5 Books I Liked A Lot in 2020
By: Rahul Shah
Tags: Literature Review, Book Reviews, Top Books Of 2020, Journal, Book List

2020 was a tricky one. Lockdowns compelled me to read more but I was still completing my degree during the harshest periods of national closure. Degree-wise, one American literature module provided me with a lot of books to choose from whereas a comprehensive module on John Milton yielded only one: Paradise Lost.

While Milton’s poem still remains the best piece of literature that I have ever studied, it doesn’t quite fit on a list of the kind that I am trying to pen down here. Anyways, this selection of prose aims to be as truthful as possible (I attempted Moby Dick for the first time this year, and yes, it was epic, but there were times that I thought I may give up on reading forever!).

NUMBER FIVE — Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor

Coming to terms with empire

Admittedly, this book is not on the list because I ‘liked’ it, or enjoyed reading it. Far from it. In fact, Tharoor provokes ire throughout Inglorious Empire. It is a book that does not seek to claim any monetary reparations for empire, but it does draw into question the nature of how Britain’s debt to India may be resolved. I think it is a book I am grateful to have read because of what I gleaned from it.

The fact remains, India’s 20% share of the global GDP prior to Britain’s imperial conquest declined to less than 5% when it left. The monetary debt owed would be far beyond anything Britain could muster today. But perhaps the most admirable aspect to Tharoor’s book is that, despite the passionate discharge of facts that call out Britain’s atrocious actions throughout their occupation of India, he does not ever appear anti-stoic in his prose.

This tellingly calls to mind many of the great figures of revolution, such as Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi. Violence, retribution and compensation are not the best solution to hurt and suffering. Sometimes the power of forgiveness will achieve far more.

NUMBER FOUR — The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

Lyra’s adventures take her far from Oxford

Yes I know. This is a YA title (YA means ‘young adult’ for all you aged specimens out there). Having dedicated a year of my life to studying Pullman’s famed trilogy, His Dark Materials, in my dissertation, this book came as a bout of fresh air. While the trilogy is groundbreaking and epic in its own right, The Secret Commonwealth is probably the strongest novel set in Pullman’s multiverse.

Where the original trilogy felt ideological, overtly idealist and perhaps a little two-paced, this entry in The Book of Dust trilogy marks the perfect convergence of a great writer’s powers. Pullman seems to be recreating Lyra: she is less a ‘chosen one’ and more an actual living-breathing woman. Furthermore, fantasy fans need not fear for lack of magical curiosity — there is more-than-plenty development of the incredible world-building and metaphysics that made the original series so memorable.

For all fans of Lyra and the Alethiometer, get reading The Secret Commonwealth to dig further into the mystery of Pullman’s God particle, Dust. For those who have not read any of these books, trust me, there is something in them for every reader and you will not be disappointed!

NUMBER THREE — The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Enigma, mystery and history

I must admit, the blurb threw me off the scent here. A medieval murder mystery set in a remote Italian monastery sounded like Agatha Christie meets Chaucer. So I bought the book and it was not what I expected at all.

The Name of the Rose might be one of the most eruditely-researched and expertly crafted pieces of fiction in the 20th century (at least from the growing sample pool that I have had the pleasure of reading). It is far from an easy read, and, like Moby Dick, it can be excrutiatingly tortuous to the fainthearted. But once you get through the first hundred pages, and many many open Google tabs on medieval clerical history later, you will find the most intellectually surmising murder mystery ever told.

The central detective figure, William of Baskerville, is the medieval foreshadower of Sherlock and Poirot, even though The Name of the Rose was written years after the famous creations of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. It is a story that explores semiotics, liturgy, early modern science and many ranges of logic and deduction through its principal detective plot and from a post-modern viewpoint.

Once you get used to the rich English vernacular of William Weaver’s translation of the original, the magic of Umberto Eco’s vision has the potential to consume you into a vivid reading slumber. My advice, dive in and don’t come up for air.

NUMBER TWO — A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

A heart-wrenching tale of love and woe

This might be one of the closest experiences that I have had to a Shakespearean tragedy in prose. I won’t say much more on that.

Hemingway’s writing — well, much has been said on it and I am not well-versed enough to make wider statements about the rest of his work — is brilliant. It encapsulates the American oeuvre of showing rather than telling… blah blah blah. Read A Farewell to Arms and it will take through emotions you never knew you could feel.

There are sore points to the book. Some of it feels really bitter towards the idea of a war and there is a sense of entitlement running throughout. The protagonist does suggest that he is owed something for his suffering and does not deserve any pain. He not exactly likeable at all.

But that is what makes this a great piece of storytelling beyond anything else: traditional devices usually found in ‘classic’ novels are not present. It also helps if you can find a nice looking edition since it will deck your bookshelves for many years to come!

NUMBER ONE — The Crying of the Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

This book is just crazy.

I wouldn’t have thought that if I were making a list of the top books I have read by the end of the year, it would include a book I had studied. I try to separate reading for pleasure and the degree. But wow!

When talking to older years about which books to focus on, everyone seemed to say: stay away from Pynchon. I am glad I listened to my lecturer for once and not the guys with good notes on the easiest texts. I have a lot to say about this one but I will start with this: my taste in film directly complements Pynchon. I like David Lynch. A lot. And Pynchon is cut from the same stock.

The Crying of the Lot 49 is another difficult mystery novel (can you see a trend?) which provides zero answers whatsoever. It is a tale set in a very specific time and space, but one so open-ended that the very nature of identity, era and meaning are called into question.

Pynchon is not for everybody, I’ll admit that. But he is one of the fathers of post-modernist novel writing. An easier entry point to his writing would be Inherent Vice — another insanely enjoyable read plus an awesome film adaptation by the one and only PTA, but I digress… Lot 49 is teasingly good, the kind of teasing you find when you’re trying to get all the flavour from liquorice or chewing gum as it dies on you. Oedipa Maas, the protagonist, seems to be an alternate version of Atwood’s Offred. But where Offred faces an oppressive system of power, Oedipa faces a non-existent tyrannical force: the American corporation.

Lot 49 is almost sci-fi in some respects, but it is dreamlike in others. Reading it is like listening to a shoe-gaze song or watching a nostalgic film. I can safely say that 2020 for me, in terms of reading, was the year of discovering Thomas Pynchon.

P.S. check out this clip where Pynchon’s actual voice appears in an episode of The Simpsons. Aside from this and a few other glimpses, no one actually know what he looks like or what he is like as a person. Added mystery eh.

DISCLAIMER

I know that I haven’t included any female writers here (as someone kindly pointed out). It is not that I didn’t enjoy any works written by women this year, I actually read quite a bit and enjoyed many of them: The Bell Jar, A Room of One’s Own, Persuasion, How To Be Both etc. But the five books I have chosen seemed to make the biggest impact on me as a reader. Nothing more to it.