My 2024 Reads

2024 was a happy year for me, literature-wise. Apart from one single exception I struck gold wherever I turned, and even that one blank was not really painful to read (like, say, Harari’s »Sapiens« in 2023). Thus it’s nearly impossible for me to pick favourites from among all the great books that made my literary year. But if I were promised that, for every favourite I name, I could switch one month of dreary Westphalian winter into one of springtime I’d come up with the following Top Three.

More Than Vampires and Stalin

To begin with, there was Jacob Mikanowski’s formidable »Goodbye Eastern Europe«, a book that was brought to my notice by an episode of the BBC History Extra podcast.

Regular readers of my blog know that I have a thing for Eastern Europe. And indeed I will not tire of repeating my contention that in Western Europe, there’s a blatant lack of interest in and thus of familiarity with the peoples east of the former Iron Curtain, of their histories, their cultures, their tales, their customs and beliefs and hopes.

Even three decades after the revolutions in Eastern Europe, the connotations evoked in many Westerners by mentioning those countries and their inhabitants seem to still circle around a knot of old stereotypes: crime, corruption, ineffectiveness, drabness, alcoholism, and a predilection for strongheaded leaders.

Actually, my impression is that many do not even remotely take into account that Europe did not end at the eastern borders of West Germany, Austria and Italy, and that for them Bulgaria or Slovakia or Serbia are just as remote as Ghana or Sri Lanka. I don’t say it was all bad will or that East Europeans were free from prejudice. And, moreover, several clichés about Eastern Europe are much older than the Cold War. But looking at the world map above my desk and at that diminutive western appendix to the vast Asian landmass, that tiny peninsula that we call Europe, I cannot but think that there simply is not enough Europe to divide it into Eastern and Western and Northern and Southern and that it’s worth while to try and bridge the mental gaps – one by one, however tedious the process might be.

Jacob Mikanowski has written a book that offers building material for many such bridges. It’s a rich and yet surprisingly concise and very, very well-written account of the history, the folklore, the religion, and the stunning variety of this region, closing with an open-ended meditation on the outlook of its peoples.

The Unknown Orwell

2024 was also a year when I explored more of George Orwell’s opus beyond »1984« and »Animal Farm«. I’d already read his early novel »Burmese Days« some years ago and read it again later and liked it so much that I wondered if there wasn’t more in this vein by the great author. There is, of course.

And so, last year, I bought myself a copy of »Coming Up For Air« and one of »Keep the Aspidistra Flying«. They are both marvellous. Especially the former one really struck a chord in me and I read it twice in a row. I’ve already sung a eulogy for this novel back in May in my blog post »By the Pond« – so no need to weary my readers with more words here.

The latter book’s story is similar in that we accompany a rather lonely and forlorn character and follow his musings about the world and his own role and outlook in it. The main characters of both books share a deep scepticism and a longing for an escape, if only temporary. »Keep the Aspidistra Flying«, though, is much darker, much more desperate as it even doesn’t afford the reader something soothing, like the warmth of George Bowling’s childhood memories and his sociable character that make for a good part of the charm of »Coming Up For Air«.

Egneresque

The third of my 2024 Top Three is another collection of short novels by Eugen Egner: »Gift Gottes« (not available in English, alas).

Last year, we commemorated the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death and there was the usual ephemeral hubbub around this. But be that as it may – what’s more pertinent here is that Kafkaesque literature did not die with Kafka (it didn’t, for that matter, even only come into existence with him – which again is a rather Kafkaesque thesis …). One go-to name for anyone who enjoys a stroll into the world of the surreal and uncanny is Eugen Egner.

I devoured three of his books last year, each comprising around five to ten stories (and I’m very sorry that now there’s only one more book left for my literary appetite). »Gift Gottes« impressed me most and I’d recommend it, without a blink of hesitation, as Egner’s masterpiece along with his earlier »Die Eisenberg-Konstante«.

While in his works before 2001 – texts as well as drawings – the comical or purely nonsensical element was predominant, Eugen Egner later veered more and more towards the sombre and eerie. And this development is what you find manifest in the string of story collections mentioned above.

Speaking of stories (versus novels): it’s fascinating how few words he needs to create worlds, however skewed, that enthrall you with their vividness and coherence and their dense atmosphere. – An interesting aside in this regard might be that one source from which Egner draws his inspiration are writings and artwork by psychiatric patients. Huh.

