![\"2015](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/2015-Banner-1024x682.jpg?resize=1024%2C682\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Another year is passing, and I find myself putting together my seventh year-end retrospective list for this site. If I look at my past lists, I find that I do indeed tend to post the books that stick with me long after I’ve read them, and I think the same will be the case with this year’s crop.\u00a0This\u00a0list is composed simply of my favorite books that I read and reviewed on this site in the last year. That leaves off some good ones I have yet to review, but that will come in due time, and I’m pleased with this list as it stands.<\/p>\n
Normally, I post this list unranked, by chronological order of review date. But, what the heck. Let’s rank them this year. Below, my countdown.<\/p>\n
I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season and a tremendous 2016.<\/p>\n
— Trevor<\/p>\n
Coming in at number ten for me, is Robinson’s third book in her Gilead trilogy, this one focused on the story of Lila, the wife of the Reverend John Ames.<\/p>\n This uneasy relationship is beautiful, and Lila expresses it perfectly when she finally says to John: \u201cI can\u2019t love you as much as I love you.\u201d It\u2019s a paradox that makes perfect sense after the often frustrating book. I don\u2019t want to get too coy here, but it makes the book better than it can be. It makes me love it more than I do. That\u2019s why I think I will someday learn<\/em> to love it as much as I do.<\/p>\n The male narrators\u00a0ask us to listen to their stories\u00a0and\u00a0to judge the teller. In \u201cThe Story of a Mad Man,\u201d the narrator decides to leave everyone dear to him. He\u2019s moving on. He\u2019s cutting all connections. He\u2019s confident about this track, yet in the very act of telling us, in the act of needing to justify his actions, he lets slip that he\u2019s not all too sure. Here\u2019s how he addresses us toward the end of his story:<\/p>\n I have an idea. Tomorrow morning I will carry it out. And then you will be forced to understand. Above all, do not say a word.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n We have an inkling what that idea is.<\/p>\n These men\u00a0— whether because of poverty or because they simply lose confidence in their own story\u00a0— are perfect shadows of Henri Duchemin, and I\u2019m very excited at the prospect of discovering more work from Emmanuel Bove. May his lost souls find their way to us.<\/p>\n To tell these stories, Gospodinov\u2019s narrator, who has a life similar to Gospodinov himself, introduces himself as someone who can walk through the labyrinths of others\u2019 memories. More than simply relive them, though, he\u00a0can move through them with some degree of volition, thus fully assuming the identity\u00a0of such figures as his grandfather and father. He says, as he begins, \u201cI have always been born.\u201d\u00a0From the \u201cWe am\u201d of the prologue, we move\u00a0from memory to memory, from person to person. Meanwhile, Gospodinov remembers his own life in the latter part of the century. All are one and the same.<\/p>\n These are fiendish stories, usually about an individual, a man or woman, whose emotional state might seem stable on the outside but that is absolutely in extremis. I was often reminded of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the fury that builds up and then snaps into a calm madness. Many of these characters are, perhaps unbeknownst to us when the story begins, already in that calm madness. And sometimes\u00a0— strange, this\u00a0— I felt like I was reading from the perspective of that elusive woman on the other side of the yellow wallpaper. I can think of none that are about more mundane scenes, though several of the characters seem to want us to think their world coincides with what most of us would consider normal.<\/p>\n It\u2019s always with deep pleasure that I return to Pringles, the city of Aira\u2019s youth and memory, and the first story in this collection, “A Brick Wall,” begins just there: “As a kid, in Pringles, I went to the movies a lot.” This grounding in place and time is important to Aira\u2019s structure: while his works are mysterious and, frankly, sometimes nonsensical, they\u00a0are usually placed in a space that is almost tangible:\u00a0the mysterious and nonsensical corridors of memory. The Musical Brain<\/em> as the title of the collection, then, is quite fitting.<\/p>\n The Prank<\/em> completely disarmed me. I\u2019m a fan of Chekhov, and I have my idea of who he was and what he was about. However, that idea come from reading only a dozen or so of his most famous short stories and having only seen a couple of his plays\u00a0— that is to say, my idea of the great writer is mostly inherited: his work is concise, observant, often sad with soft tickle of humor.