Ten favorite reads of 2023

A very tardy list.

Fiction

A. Halloween (1979) by Curtis Richards 

  A grimly fun and well-written tie-in novelization from the period before it all got retconned into the Strode Family Soap Opera. 

  Curtis Richards gives us Samhain in ancient Ireland, the maternal genealogy of the murderous insanity Michael inherits, and Michael's early years in the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium for the Very Very Nervous. 

  Annie, Linda, and Laurie are given interior life and dignity.

  A nice treat, thoughtfully constructed.

B. "The Triumph of Death" (1949) by H. Russell Wakefield is a stunning mid-career short story. It looks back to previous genre milestones knowingly, but never lets this self-consciousness interrupt its gripping authority.

     In 2023 I had the pleasure of finishing my reading of Ash-Tree's Wakefield collections.

C. "The House on Cottage Lane" by Ronald Malfi is the finest piece of fiction I read in 2023. It takes several post-1975 horror clichés and re-stranges them into a unique and uncanny mood piece. 

D. The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr is the first of his novels for me. The choice was prompted by an essay by Ramsey Campbell.

   The Crooked Hinge is a mystery novel from the genre’s Golden Age for those who think all Golden Age type novels are akin to "Murder, She Wrote" or "Agatha Raisin."

   There is real blood, emotion, complication, and excitement here. Carr is masterful at turning the screw. It's also an amazingly quick read.

  The sense of readerly claustrophobia that normally comes over the reader of Agatha Christie (too many interiors, too much hierarchical domesticity), is kept low-key by Dickson Carr and is not missed. 

  Perpetration, motivation, and consequence are carefully articulated. It's an atmospheric novel, full of weird and unexpected effects. Uncozy.

E. "Blind Man's Hood" by John Dickson Carr is an impressive horror short story, carefully prepared and artfully executed. The crime at its center is unspeakable. Aftershocks come with stinger intact, even after sixty years.

Nonfiction

Ε. On Late Style by Edward Said

  Said died before finishing the labor of making disparate elements into a cohesive whole; instead we are left with this collection of fragments. Still, compelling and motivating. It had me listening to late Beethoven, Strauss, Bach via Glenn Gould, and grabbing a copy of Lampedusa's The Leopard for future reading.

  A friend commented on Said that he "is an excellent writer and illuminates all he writes, if mistaken on a few minor points, i.e. thinking Marx was an orientalist and an affection for Foucault premised on ignoring Foucault's death of the author theory, which is central."

  Totally agree.

Δ. The Uncanny by Nicholas Royle

I read two Royle books twice in 2023.

  The Uncanny was the first of the pair, and I will probably give it a third go this year.  Granted, the last few chapters, after "The Double," were a long and often confusing creative critical writing exercise in stream of consciousness. 

The publisher's sadistic font and margins are grounds for public stoning.

  Otherwise, an excellent and scholarly book written with wit and care, as readers of Royle have come to appreciate.

Γ. Hélène Cixous: Dreamer, Realist, Analyst, Writing (2020) by Nicholas Royle is a celebration of intellectual discovery and commonality: of friendship. It is a superb and energizing book; Royle has a contagious enthusiasm that overrides reader skepticism and suspicion.

Β. How to Read Texts by Neil McCaw is an accessible, jargon-free wit-sharpener for readers. I read it throughout October in tandem with my project of posting about a Halloween horror short story each day. I doubt McCaw improved my commentary, but his guidance did enrich my reading experience. 

A. People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn is a masterful polemic in the form of caustic and often hilarious essays. 

     I began reading it two weeks after 7 October. Superb invective, but also a connection to life: a rejoinder to all the petty bourgeois shibboleths cultivated from purveyors of a progressive-sounding update of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

     If you enjoy it, Howard Jacobson's Kindle pamphlet "When will the Jews be forgiven the Holocaust?" Is also recommended.

     Excerpts here and here.

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ό. The Militant newspaper ("a socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people") has been published every week since 1928. 

     I have been reading it weekly since 1988. It offers an excellent, pedagogical approach to independent working class politics. 

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I thank all our subscribers for their interest and support.

Jay

31 January 2024