The Best of the Best: Year One
As The Latent book Club approaches its first birthday, we take a look at the books finds that have wowed us the most over the last twelve months.
The Six Best of the Best
Our One-Year anniversary is around the corner!
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For something different, we thought we’d go back through our last 12 months of finds and bring together a five book collection (plus one bonus) of what we’ve enjoyed the most.
If you haven’t yet done so, please discover these great books for yourself and get down to what we think are some really, really good reads.
And without further ado, away we go…
#1 The Sea, The Sea, by Iris Murdoch
In The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch’s deep portrait of the narcissistic, flawed, but compelling former thespian Charles Arrowby was transfixing. We couldn’t put it down. The Sea, The Sea was our book of the year for 2023. Here’s just some of what we said:
The Sea, The Sea centres on Charles Arrowby, an erstwhile actor and longtime theatre director, who has retired to the seaside, ostensibly to escape the fame he has garnered over a career on the stage which has seen him live in the United States and Japan. On the way, he has collected a stereotypical, but believable crew of hangers-on, cronies, lovers and ‘friends’, all who are revealed as having other motives for their association with Charles.
Charles for his own part is an unreliable narrator, and we anticipate this from the start. Conceited, vain, with more than a touch of the histrionic, Charles is ever the lifelong stage-dweller we are told he is. He claims he is tired with his former life and has retired to the sea for something more relaxing, but we are left wondering if he hopes that his fame will follow him there. And in a way, it does.
As Charles settles into the bucolic life he retreats into reflections about the world, and his past relationships. The novel’s structure itself reflects this: it cannot decide whether it is memoir or journal (in fact it is both) until several hours have elapsed. But the move to the sea, actually allows Charles to become highly introspective. And he begins to muse, increasingly relentlessly, on his previous relationships.
After the first third of the novel, and surprisingly late in the book, Charles comes to mention his childhood love, Hartley. And it is this relationship which comes to define, and even dominate, the rest of the novel. Charles does not realise that he has come to live in the same seaside village as Hartley until a chance encounter forces their worlds together, after a gap of almost 40 years. Her rediscovery fractures him entirely.
The love Charles feels for Hartley borders on the obsessive, and not that of the obsessive lover, but rather the obsessive stalker. Harbouring bitter jealousy for the spurning he received by Hartley as a young man, Charles claims to have carried a flame for Hartley through all his other relationships, meaning he could never settle with the women who loved him, who sacrificed themselves, and their happiness for him. And in this way, Charles reflects his projections of Hartley back at his lovers, and this does not make him a likeable person, however much we as the audience may sympathise with him.
Our Verdict: Miss Charles Arrowby at your peril.
#2 Making it so, by Patrick Stewart
Making it so is Patrick Stewart’s surprisingly honest, perspicacious memoir which charts his origins from Yorkshire lad, to Hollywood celebrity with refreshing humility. Here’s why its a favourite:
[Stewart’s] early ‘school of hard knocks’ was the first of many for Patrick, and in the long run may have even served to build the resilience he needed to establish himself as an actor. There is little doubt, reading his memoir, that his Yorkshire background may have been charming, but was a handicap in the arts; one of his many tasks being ridding himself of ‘that accent’, as well as the psychological parochial underminings he faced (‘what if I fail? What if I look stupid?) which were borne out of an anxiety inculcated by his Yorkshire peers.
Stewart’s passion for the theatre wasn’t immediately obvious, even to him. But his regular associations with amateur theatrics started a desire in him, not to merely obtain a ‘job’, but to commit himself to the stage. There was not a lot of opportunity on offer for budding thespians in Yorkshire, particularly not in the post-war era. But a rare combination of recognition of his talent and desire by his teachers, one or two serendipitous incidents, and good contacts (including with a young Brian Blessed) enabled him to escape Yorkshire through a combination of perseverance and luck. Stewart got his dream theatre education with a Scholarship at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School; something which would have been unaffordable to him were it not for this.
His time at the renown Old Vic established him successfully to audition and be welcomed into the world famous Royal Shakespeare Company, where he remained a member for sixteen years. His love for the Bard is is clear, and he channeled his Shakespearean chops into many of his future roles. Indeed, from the quotations and references in Making it So, the reader can be left in little doubt that Shakespeare truly changed his life, and even, to a certain extent, came to define his relationship with his parents. In fact this book is in many ways a homage to the Bard, one that was published contemporaneously with Dame Judi Dench’s memoir, in which Shakespeare is the subject, The Man who Pays the Rent - it is hard to see this synchronicity in publication as mere coincidence.
