Favorite Books Read in 2015

Now that the real new year has arrived, the Year of the Monkey, here in Vietnam and back in China, it’s time to review the best books I read in 2015 (using the Western calendar for my cut-off date).  So here are some favorites in a variety of categories.

Favorite Re-read Fiction: TheName of the Rose by Umberto Eco (English translation 1983). I’ve read this book several times before, but I thought—and then confirmed—that it would be an excellent introduction to Italy, where we were planning an extensive summer visit. This book is clever and intriguing on so many levels that it’s hard to cite exactly what makes it worth reading. Of course, it’s a murder mystery, the setting is a Benedictine monastery, and the detective is a Franciscan proto-Holmes. But that’s just for starters. What intrigued me most about this reading was the extensive information that Eco provides about the tremendous social upheaval in the late medieval era, the intersection of economic and social change, religious conflict, and personal power. Sound familiar? As always, highly recommended.

Classic Fiction: A Room with a View by E.M. Forester (1908). Another book read in anticipation of our visit to Florence. Compared to other Forrester works, this is a bit of a frolic, a romance. The setting is not limited to Florence and Italy (the setting moves “home” to England), but that’s where the nub of the story unfolds. In the end, it’s a “who-marries-who” story and a delightful one at that. Good for a visit to Italy or any occasion. (The Merchant-Ivory film production, by the way, does a fine job of translating the book into a film.)

Recent Fiction: Science in the Capital Trilogy: Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson. These three well-integrated books aren’t so much science fiction as imaginative fiction about contemporary science and life. Stanley’s novels follow a small group of scientists and their friends as they attempt to grapple with the scientific, political, and personal consequences of climate change. Read the headlines and then read these titles, and you’ll note a strong correlation as any number of the characters might note. The characters are quirky and engaging, with intrigue and adventure mixed into family life and the quotidian world. It’s the type of fiction that doesn’t rock you with poetic insight, but that does give you insight into the world in which we live. Very enjoyable, despite the frightening topic.

You'd Never Read This Before? The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstram (1972). As I read this book last fall, while visiting south China and while anticipating our current visit to Vietnam, I kept asking myself how I’d not read this book before. It was often assigned to college classes and was everywhere for a while. I doubt that it’s ever been out of print. The author was well-known. I’d just never gotten to it, but last fall I did, and I was enthralled. The book details the men [sic] of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who led the U.S. into the Vietnam War (or the American War, as it’s known here). As Halberstam notes, these men were considered the best and the brightest, the top-notch, get-it-done guys who would lead the fight against Communism based on their brains and their will power. And then things went to hell. Halberstam, writing after the release of the Pentagon Papers and with lots of personal interviews and experience as a correspondent in Vietnam, paints carefully measured portraits of the players involved (McNamara, the Bundy brothers, Dean Rusk, etc.) and brings them each into focus as he details the unfolding of events. This book is a first draft of history, and an exemplary effort. In a sense, Halberstam is an American Thucydides, attempting to chronicle and understand how this horrible failure of judgment and policy unfolded. While there are now other works that I want to read on this subject, I can’t imagine a better place to start when considering the acts of the decision-makers. I was just young enough to avoid having to face being drafted, but I am old enough to know how the war tore our nation apart and how it shattered this beautiful country. Given the ways of the world, we’d do well to burn these lessons into our psyches.

Nerd Reading. The Idea of History and The Principles of History and Other Writings on History by R.G. Collingwood. I finally read The Idea of History, one of the great works on the topic and according to The Guardian, one the outstanding English non-fiction works published after the Second World War. Collingwood remains a relatively little-known figure compared to others philosophers in the U.K. during his time (the inter-war years), such as Wittgenstein, Russell, Moore, Ayer, and so on, yet he was—and remains—a formidable thinker. His work and training as an archeologist of Roman Britain, along with his thorough grounding in the history of philosophy and the history of history (as a discipline and way of thought) give him the intellectual muscle to complete this momentous task. His assessment of his predecessors and his original perspective creates an amazing work. And The Principles of History, based on manuscripts discovered by Oxford University Press in the 1990s—over 50 years after Collingwood’s premature death—helps round out our sense of Collingwood’s project. It’s deep, nerdy, and amazing.

General, Overall Fun Favorite: Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall. This book had it all, like a great salad: some greens, some crunch, some sweet meat, all properly dressed. My review pretty much says it all, but I’ll say it again—it was a fun read and listen.

A lot of fine, fun books are ignored on this list, but these are some of the highlights. Happy reading to all in the year of the monkey! 

Better Late Than Never: A Review of A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Only 38 years after receiving the assignment, I've completed it. I’ve now read A Passage to India. 

I received the assignment to read the novel for my Modern Fiction course taught by David (“First Blood”) Morrell. The book was near the top of the reading list, and in a semester that began with a mistake (I misread my transcript), I had to read more works than I had time for. In the words of the Panda, I “had to be strategic”. Fortunately, Professor Morrell told us about the echo, the Freytag triangle, and how this novel helped create the transition to modern fiction. Anyway, it was enough to do well in the course. Within the last year, of course, this omission began to haunt me. Shouldn’t I now read this classic? Well, I again procrastinated. I’d seen the movie years ago (and remember virtually nothing about it), but mostly I wanted to focus on reading about other aspects of India, both longer ago (Moguls and rajas) and the recent past and contemporary India. Thus, until recently, I’ve avoided reading about the British Raj. Now, however, perhaps for the mere fact that Indian Summer had been looking at me for so long (my books look at me longingly and pleadingly when I don’t pay attention to them), I decided to read Forster's classic. Then, when I saw a good edition of A Passage to India (Penguin, with an introduction by Pankaj Mishra), I bought it  and moved it toward the top of the pile. 

And so how was it? Outstanding. 

Forster’s novel creates complex and sometimes puzzling characters set in a society and landscape that he evokes with beautiful and insightful prose. The central characters, the Moslem physician Dr. Aziz and the British schoolteacher, Cyril Fielding, struggle and fight for every moment of friendship that can break through barriers of culture and personal insecurities. Indeed, the central incidents occur early in the novel. These events concern a visit to the Marabar caves and whatever happened (or didn’t happen) to Ms. Quested there, the subsequent trial, and its effects. These events take up the first two-thirds of the book, but the story continues beyond that attempting to appreciate the individuals and circumstances from which the problems all arose. 

Forster is hard upon the administrators of the British Raj. If anyone thinks that Forster is a cheerleader for the Raj, that person is sorely mistaken. Forster, who visited India on two different occasions (and who perhaps had an Indian lover) displays the vile racism that had developed among many of the Brits. Fielding is an exception, and yet even he must deal with ambiguities and misunderstandings that could frustrate even the most sympathetic of souls. The characters of Adela Quested, Mrs. Moore, and Professor Godbole each have complex if lesser roles that create a true richness in the story.

Finally, I should remark on how Forster uses the landscape to help set the tone of the story. Writing as I am now from central India and having lived here the last 10 months, I know how heat, dust, random mountains, ravines and (often dry) watercourses mark the landscape and impress themselves on those who, like me, come from such different circumstances. Forster’s language, which creates wonderful conversations, takes a poetic turn when describing some of these landscapes and the attendant weather.  

So now, 38 years after I received the assignment, I can mark it complete. I get no credit for that now—other than the enjoyment and perspective that I received from reading a great novel about this complex land. This is now the credit I most want.