Reflections on the puddle of life

I'm posting this early, mainly because despite having nothing but reading time between now and the year end there's slim likelihood of me finishing either The Odyssey or The English Patient before then. So, in traditional fashion here's the sum of my reading for 2010, this time with ratings

Novels
Independent People - Halldor Laxness 5/5
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K Dick 4/5
Mysteries - Knut Hamsun 3.5/5
We -Yevgeny Zamyatin 4/5
The Following Story - Cees Nooteboom 4/5
The Diving Pool - Yoko Ogawa 4/5
Disgrace - J M Coetzee 5/5
Kokoro - Natsume Soseki 4/5
A Dark Night's Passing - Naoya Shiga 4.5/5
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse 4/5
Monkey - Wu Cheng' En 4.5/5
The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner 5/5
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - Jose Saramago 3.5/5
No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai 4/5
Black Rain - Masuji Ibuse 5/5
Hiroshima - John Hersey 4/5
Life After God - Douglas Coupland 3/5
All Men Are Mortal - Simone de Beauvoir 3.5/5
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell 5/5
The Master of Go - Yasunari Kawabata 3/5
Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino 4/5
Willard and his Bowling Trophies - Richard Brautigan 3.5/5
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse 4.5/5
The Drowned World - J.G. Ballard 4/5
Pan - Knut Hamsun 4.5/5
The Glass Room - Simon Mawer 4/5
The Moon and Sixpence- W Somerset Maugham 5/5
The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace 2/5
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 4/5
Remainder - Tom McCarthy 5/5
The Valley of Fear - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 4/5
Five Women Who Loved Love - Saikaku Ihara 4/5
The Unicorn - Iris Murdoch 4.5/5
C - Tom McCarthy 4/5
Even the Dogs - Jon Mcgregor 4/5
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf 3.5/5
Room - Emma Donoghue 4/5
Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner 5/5
In a Strange Room - Damon Galgut 5/5
Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky 4/5
The Setting Sun - Osamu Dazai 4/5
The Black Prince - Iris Murdoch 4/5
Men in Space - Tom McCarthy 4/5
Empire of the Sun - J G Ballard 4.5/5
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 4.5/5

Re-read Novels
The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper 5/5
The Third Policeman - Flann o'Brien 5/5
Harry Potter & the Philosopher's stone - J K Rowling 3/5
The Magic Finger - Roald Dahl 4/5
Prince - IB Michael 5/5
Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll 2/5
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 3/5
Lost Paradise - Cees Nooteboom 5/5

Short stories
The Judgement - Franz Kafka 4/5
The Runner- Chris Hill 3/5
A Swan named Love - Kristina Amadeus 4/5
Ride - Linda Leatherbarrow 3/5
Mr Carp - Mukoda Kuniko 3/5
A Very Strange Enchanted Boy - Tsushima Yuko 3/5
Blowfish - Satomi Ton 3.5/5
Onnagata - Yukio Mishima 4/5
The Izu Dancer - Yasunari Kawabata 4/5
Dreaming of Kimchee - Banana Yoshimoto 4/5
Night Fires - Naoya Shiga 4/5
In a Grove - Akutagawa Ryunosuke 5/5
Lemon - Kajii Motojiro 4/5
In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom - Sakaguchi Ango 5/5
Carp - Masuji Ibuse 3.5/5
Toddler Hunting - Taeko Kono 4/5
The Third Night - Natsume Soseki 4/5
The Flower Eating Crone - Fumiko Enchi 4/5
Blind Chinese Soldiers - Taiko Hirabayashi 4/5

Poetry
Voice Recognition 21 poets for the 21st century - Bloodaxe Books 5/5

Plays
Andromache - Euripides 4/5
The Children of Heracles - Euripides 4/5

So what you'll probably gather from that is that I've read a lot of books this year, and more fortunately I've read a lot that I like. Some of my re-read books have been books I've been reading to my daughter. I found myself disappointed with the Alice stories after such a long time since the last time I read them; they seemed disjointed and a little forced. And Foster Wallace lost me entirely, and The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis I was expecting a lot from and, consequently, also found this a disappointing read.

Stand-outs for me this year were:
- the ever wonderful David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I've yet to read a bad book by Mitchell, but this one was so good (especially on the back of reading so much Japanese fiction this year) that I didn't want it to end. In fact, I wrote a rare review about it I loved it so much.
- the entire works of Tom McCarthy. McCarthy is becoming a favourite of mine, I've read everything he's written. Remainder has proven my favourite of his works; it's kind of odd and specific and detailed and faintly disturbing and very, very clever. In fact all of McCarthy's work is clever, too clever for me perhaps but that's what makes me want to read it all over again.
- Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse which is a terrifying, yet non-judgemental account of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. A recommended read, albeit with a bit of a health warning: it may make you a bit angry.
- Disgrace by J M Coetzee. It's the second novel by Coetzee I've read and I have to say he's an outstanding writer. Don't expect to be soothed or feel particularly sympathetic to the characters, but don't be surprised if you're somehow compelled by it at the same time. An interesting writer, well worth exploring further.
- Wallace Stegner - thanks go to hack who pointed me in the way of Stegner. Both books I read by him were utterly, utterly gorgeous but particularly Angle of Repose which, though long, was stunningly written and both sad and life affirming at the same time. I have another of his works Crossing to Safety to read, and have eyeballed a couple of others. An overlooked American writer better, in my opinion, than the more highly rated Cormac McCarthy.
- Booker nominated Room and In a Strange Room very different books but both incredibly successful. Room an account told by a small boy about his life, and subsequent escape, from a room which has been his only world since he was born. Inspired by the Josef Fritzl case, it's a disturbing and yet quite charming read. In a Strange Room on the other hand is sparse, sad and beautiful; a story of a man perpetually travelling, encountering people and somehow failing in each encounter. It is beautifully written, but torturously sad. A good crop from the Bookers this year, of which I've read three (C, Room and In a Strange Room) and am working myself up to The Finkler Question which was the ultimate winner. Quite fancy Wolf Hall, which was last year's winner too.

Phew! I think I've enthused enough. My plans for 2011 include:
- reading more by Iris Murdoch
- exploring more classical and ancient fictions and/or epics including: The Odyssey (which I will finish soon ), Gilgamesh, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Beowulf, The Mabinogion, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, more plays by Euripides, Aristophanes' (the Cloud) and Sophocles (not much then!)
- read more Stegner!
- re-read a couple of books, probably Remainder, maybe Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten by the lovely talented Mr. David Mitchell and maybe some classics I haven't touched in a while.
- continue to read longer fiction to my daughter. She's really loving Harry Potter. Hopefully I can move her on to something a bit better soon!
- discover some more, great contemporary writers. I've already pegged Howard Jacobson (of The Finkler Question fame) as one to read, and Ned Beauman (Boxer, Beetle) as a potential. Any suggestions would be gratefully welcomed.

Plus I've got something approaching a million books to read that I haven't got around to reading yet. And somewhere in there I'll get some writing done too. Maybe

It's going to be a busy year. Hope everyone has a wonderful new year, and wishing you all the best for 2011.

Peace

Fifth