Itchy Feet

Two other reads I’ve already mentioned were »The Worst Journey in the World«, Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s gripping account of his gruelling experiences in the Antarctic and Jack London’s quasi-autobiographical »John Barleycorn«.

Cherry-Garrard tells the tale of the Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica and his part in it, a narration that he complements with excerpts from the journals of other expedition members, especially Robert Falcon Scott and Edward Wilson, so as to reconstruct their fatal journey to the South Pole. – I’ve dedicated my blog post »Angels and Fools« to this subject.

Jack London had to overcome many hardships in his life, too, though his toughest foe seems not to have been hostile forces of nature but alcohol. My blog post »Klondike« referred to his book.

Soon after I’d read »John Barleycorn«, I bought myself the extensive biography »Jack London: An American Life« by Earle Labor, an authority, perhaps the authority for the opus and life of the great writer. Labor’s book is just as thrilling as one of the novels by the man to whom he’d dedicated his professional life – and it’s an interesting corrective regarding the one or other episode or detail as related by Jack London himself.

Where Magic Happens and Where Not

There were more reads that shaped my literary 2024, for example the wonderful (if a bit lengthy) book »Dichter in Cafés« in which Hermann Kesten takes us on a leisurely time travel through some of the great European metropolises and their cafés that were the popular haunts of the poets and thinkers and bohemians in the centuries from the times of Dean Swift up to Kesten’s own contemporary and friend Joseph Roth.

Or another work by Daniel Kahneman – »Thinking, Fast and Slow« – with more insights into the workings (and failings) of our minds and understanding, especially when it comes to judgement and decision making.

And there was »Who Killed Mr Moonshine?«, a history of the band Bauhaus written by David Haskins, the band’s bassist and songwriter. Here, finally, we’ve arrived at the one read of last year that was a bit disappointing. Not outright bad or boring. The book’s a really beautifully-made treasure chest of details, anecdotes, and photos, worth its price for every Bauhaus afficionado without any doubt. I also really enjoyed reading the first couple of chapters, everything about the early days, the formation of the band, the first pub gigs, the breakthrough. Haskins tells the story casually and with much self-irony.

But in my view, all gets spoiled when Haskins starts to enlarge upon »magic« – about how he discovered it for himself and about why it’s different from »black magic« and how he successfully applied it and yadda, yadda, yadda. My impression is that at this point all ease and esprit and irony evaporates from the narration. – Add to this that he doesn’t abstain from telling some typical rockstar episodes, you know: women who went crazy about him and whom he could easily have had; having access to the inner circles of celebrities like William Burroughs (though Haskins forgets to tell anything actually interesting about it); and all the band-internal bickerings (which, of course, were exclusively due to evil Peter Murphy and his flawed character). This all got so boring and annoying that I admittedly skipped several pages of the second half of the book.

I can only hope that Haskins, should he read this humble article, doesn’t use his magic powers to throw an evil curse on me!

Magic, though, can be a good thing in a book. How this can be done is shown by Terry Pratchett! His Discworld novel »Hogfather« is my personal Christmas tradition, and I’ve read it many times already. Last year, however, I’ve finally read the English original which did not only provide the usual fun but was also interesting because now I could see how the tons of puns and insider jokes are handled by the translators of the German version.

Retro

As for re-reads, I felt it was time to take my big »Family Mark Twain« out of the book shelf again and read Twain’s great novels. My favourites were »Life on the Mississippi« and »A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court« (those who know my comic blog Kopozky won’t be surprised …), and »The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn«, though this one only up to the point when Tom Sawyer enters the story. I cannot help it: I don’t like Tom Sawyer, I cannot stand him, and I really don’t understand why a great writer like Mark Twain lets this character spoil, almost destroy a hitherto wonderful novel and degrade it into rather shallow slapstick comedy.

I’m not the only one to look at the final chapters with a tear in the eye. According to the Wikipedia article on the novel, several other writers have uttered criticism: »Many subsequent critics, Ernest Hemingway among them, have deprecated the final chapters, claiming the book “devolves into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy” after Jim is detained. […]«.

Another book I’ve re-read after a long time, is »A Midummer Night’s Death« by K. M. Peyton. It’s a novel actually addressing a young audience, teenagers, and I myself read it in the English class at school. Back then, I didn’t like it much – the many drawings and scribblings with which the book is adorned are witness to that lack of enthusiasm. Today, I am grateful to my English teacher, for without him I’d never have stumbled upon this really splendid novel.

And that’s it! For now.

🤓