My Picks Of The Year -Books
This means ?what I read? rather than ?what came out in 2005.? There?s an overlap, that?s all??And to be honest I spent the first couple of months finishing the excellent ?Brothers Karamazov", but as I included that on last years list?so?.
1 - Journey To The End Of the Night ?Louis Ferdinand Celine
Unnuterable, staggering, fantastic. A real cry from the gutter, in every sense. Inspires me to do a piece on the dynamic between bad politics and good literature in the New Year. A brilliant work from an odious human being.
2 - Lunar Park ?Bret Easton Ellis
The only real ?big name? novel published this year that I?ve bothered with, but I?m very glad I did. Ellis writes about ?himself? in a quasi-realist silly-buggers post-modernist hall of mirrors. It should be a smug mess, but for me at least it's yet another great piece of satire from Bret, as well as a disturbing thriller. Review coming up soon.
3 - Understanding Power ?Noam Chomsky
I?m not one who holds Chomsky above criticism, he can be selective in his outrage at times. But this collection of speeches he has made over the past couple of decades show what an invaluable, unsurpassable resource he is on the myriad machinations of US use and abuse of power. Easy-flowing in style, formidable in content. Interesting use of the web as his source of footnotes as well. The website is far longer than the book itself!
4 - Of Mice and Men ?John Steinbeck
One of the many authors I?ve been meaning to read for the first time for years; Steinbeck certainly didn?t disappoint with this wonderful slab of Depresssion/desperation era US . What a heart-rending ending.
5 - Bend Sinister ?Vladimir Nabakov
Another I?d been to read for ages, for further thoughts see here. Difficult but magnetic.
6 - Screen Burn ?Charlie Brooker
See here. TV criticism as art. Or as close as it'll get anyway.
7 - The Snobs ?Muriel Spark
One of Penguin?s "70 years mini-series?, this was a nice taster of Spark?s icy wit.
8 - How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World ?Francis Wheen
Private Eye?s deputy editor wittily trounces what he sees as the enemies of the Enlightenment, from Thatcher and Khomeini to the purveyors of piss-poor self-help books.
9 - The Corporation ?Joel Bakan
See here. A great, pithy critique of our new faceless overlords.
10 - H.P. Lovecraft: Against Life ?Michael Houellbec
Many thanks to Spiker-in-arms Steve Mitchelmore for sending me this. I?ve still yet to read any fiction by this great controversialist, but his analysis of Lovecraft is fantastic; showing the sociopathic paranoia and hatred that marked the man's wretched personality ended up inspiring his twisted visions and making them resonate as they do.
Honourable mentions bubblin under; ?The Timewaster Letters? by Robin Cooper (hilarious, only just missed the top ten), ?The Onion: Relations break down between US and them? (ditto), ?This Is Craig Brown? by Craig Brown (a bit smug at times but at its best frequently very sharp and funny), ?Riotous Assembly? by Tom Sharpe (gross-out political farce on the vileness of Apartheid South Africa, not as good as the subtler Porterhouse Blue but still a bit of a laugh) "Uncle Dubbya?s Jihhad Jamboree? by Ron Callari, and ?Tell Someone? by Kev O?Hara. Oh yes, just romped through ?Is it Just Me Or Is Everything Shit?? as well, much better than you?d imagine for an end of year stocking filler, adept at skewering its targets and with a surprisingly left-wing slant. "Aren't mobiles annoying?!?!?!" dismallness it ain't.
This is my truth, tell me yours.
Truth? You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!
Saying Chomsky is ‘selective in his outrage at times’ is a misreading of his work. And how is he or anyone meant to be unselective at all times?
Of course Francis Wheen’s book includes a selective misreading of Chomsky.
Steve – I personally strongly disagree with Chomsky’s statements re: Cambodia and Faurisson. I know they have been exagerated, mangled, misrepresented et al by right-wing opponents, (as well as “liberals” like Brockes) but I still believe they are flawed at the outset and show errors of judgement on his part. On balance this detracts little from the main body of his work, of which Understanding Power is a wonderful representation.
Re: Wheen’s misrepresentation of Chomsky, yes I would agree with you there; the same with his rather weak pop at M. Moore. “Mumbo Jumbo” is a book which lashes out at a massive number of targets with difffering levels of success. For all that I found it very entertaining, and, as with Chomsky, a lot more to agree with than disagree.
Sand Storm -we live in a world of walls, are YOU going to guard those walls? etc. etc.
Ben, it’s odd that these comments on Cambodia and Faurisson (which themselves are perfectly clear and uncontroversial when removed from the spin) are brought up all the time in connection with Chomsky, yet when he brings up Guatemala in 1954 or East Timor, his critics say he’s dwelling in the past.