I'll always remember 2011 as my "Year of Enlightenment"; after spending much of my adult life sort of listlessly drifting through existence, I finally found a breakthrough this year, in terms of life goals, purpose of being, personality, and countless other things. A large part of that shift is likely due to the fact that I read more in 2011 than I have in any year of my life; by my count, I read over 20 books during the year, and plan on reading at least 20 more in 2012. Below are a list of the ten favorites I managed to get through, as well as some honorable mention (and dishonorable mention) candidates.
10. Never Let Me Go (2005, Kazuo Ishiguro)
Takes a little long to get going, but when it does...oh wow. The second half is an extremely difficult read, just for how powerfully sad it is, and the ending would make The Tin Man tear up. It's so good that I refuse to see the film adaption (released in 2010) for fear that it'll have nowhere near the emotional punch of the novel. (Note: This was in the top three until I read a review of it that imagined the three main characters as farm animals; needless to say, this analogy did not enhance my opinion of the book, and now makes me view it in an almost humorous light.)
9. The Sirens of Titan (1959, Kurt Vonnegut)
Similar to #10 in that the set-up is probably too long and the second half is simply sublime. The idea of all of humanity existing simply to transport a spare machine part to an alien stranded on Saturn is the best theory I've ever seen for why we were created. This won't be the last Vonnegut novel on the list.
8. Killing Yourself to Live; 85% of a True Story (2003, Chuck Klosterman)
Chuck Klosterman at his neuotric peak. Take the love essays and rock essays from Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs, meld them all together so that they transition seamlessly, slightly tweak the topics, and you've got this just-the-right length extended magazine piece (and that's a compliment). Highlights: the Kid A/September 11th theory, the discussion about Zeppelin, and the section about people who live in Los Angeles ("it is January or possibly July" is my favorite line in the entire book).
7. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1940, Carson McCullers)
Maybe the most brilliant idea in early contemporary literature was McCullers' introducing the idea of the "protagonist as audience surrogate." John Singer, a lonely deaf man living amidst a colony of lost souls, serves this purpose perfectly; he allows the other characters to share their rich, interesting, ultimately heartbreaking life stories as they search for love and mostly fail to find it. The fact that McCullers had this published when she was 23 actually kind of irritates me, since I'll likely be typing words for a school newspaper and working in the back kitchen of a two-star restaurant at that age.
6. 1984 (1949, George Orwell)
A little preachy? Sure, but still the ultimate dystopian masterpiece, and likely a huge influence on one of my all-time favorite movies, V for Vendetta. The feeling of constant suspense and danger present throughout the first two-thirds of the book is palpable, and Winston Smith's tragic journey is a remarkably written one. I like this book anywhere from two to two thousand times better than Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which I find boring and overly ridiculous.
5. Slapstick (1976, Kurt Vonnegut)
Here's a reason why I don't like "Top Ten" or "Top 100" lists; the author often feels as though they need to represent the greatest variety of material possible, which leads them to not list multiple pieces of work by the same artist. (The worst example is probably VH1's list of the "Greatest Songs of the '80s"; it includes "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses at #2, but omits "Welcome to the Jungle" entirely, probably for the reason I noted above.) Yes, I read a lot of books by guys other than Kurt Vonnegut, but Slapstick was a laugh-out-loud emotional roller coaster ride with one of my favorite endings of all time. Why shouldn't I put it on the list? Because I also loved Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five? That's reasonable?
4. A Confederacy of Dunces (1980, John Kennedy Toole)
Quite possibly the funniest thing ever written, and (more importantly) an interesting insight as to why the author committed suicide before it got published. All of Confederacy's characters are either unlikable or unredeemable (or both), which causes society as a whole to be portrayed in a highly negative light.
3. Eating The Dinosaur (2009, Chuck Klosterman)
Ralph Sampson, Mike Leach, In Utero, Lady Gaga, and countless other pop culture manifestations are critically analyzed by the P.C. guru himself. Klosterman was in his mid-thirties and married when he began work on this novel, which explains how its tone is much less negative and fatalistic than everything else he's written (and also why this is my favorite book of his).
2. Catch-22 (1961, Joseph Heller)
I take back my comment from #4; this is the funniest thing ever written. The story isn't particularly interesting, and the theme doesn't go much deeper than "War is stupid," but every single page contains at least two side-splitting laughs, and Yossarian is probably my favorite protagonist of all time. There may very well be no funnier chapter in literature history than the one about Major Major Major.
1. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969, Kurt Vonnegut)
Kurt's best. Rivals #2 and #4 on this list for humor, while also critically analyzing a host of deep themes: free will, love, marriage, war, and others that are the usual Vonnegut standbys. The fact that this Vonnegut novel features a frequently-time-traveling main character named "Billy Pilgrim," Tralfamadorians, and the always-enjoyable Kilgore Trout, pushes it to the top of my 2011 reading list.
HONORABLE MENTION:
Fight Club (1996, Chuck Palahniuk)
An enjoyable satire on the American male's existence in the late 20th century. Bonus points for the scene, tragically omitted from the film version, where the narrator and Marla engage in a kitchen brawl while using Marla's mother's liposuctioned fat as a weapon.
Cat's Cradle (1963, Kurt Vonnegut)
Is this what's going to happen on December 21, 2012?
Chuck Klosterman IV (2006, Chuck Klosterman)
Can't beat an anthology of Chuck's finest. His interviews with Val Kilmer and Bono are especially enlightening.
DISHONORABLE MENTION:
Fahrenheit 451 (1953, Ray Bradbury)
Just could never get into this supposed "dystopian sci-fi masterpiece"; nearly every character, including the protagonist, is completely unlikable, and the story goes nowhere. I did enjoy parts of it, though, which is why I'm willing to give Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes a chance.
A Clockwork Orange (1962, Anthony Burgess)
I don't really like Catcher In The Rye as a novel (my appreciation for it arises from deeper reasons), and Clockwork Orange generally feels like a carbon copy of the former book, if Holden Caulfield was 50% more violent and spoke entirely in ridiculous, nearly-impossible-to-decipher slang.
Tender Is The Night (1934, F. Scott Fitzgerald)
I still believe that The Great Gatsby is the greatest American novel of all time, and definitely one of my four or five favorite books ever. Tender is generally considered Fitzgerald's second-greatest book, which led me to take the understandable plunge. What I found was a long, boring, devoid-of-action romance novel whose only value lies in the fact that it's basically the story of the end of Fitzgerald's life. I suppose that there's some reason to appreciate it, in that regard, but as a novel itself I found it extremely hard to get through.
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