It was, of course, in his lead role as Star Trek the Next Generation’s Captain Jean Luc Picard that Stewart shot to world fame. In fact when he got the role in the late 80s, well into his 40s at this point, he thought his acting career might have already reached its peak. And he nearly didn’t: by his own telling, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was no fan of Stewart, he missed the call to find out that he had got the role, and he only got the audition (to which they asked him to bring a hairpiece!) in the first place because he was touring America…
Our verdict: If you have tears, prepare to shed them in this emotional hero’s journey.
#3 Machines Like Me, by Ian McEwan
In Machines Like Me, McEwan once again demonstrates his chops as the master of research, and conveying human feeling on the page. His breadth as an author is extraordinary - we have said before that he is possibly the greatest living novelist. His story, ostensibly about an android, is really a story about us. Here’s what we said:
Machines Like Me starts off as a story about Charlie Friend, a torpid, profligate, 30-something wasterel. He spends his time and his inheritance on toys and tech to fill a palpable hole in his life. And he spends the last of this inheritance on Adam: the first generation of realistic, humanoid, AI powered robots which appear to the untrained observer just like us. They are machines, like me.
Although this sounds like a peice of science-fiction that wouldn’t translate particularly well into a fairly serious literary effort - the reality is, it does. Machines Like Me is not sci-fi, nor is it fantasy. Instead, it focuses on the dawning reality of a world in which realistic artificial intelligence is readily available, and what it means for us, and what it means for them.
…Adam and Charlie begin their life together, once he has been plugged in, and charged up. One of the first things Adam tells Charlie, is his neighbour, Miranda is likely to lie to him. This is such a hook for the reader, as Charlie and Miranda are about to start a burgeoning romance - (we want to know why, and about what) but also foreshadows some of the unsettling prescience Adam is about to bring to Charlie’s life.
And make no mistake, Adam is an unsettling presence. He is real, in the sense that we fully believe him to be a living thing. But there is something offbeat, unsettling, and not-quite-real about him. And it is by this excellently painted quality that McEwan gets us to question what duties we have to artificial life we have created, and what they owe us too. Yes, McEwan’s perceptive story about an android is, really, a story about us.
… Machines Like Me traverses well the issue of what it will mean to respect, and attribute humanity, (and even rights) to something that is fundamentally machine. Indeed, the most believable aspect of the book is Charlie’s attitude towards his purchase. Behaving on occasion towards Adam like one would towards any inanimate object, yet at others with utter ambivalence - suffused with admiration and even love. Variously, Charlie attempts to convince himself Adam is just a machine; A tool; something to be used. And at others, he confides in Adam, and even expects him to earn a living for the quasi-family he has become a part of. We will have to deal with this dialectic in the future, and McEwan perceptively highlights the scope of the challenge.
Our Verdict: Don’t miss this impossible to put down modern-day parable.
#4 The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day was a close contender for best book (that we found of 2022), but in the end it got narrowly pipped to the post. It is a wonderful novel, about a butler’s introspective quest for personal meaning, after a lifetime dedicated to dignity in service. Here’s a few of our thoughts:
Stevens has been taught by his father, and has had reinforced to him by the acts of ‘great’ butlers, that the ultimate professional, and indeed personal aim for a butler (and in Steven’s mind this is extended to everyone) is a ‘dignity befitting his station’. This concept of a quiet dignity befitting – as Stevens would have it - one’s immutable lot in life poses challenges, evens for Stevens himself.
It should be noted that Steven’s version of ‘dignity’ is quiet; one that allows permits you to grapple with challenges in a dignified manner. This is contrasted with a more modern conception of ‘dignity’, viz. the level of inherent dignity one deserves by living in an ostensibly more egalitarian society, and being able to vindicate one’s natural (human/moral) rights to a certain extent. That Stevens sees class as rigid is one of the contradictions in his worldview, which he scarcely pauses to question. The great gentlemen he services, he believes, are entitled to more ‘dignity’ axiomatically. Stevens is entitled to some, befitting his rank as a butler, but less than others. The inference is that Stevens thinks there are others still who are entitled to less.
Steven’s conception of a rigidly formalised class structure does much to remove his own agency as a human. He has his path to follow, and he will do so. However, his spirit rails against this prescriptivism at a subconscious level throughout the novel (and we suspect Steven’s life), and this is where the cracks in his philosophy start to show.
Our verdict: This 1989 Booker Prize winner has a compelling emotional melancholy, which enlists our sympathy, and makes it difficult to stop reading.
