My Favourite 12 of 2012

Looking back over my list of Books Read in 2012 I am surprised by how much difficulty I seem to have had in recording my thoughts for the books I enjoyed the most.  Of the twelve books on my favourite of 2012 list, I was only able to put thoughts to paper (or screen, as the case may be) for five of those.  My books choices this year were completely delight-driven and in no way reflected any sort of reading scheme.  As a result I discovered a great many new to me authors who have impressed and thrilled me.  Other than Elizabeth Gaskell and Margaret Laurence the authors on this list are all new to me, and I will be searching out their other titles for future enjoyment.

Here then, are my Favourite Books of 2012, in the order in which they were read:

1. The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

Having only ever read one of Margaret Laurence's Manawanka series (The Stone Angel), I decided I needed to get with the game. I loved the character of Morag Gunn - her resilience and tenacity.  I loved the breadth and scope of the work as Morag changes and matures.  I am now a devoted Margaret Laurence fangirl.

2. A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence

 The character of Rachel and her internal dialogue are the two aspects of this story that really resonated with me.  Every summer on our drive to the cottage I stop at Margaret Laurence's home - now a museum - in Neepawa, Manitoba (the town upon which Manawanka is based).  It has never been open, but I always stop and admire the building.  When I read A Jest of God, I felt that the setting was very real to me, as that was Rachel's home in the novel.

Read it.  It is brilliant.

3. The Fire-Dwellers by Margaret Laurence

After getting to know Rachel and Mrs. Cameron, I was fascinated to get to know Stacey, Rachel's sister who lives with her husband and children on Canada's west coast.  Stacey is mentionned in Margaret Laurence's other Manawanka books, but her life is not exactly as it appears in her letters home.  Breaking free from her stifling role as a housewife in 1960s Vancouver is just one of the manifestations of the themes of liberation in this fabulous novel.

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Blockbuster bestseller titles are normally very far down my list of books I feel compelled to read, but I was hearing such contradictory reports of this one, and the favourable reviews from trusted reading friends tipped the balance.  Although the trilogy really is three parts of one story and should be read together to see the author's message fully realised, the first book was definitely stronger and more enjoyable reading than the two sequels.

 5. Atonement by Ian McEwan

A new favourite author?  I believe so.  Atypically, I had already seen the movie based on Atonement when I read the book.  I try to avoid this situation as often as possible.  I also try to avoid Keira Knightly as often as possible, so I'm not sure what I was thinking.  I did love the movie, and I loved the book even more. I am still at a loss to explain why or how I loved it, but it may have been my favourite new book and author of the year.

6. Wheels Within Wheels by Dervla Murphy

This is the first of Dervla Murphy's books I have ever read, and it was a wonderful introduction to a fascinating woman.  I loved reading about her interest in self-education after she could no longer attend school, and the stark honesty with which she relates both the flattering and not-so-flattering aspects of her life.

7. Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

My introduction to Molly Keane.  Written in the first person, Aroon St. Charles tells her life story as a member of the Irish Ascendancy within a family as disfunctional as any to be found in literature.  Under the veneer of good behaviour all manner of nastiness and neglect occur - the very best sort of dark comedy.  Although I never grew to love Aroon (I'm not sure we are meant to), I did understand her much better by the end of the story.


 

8. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

A short novel with a small cast of characters in a limited time and space, this novel introduced me to a new favourite that I will be revisiting again and again.  Written while the First World War was ongoing, and published in 1918, The Return of the Soldier is a captivating study on the nature of class, memory, adult responsibility, love and loss.  There is so much packed in to this tiny book.  I literally turned back to the first page when I finished it and read it all over again straight away - twice!

9. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

I spent some time in Enniscorthy, co. Wexford, in Ireland many years ago, where I have relatives who took me in and fed me after I had been backpacking around Ireland for a couple of months.  It is a place dear to my heart.  But while the setting drew me to the story, it was Tóibín's calm and gentle story of a young Irish girl's acceptance of the path her life was taking that made me love it for itself.  The descriptions of homesickness are the most realistic and poignant I have ever read.

10. The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

This brilliant little book was such a pleasure to read.  I went into it with no expectations and no notion what it would be about.  The characterisation was so strong that Freda and Brenda are still clearly delineated in my mind.  Bainbridge's power over her craft is something awesome to behold. I am adding Beryl Bainbridge to my list of Must Read Authors.

