I never read as much as I intend to in a given year and while 2022 is no exception, I became extremely sidetracked from my reading in the early spring. Entering summer, I promised to do better and then, suffering under the heat, continued writing my novel from last summer. Alas, I found juggling both tasks and a new job difficult and proceeded to slow down both reading and writing. A bout of Covid in September sent me into a a perfect cycle of depression, hedonism, and anxiety which left little time for reading, but at some point in the fall my brain stem snapped back into place and I began reading more. The last ten or so books are from the last three months.
This list provides a few stray thoughts about what I read. While most of these books were not published in 2022, the few that were left only a slight impression on me, which I believe is a fault of my choices rather than 2022.
Feel free to reply to me with recommendations or your thoughts and feelings about any of the books below.
Until 2023,
Matt
Books in 2022:
The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal
While Vidal’s novel may be “seminal” for “history,” the prose struck me as a cheap Hemingway knockoff—men being men, even gay!, in clipped sentences meant to entice affect, but often offering only small moments of beauty.
Reinhardt’s Garden by Mark Haber
Very funny, engaging meditation on melancholy. Highly recommend. Haber’s latest Saint Sebastian’s Abyss was published in 2022 and am excited to read it soon.
Kudos by Rachel Cusk
The final installment of the Outline Trilogy, Cusk’s work, I’ve noticed, has left a lingering impression on how I write. Long, snaking bits of attributed dialogue that establishes a listening effect and creates layers of distance from self and place. The gap then allows for all sorts of readerly and writerly expectations and desires to fly in, both negative and positive. She is one of our greatest novelists alive today.Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
Another miserable entry in the Henry James impression of Stuart’s oeuvre. If you want more about the novel, I wrote about Mungo here. If you want an impression of James, just read Alan Hollinghurst.The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
I reread this novel which as a teenager was my first Pynchon. He’s great, even if his style of postmodernism that would become the Systems Novel is out of fashion. Still the easiest entry into his work and worth rereading.Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Bloody, ghastly, ghoulish. I plan to read more of McCarthy in the coming year.The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
I reread this on a recommendation from a friend. I find that Whitehead’s work is technically very special, it hits all the beats and performs in a way that is indicative of a novelist at the height of his powers. He is likely our most famous novelist today, if not, our most widely decorated. My only thought as I closed the novel was “that was a novel.”La Place de L’Etoile by Patrick Modiano
The serious detective novels of the Nobel winner provide a different sort of affect than this one, where a French Jewish man collaborates with the Nazi regime of Paris, meets Hitler, dies, is reborn and kidnapped to Israel where muscular tan skinned Israelis complain he makes all Jewish people look weak. Deeply attuned to French society in the 1960s, hilariously anti-Zionist at the moment Israel’s status as a state became solidified, and a perfectly goofy short novel unlike much I’ve ever read. Not the easiest intro to his work, but maybe still his best.The Kingdom of Sand by Andrew Holleran
Very funny if you read it in an old man voice in your head for the narrator. Even funnier if you watch how many times the narrator repeats himself or second guesses himself. A really brilliant late career entry.The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 by Michel Foucault
It’s Foucault. Mileage may vary.Billy Budd by Herman Melville
I think I read this initially in school at some point. Revisiting it felt odd. I would only go back to it as I would return to a museum: if something about me changed.Santantango by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
A haunting reading experience, the novel has stayed with me. It’s a novel whose control over its straight-forward form allows bizarre and chaotic variation in language and point of view in a way that is both pleasurable intellectually and as entertainment.The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard
In Book 5 of the My Struggle Series, college-aged Karl Ove laments that he will never be able to write a polyphonic novel like Borges. Here is his attempt at doing just that. I think for 550 of its over 600 pages he succeeds, but the final essay/dénouement suffers from the same disease as Knausgaard’s non-fiction: my only takeaway can ever be “I hope you had fun, Karl.”The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
I struggled to finish this one more so than Satantango, either because of its single paragraph structure or my own moral failing. I think there are some perfect prose passages in here, but for the most part the cosmology of ideas failed to coalesce into a godhead for me.Exaltation by Ted Chiang
Like most short story collections, some stories stood out more than others. However, Chiang’s creativity and vision make even the weaker stories engaging enough to finish.An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Love him. I think this reads like a rehearsal for The Remains of the Day, but that doesn’t detract from its brilliant writing and characterization.In the Penny Arcade by Steven Millhauser
A handful of interesting stories I’ll return to and would read more of his work.Reflections by Walter Benjamin
Sometimes I read Benjamin and blurt “hell yeah,” and other times I say “oh no, Walter!”Disidentifications/Cruising Utopia by Jose Esteban Muñoz
Read these as part of a class with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Our professor Dr. Paige Sweet was brilliant. They have plenty of Zoom classes which is how I was able to participate.My Struggle: Book 5 by Karl Ove Knausgaard
I read one of these a year. My ranking of them is as follows:
Book 2
Book 1
Book 5
Book 4
Book 3Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
A funny little book. Goofy mid-century cultural misunderstandings abound.
Lapvona by Ottessa Mosfegh
A waste for someone so clearly talented.The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Perfectly fine novel. Some of the moments of reflection reminded me too much of my Catholic Humanities education. The whole thing felt intentional in a way that’s devoid of artistic chaos. It seemed destined to “make a point” rather than be a novel.White Noise by Don DeLillo
Being one’s “most famous” novel doesn’t mean it’s one’s best.When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
I devoured this in three sittings. Loved every minute of it.