#5 Search History, By Amy Taylor
Search History is the breakout work of Australian novelist Amy Taylor. It is a gossipy, but intelligent, palpably feminist, but surprisingly balanced, funny but subtly penetrating page-turner that charts the anxieties faced by many young people finding their way in the modern world and workplace. Here’s what else we had to say:
What is extremely clever about Search History is that it very much reminds us how subtle the truth can be, and how it is rarely (if ever) one thing. There are at least two sides to any view. For instance, Ana has her opinion as to why she acts one way, we assume rationally, since the book is told from her point of view. It is confronting as a reader then, to hear Evan list the very things we like about Ana, but by his interpretation, these are flaws, and major ones – and when put from his point of view, they do sound quite compelling.
…. [Search History’s] appreciation of nuance [in the 21st century] is welcoming, comforting and refreshing: [no political] side is entirely right, and this is something we should strive to remember. The book deals with the Janus-faced nature of the truth intelligently, and respectfully. It was a delight to read from that perspective alone. It is an invigorating reminder that the truth really does exist in opposition.
The gossipy nature of Search History is only enhanced by the fact it is told in a confessional, first-person mode. It sets the scene with barely any preamble, then you are into a straight forward, chronological narrative, with no interpositions. Despite being contemporary it is slightly dated already: one can detect it was written in the pre-pandemic world, and at a time that Australia wasn’t plagued by its current housing crisis (rents are evidently still cheap in Melbourne in the Search History world). In this way it keeps your attention to the end, and even delivers a slightly pleasing moral for both you and its protagonist.
If Search History is anything, it is a paean to sincere and direct communication. Ana comes to appreciate why this is necessary in her relationships, in both love and with her mother and father. Philip Larkin warned us memorably in ‘The Life With a Hole In It’ what happens to those who don’t communicate, and act as they know they should. They are destined to be unfulfilled, as their refusal to become architects of their own life means they become a passenger in someone else’s.
Our verdict: The gossipy tonic to your own anxieties.
#6 Catch-22, by Jospeh Heller
A bonus entry, because it is one of our all-time favourites. Catch-22, Heller’s masterwork, is replete with tragicomedy, farce, and irony, told non-linearly; concerning characters so focused on empire building, and settling petty vendettas, they seemingly have forgotten there is a war on.
We love this best singular argument against following orders. As we said:
Written non-chronologically, the book largely revolves around Yossarian, and how the peripheral characters interact with him. While few take the war seriously, for Yossarian its deeply personal: both friend and foe alike are out to kill him. As we open, Yossarian is once again hiding in the infirmary. His liver is a problem, so he says, and he’s crazy.
He’s crazy, because he doesn’t want to fly. He doesn’t want to risk being vaporised by flak, being shot down, and dying in an inferno. Crashing on the sea. Crashing on land. Being drowned. Being caught by the enemy. Crashing anywhere. He visualises in detail a thousand grizzly deaths he is certain are coming for him, and does anything he can to avoid them. Contemporarily, we may be sure Yossarian is suffering from panic attacks and a crippling anxiety, almost certainly induced by post-traumatic stress disorder, and not without a strong basis in reality: he has seen many of his colleagues die. In the book however, he is told repeatedly he is a coward, and is willing to accept that fact.
To this point: One might think that flying a bomber is easier than being in action with ground infantry. Perhaps. They do have relatively well equipped bases to fly back to, and are reasonably well provisioned and fed. The relative risk of death might be less: that is certainly why Yossarian joined the air corps - he was confident that by the time his training was over, the war would be too. But on this count he was wrong. And just because bombers often either come back, or they don’t, does not mean the airmen are spared the injustices of war.
… For Yossarian, it is a moot point who is trying to kill him. The enemy is just one amongst many in the list of potential assassins. It is as much his own sides’ fault if he dies - for putting him in harm’s way; his pilot for being inept; his colleagues for sabotaging the plane’s survival aids for private gain. This is all aimed at him. They are all trying to kill him, directly.
Our verdict: The funniest singular argument against war in print. What greater motivation do you need to read it?
That’s it!
And that’s it - six of the best of the last twelve months. An honourable mention also goes to Inside Story, by Martin Amis - a slightly more niche work which has been derided as ‘too clever by half’. In our view, this is not a reason to doubt it.
So when is the birthday? Not till July - so stay tuned for more recommendations as we near the date. And to all our subscribers, thank you so much for making it the best year. We weren’t sure we could sustain a weekly book discovery newsletter when we started, but we’re hoping we only continue to grow from here.
Stay tuned for more next week, and the meantime see the full range of reads, finds and reviews in our archive.