11. City of the Mind by Penelope Lively  Matthew Halland, a successful architect, lives in London and is going through the final stages of a divorce.  He is a man who lives in his mind most of the time, so although not much happens in the way of a plot, this novel is rich and rewarding to read.  I especially enjoyed the way Penelope Lively plays with the themes of time, and the investing and divesting of objects with meaning that happens constantly in the lives of the characters.  City of the Mind was not the easiest read of the year, but it was a lot of fun to read.

12. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) (Part Four)

As often as I have read North and South, I feel I could never reach the end of learning from this book.  I know that many readers find Margaret Hale a difficult heroine to like.  I do not.  I admire the grace with which Margaret makes a very difficult transition from girlhood to womanhood; I envy her ability to soldier on when all the adults in her life flake out on her; I identify with her family circumstances; I love how she learns how to open her mind and her heart to ideas and people who were previously abhorent to her.  Like all the best characters, Margaret teaches me how to be a better person.

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

I know of Colm Tóibín more for his presence on the judging panel at the Giller Prize a few years ago than for his work.  I lucked upon a $7 cloth of Brooklyn this week which I snatched up as quickly as I could.  I had heard that it was a good read, and I was curious to get to know Toibin. I spent some time in his home town of Enniscorthy, in co. Wexford, Ireland, a few years ago and was keen to re-visit, if only via the pages of a novel.

Brooklyn begins in Enniscorthy as Eilis Lacey, a young girl with a head for numbers is offered work at the village shop.  Eilis lives with her sister Rose and her widowed mother.  Her three brothers have gone to England because work is so scarce in Enniscorthy, so she is pleased to find something she can do, even if just once a week.  When Father Flood, an Irish priest living and working in New York visits the Lacey home and offers Eilis a job in Brooklyn, she feels that she must accept.  She leaves her home and family and starts a new life in America.

In Brooklyn, she settles in to her boarding house with the tempermental landlady, and her rather frequently inhospitable housemates, and begins work as a shopgirl in a department store.  After the initial excitement of transition has died down, Eilis receives her first letters from home, which overwhelms her with loneliness.  The helpful Father Flood manages to alleviate her homesickness by involving her in charity work in his parish, and enrolling her in a Brooklyn College book-keeping course.

^{Eilis attends the dances at Father Flood's parish church, and there she meets a young Italian-American man named Tony who makes it clear that he's madly in love with her.  She has opportunity for promotion at work and has a pleasant bedroom at the boarding house with enough room for her to comfortably study.  She spends all her free time with Tony who is deeply in love with her.  When she must return to Ireland, she has to decide whether she will return to New York, or choose to live a familiar and easy life in her Irish hometown.}

 

Eilis is a girl without a plan.  She is given opportunities for a more prosperous life without having any personal ambition.  At every bend in the road Eilis encounters people who want to help her: Georgina, her berth-mate on the passage over shows her the ropes of ocean travel, Father Flood eases her transition into her new life, Mrs. Kehoe (her irascible landlady) offers her the best bedroom in the house because she likes Eilis.  But Eilis has no voice to declare that she does not want these favours.  This life she now lives is not of her own choosing.  She has drifted into her life by not asserting her own will, and by letting others make decisions for her.  "Even when she woke in the night and thought about it, she did not allow herself to conclude that she did not want to go."  She allows herself to be something of a plaything of fate merely by silencing her own desires.

In his calm and understated style (much like the character of Eilis herself), Colm Tóibín has created a character who has the potential to be frustrating to read.  And sometimes she is. Because she is shy and wishes to avoid confrontation, Eilis is carried further into situations than she feels comfortable with.  She pulls back, but does not speak out, so there is a tension between what is happening to her, and her incremental acceptance that "she had no choice, she knew, but to put it swiftly out of her mind."

On her return to Ireland she is able to see for the first time how much she has changed - how much New York has changed her.  She is the focus of attention in her home town with her American clothes and mysterious life abroad.  But living in Ireland again, her life in New York seems like a dream.  She finds her stride with her old friends, is offered a job, and love, and a home.  But her other life is there waiting for her to return.  No matter which life she chooses, she will make it a good life, but having lived so many years apart from my parents and siblings, my heart was voting for her to choose Ireland rather than America.  (I was also not convinced that she loved Tony).  But more than one location or the other, I really just wanted Eilis to make a decision based on her own desires rather than being forced into her choice by others.  I'll leave you to read the book to see what she decides.