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Angelica
by Arthur Philips
On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan
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by Stephen L. Carter
Bowl of Cherries
by Millard Kaufman
Guy Patrick Cunningham is a writer and critic living in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Heyallright's 2007 Holiday Book Guide
by Guy Patrick Cunningham
Posted: December 5, 2007
The holiday season can be a lot of fun. But it has its inconveniences, and one of them is buying gifts. Sure giving gifts is a blast (to say nothing of receiving them), but actually figuring out what to get somebody… that can be a hassle. For my part, I’ve always felt that books make great gifts—and with that in mind, I figured I’d put together a quick book-buying guide for the holiday season. Hope it helps…
This has been a big year for one of my favorite authors, Denis Johnson. Just a few weeks ago his novel Tree of Smoke won the National Book Award. The book is a multi-generational study of the Vietnam War. Though the novel itself is certainly worth picking up, the best thing about the award is the way it affords mainstream audiences a chance to discover Johnson’s previous work. Fans of Tree of Smoke are advised to start with Johnson’s first novel, Angels. The book features Bill Houston, one of the main players of Tree of Smoke, as he slides into a life of despair and ultimately criminality after returning home from the war. A much more concise work, Angels is a more intimate affair than its prequel, Tree of Smoke, and it is one of the most beautifully written first novels I’ve ever encountered. Johnson’s lyricism is also on ample display in his 2000 novella The Name of the World, a poignant story about a college professor paralyzed by grief in the wake of his wife’s death. And of course, there’s always the cult classic Jesus’ Son—home of several of the best short stories of the last twenty-five years, including my personal favorite, “Car Crash while Hitchhiking.”
Another heralded 2007 release was Exit Ghost, the apparent swan song of Philip Roth’s longtime alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman. But the Library of America’s brand-new release Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy & Epilogue 1979–1985 might make the better stocking stuffer. It collects all three works from the original “Zuckerman Trilogy” (The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, and The Anatomy Lesson) along with its “epilogue,” The Prague Orgy. For those looking to go even further into Roth’s back-catalog, my sympathies lie with the paperback edition of Sabbath’s Theater. This 1995 novel follows the comic misadventures of failed puppeteer Mickey Sabbath as he tries getting over the death of his longtime mistress, Drenka. One of the things that has made Roth’s late-career work so impressive is the way it juxtaposes the sexual drive with the fear of mortality. In Sabbath’s Theater he bares the tension between these two Freudian impulses in a way he has not quite managed since. Unable to fully comprehend his lover’s demise, Sabbath buries himself in degradation, abusing the compassion of old friends and (almost) defiling his lover’s grave. It is a profound work that in its twisted way reveals the fragility of humanity. Harold Bloom once called this Roth’s masterwork. He was right. (And it’s really funny.)
Speaking of paperbacks, three of my favorite “2006” novels recently came out in affordable paper editions. All three would be especially well-suited for college students and readers in their 20s. Nell Freudenberger’s The Dissident is an intelligent meditation on identity and the meaning of art. It’s also a delicate family drama, a brash exploration of China’s 1990s underground art scene, and an occasionally humorous look at how Americans perceive (and misunderstand) people from other cultures. Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan is a comical depiction of a third world nation beset by corruption, violence, and corporate imperialism. Despite its jovial tone, however, this is a scathingly political work, encompassing the ongoing impact on Central Asia of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the behavior of corporations like Halliburton, and the cycles of corruption and violence that trap certain nations in poverty. And yes, this one’s really funny too. Dave Eggers What Is the What, on the other hand, is a tragedy. It is a fictional retelling of a true story: the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee of Sudan’s long-running civil war. The novel’s greatest achievement is its language—Eggers’s Valentino is plainspoken and understated, and his modest narrative voice makes the violence he encounters all the more haunting. (Though it came out in 2006, this is the best book I read all year.)
Those who prefer nonfiction are urged to buy Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower. The winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, this is a historical account of the formation of Al Qaeda and the subsequent attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. In clear but methodical fashion, Wright makes a singularly unthinkable event seem at least comprehensible. People often describe journalism as the first draft of history—but it usually isn’t. Too much journalism is disposable or downright misleading (think Judith Miller’s reporting in 2002, which insisted there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq). This book, however, really does feel like a polished first draft of history—reading it, one is hard-pressed to imagine how any future consideration of 9/11 could avoid using this book as a starting point. Lauren Sandler’s Righteous also feels like a good means of unlocking a completely different historical trend: the recent rise of evangelical Christian youth movements in the United States. Though clearly unsympathetic to the political institutions known as the “religious right,” Sandler is evenhanded with the young people she encounters and has produced a book that feels like it will become more important as the young people who flock to outdoor Christian rock festivals enter adult society. It features the kind of nuanced, intelligent reporting that nonfiction books too rarely display, and it’s a quick, entertaining read to boot.
Of course, the most significant book published this year is the most familiar: the new Complete Works being published by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Random House’s Modern Library imprint. Sure there are dozens of Shakespeare collections on the market, but this one is special. For the first time in about 300 years, Shakespeare’s entire “first folio” is available in one volume. These were the versions of Shakespeare’s plays available in the original 1623 “Complete Works,” published soon after the playwright’s death. In the years since, editors have preferred mixing elements of the “folio” texts with other variations (such as the “quarto” versions). Since Shakespeare never approved any of the plays for publication himself, there are no “definitive” versions (as most people who studied Shakespeare in college will tell you). However, this set strikes me as an essential component of anyone’s private library because it gives readers a chance to see the versions that first garnered Shakespeare an audience outside of the theater. And no other book published this (or any other) year will match these plays for beauty, drama, or emotional heft.
Copyright © 2007 Guy Patrick Cunningham