Year in Review: 2023

24Dec23

Novels: The Society of Experience (Matt Cahill) tells a highly inventive story about identity and anxiety in a way that’s quite skillfully written: “We stretched out on the mattress and undressed each other tenderly, as if undressing wounds.” 

Lump (Nathan Whitlock) is another novel by Whitlock that’s both compelling and features real-feeling dialogue and characters. Whitlock makes it look easy. There’s a brief interview with him below. 

Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan) is a morality tale that’s refreshingly concise and vivid, set in Ireland in the 1980s.

Indian Horse (Richard Wagamese) is as compelling as it is important, telling the story of a residential school survivor. I’d have to call this my favourite and most memorable novel of the year. 

Sebastiano’s Vine (Carmelo Militano) is kind of novel I love: contemplative and concise. 

The Painted Veil (W Somerset Maugham) is an excellent examination of human frailty and our tendency to cling to illusions instead of seeing, as Orwell said, what’s right in front of one’s nose. Maugham likes to state the feelings his characters have in quite a straightforward way, and while this can be banal in the hands of some writers, his details are startlingly good throughout, as are other observations: “Was it not pitiful that men, tarrying so short a space in a world where there was so much pain, should thus torture themselves?” 

Having been reminded I enjoy Maugham, I also read Up at the Villa which is skillfully done, but more of a melodrama and Theatre, a drama behind the scenes of a theatre company. 

The Walk (Robert Walser) is a short novel. I’ve read Walser before and enjoyed his meditative work inspired by long wanderings. In a refreshing moment from a bygone age he reflects on so many people adopting the habit of rushing by the world in cars: “To people sitting in a blustering automobile I always present an austere face. Then they believe I am a sharp-eyed, malevolent spy, a plainclothes policeman, delegated by high officials to spy on the traffic, to note down the number of vehicles, and later to report them to the proper authorities. I always then look darkly at the wheels, at the car as a whole, but never at its occupants, whom I despise, and this in no way personally, but purely on principle, for I shall never understand how it can be called a pleasure to hurtle past all the images and objects which our beautiful earth displays, as if one had gone mad and had to accelerate for fear of despair.”

Stories: Instructions for the Drowning (Steven Heighton) is a superb final collection of stories by Heighton, published by Biblioasis. They were all worthy stories, but my favourite was the last one concerning Houdini. 

The Happy Prince and Other Stories (Oscar Wilde) was an excellent collection with more of a fairly tale quality than I expected. 

Confidence (Russell Smith) is a skillfully written, quietly meaningful collection I admired, while Dance Moves of the Near Future (Tim Conley) is a collection I appreciated for its inventiveness but also the way stories end whenever he damn well pleases. 

The Prank, the best of young Chekhov (New York Review Books) is an effective collection with meaning generally dressed in humour because of the amount of censorship at the time. 

Poetry: Alternator (Chris Banks), All of Us (Collected poems of Raymond Carver, Thirty-Three Poems, Some of Which Are About Death (Ben North), The King of Terrors (Jim Johnstone), The Essential Jay Macpherson, The Essential Earle Birney. 

A Devil Every Day (John Nyman), Durable Goods (James Pollock) and While Supplies Last (Anita Lahey) all have a One Question Interview below. 

Nonfiction: Ray Bradbury, The Last Interview and Other Conversations: I’ve reviewed this book below, and found it a valuable one for some of the great quotes. Here’s Bradbury on reading Grapes of Wrath: “He taught me how to write objectively. He doesn’t tell you what a character thinks or feels. You never get any thoughts of characters. What a character looks at or notices is how is how you get the entire feeling of atmosphere and emotion. You rarely get a character’s thoughts. The reader guesses at them by what a character sees or does.” 

Best Canadian Essays 2024: all impressive selections, and a wide range of subjects is covered. Please do check out this series published by Biblioasis. This latest selection is by Marcello Di Cintio.

The Miracle of Dunkirk (Walter Lord) is a book I found almost as compelling as his famous book on the Titanic, A Night to Remember. 

On Writing and Failure (Stephen Marche) is reviewed below, but simply put it’s a concise, articulate and somewhat reassuring examination of the struggles connected to the writing life. 

Quiet Night Think, poems and essays (Gillian Sze) has real wisdom to be found between its covers even as it’s a fine example of living an examined, deeply thoughtful life.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (Anne Fadiman) is a book of essays by a most uncommon and articulate reader, as well as a delight to read. 

One Story, One Song by Ojibwe writer Richard Wagamese has wisdom in every chapter: “I remember that, like everything around me, I am part of a larger story.” Or in another moment, “There is no word for wilderness in any Native language. There’s no concept of the wild as something that needs controlling … My people say that humility is the root of everything. To be in harmony with the world, you need to recognize where the power lies and to respect that.” 

Genre: The Long Goodbye (Raymond Chandler): mystery isn’t normally my thing, but I do enjoy Chandler’s spare and skilled way of telling a story.  

Store of the Worlds (stories of Robert Sheckley): these stories blend imagination, insightfulness and cleverness all at once. I’ll be seeking out other collections by Sheckley.

The Word for World is Forest (Ursula Le Guin): I’ve never regretted picking up a book by Le Guin, and here we’re given a poignant story about humanity somehow oblivious to the devastation they’re causing on another planet. 

Graphic novels: Superman Space Age and One-Star Squadron, (both by Mark Russell) feature impressive art and excellent writing with surprisingly profound moments involving struggle and loss. I don’t always pick up superhero graphic novels expecting them to be profound, but that’s the word for the writing to be found here. The one I’d recommend more highly is the Superman title.

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