\u00a0I\u2019m delighted to have my conception of the artist\u00a0— a conception so clearly deficient\u00a0— enhanced (though not proven\u00a0incorrect)\u00a0to include\u00a0the kind of whimsy and silliness on display in The Prank<\/em>. Silliness of the first order, I should say, as it is usually employed to skewer the subjects in these books (I admit, and am not ashamed, that\u00a0I thought of Monty Python quite often while reading The Prank<\/em>).<\/p>\n Millhauser\u2019s work is beautiful, there\u2019s no question in my mind. He not only has the ability to tease out the strangest things but he does so with exquisite art. I love his writing. He\u2019s a natural story-teller, and he can get the blood pumping whether he\u2019s writing about voices in the night or picking up the newspaper from the driveway. As he moves into his seventies, I truly hope he finds the will to keep going, to give us even more.<\/p>\n Each passage focuses on one individual, usually somewhat removed from whatever time period we just read about. [. . .] This is a wonderful cycle, time flowing onward, bones drying, lives forgotten and on the edge of being forgotten. It has the wonderful effect of making these individuals ever-present. This is emphasized by Michon\u2019s ability to briefly evoke those moments that made the blood pump faster through these now-dead individuals\u2019 veins.<\/p>\n The author of twelve novels and many short stories (a wonderful collection of which was published last fall by NYRB Classics), Elizabeth Taylor is one of those twentieth-century, British, female authors that we here in the United States will miss if we\u2019re not paying attention. Fortunately, there are a few publishers that have focused on bringing her work to our hands: Virago Modern Classics and NYRB Classics. I\u2019ve got all of her novels and the NYRB Classics edition of her stories, and I\u2019m anxious to explore her work fully. A Wreath of Roses<\/em> was an excellent reminder to me that the time to do so is now.<\/p>\n![\"lila\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/lila-200x300.jpg?resize=200%2C300\")
<\/em>10:<\/span> Lila<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/strong>by Marilynne Robinson
\n(original review from February 23, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"Henri](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Henri-Duchemin-and-His-Shadows-188x300.png?resize=188%2C300\")
<\/em>9.<\/span> Henri Duchemin and His Shadows<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/strong> by Emmanuel Bove
\ntranslated from the French by Alyson Waters
\n(original review from August 12, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/The-Physics-of-Sorrow-194x300.jpg?resize=194%2C300\")
<\/em>8. The Physics of Sorrow<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nby Georgi Gospodinov
\ntranslated from the Bulgarian by Angel Rodel
\n(original review from April 23, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"productimage-picture-thus-were-their-faces-505\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/productimage-picture-thus-were-their-faces-505-188x300.png?resize=188%2C300\")
<\/em>7.<\/span> Thus Were Their Faces<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/strong>by Silvina Ocampo
\ntranslated from the Spanish by Daniel Balderston
\n(original review from January 27, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"Musical-Brain\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Musical-Brain-214x300.jpg?resize=214%2C300\")
<\/em>6. The Musical Brain and Other Stories<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nby C\u00e9sar Aira
\ntranslated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews
\n(original review from June 24, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/The-Prank-188x300.jpg?resize=188%2C300\")
<\/em>5. The Prank<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nby Anton Chekhov
\ntranslated from the Russian by Maria Bloshteyn
\n(original review from July 31, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"Voices](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Voices-in-the-Night-197x300.jpg?resize=197%2C300\")
<\/em>4. Voices in the Night<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nby Steven Millhauser
\n(original review from July 2, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"Winter](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Winter-Mythologies-and-Abbotts-194x300.jpg?resize=194%2C300\")
<\/em>3. Winter Mythologies<\/em> and Abbots<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nby Pierre Michon
\ntranslated from the French by Ann Jefferson
\n(original review from April 10, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/A-Wreath-of-Roses-192x300.jpg?resize=192%2C300\")
<\/em>2. A Wreath of Roses<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nby Elizabeth Taylor
\n(original review from July 23, 2015<\/a>):<\/p>\n
\n
![\"Akenfield\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Akenfield-188x300.jpg?resize=188%2C300\")