberoni's "Inamoramento e amore", which is far more serious.
On my way to seeing/reading the complete works of Shakespeare, as well as a preparatory pre-perfromance reading of "Richard II" I also read "Troilus and Cressida" for the first time. I've got another four to go.
I admit to re-reading Woolf's "the Waves", for the seventh time. I don't tire of it because of the beauty of the language and truth of the feelings described. In a particulalry sad moment I also re-read all of Baudelaire's "les Fleurs du Mal" for the first time in a long while, but I had to conclude that alongside my favourite poems, there are a good many I don't care that much for, so I'll stick to my edited highlights in the future.
A fairly thin crop for 2012 then, with the usual domination of fiction and some re-reading.
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