Recommended Reading

Looking back on the books I read in 2021, one stands out as the best: John le Carré’s A Perfect Spy. It is a cold-war thriller and thinly-veiled autobiography that follows a spy named Magnus Pym. Its disjointed narrative explores his life from early childhood to the novel’s present-narrated 1986. Like le Carré, Pym is raised by a widower conman, abused at boarding school, and put to work as a spy against enemies both foreign and domestic. Unlike le Carré, Pym never quite learns which way is up; he’s had to wear too many faces, for too long. When the book begins, and Pym vanishes, it is less of a shock to everybody than it ought to be. As the story proceeds, we learn why.

I don’t want to spoil too much, although you can guess the broad contours just by looking at the cover (and what a cover Penguin has chosen!). It’s less about the story than the main character anyway, and his relationship with his father. An early quote, written by Pym about himself, sums it up better than I ever could:

So there’s yet another Pym for you, Jack, and you had better add him to my file even if he is neither admirable nor, I suspect, comprehensible to you[…]. He’s the Pym who can’t rest till he’s touched the love in people, then can’t rest till he’s hacked his way out of it, the more drastically the better. The Pym who does nothing cynically, nothing without conviction. Who sets events in motion in order to become their victim, which he calls decision, and ties himself into pointless relationships, which he calls loyalty. Then waits for the next event to get him out of the last one, which he calls destiny.

A Perfect Spy is a story about a man who’s only ever wanted genuine companionship, and about how the whole world, himself included, constantly conspires to keep it from him. It is about what happens when you break a man who was never quite whole to begin with. Along the way, there are some pretty good adventures, but for the most part it’s as gloomy as the weather in the English seaside town where Pym writes his memoir. This mood isn’t always my cup of tea, but when it works, it works. Apparently it’s considered le Carré’s masterpiece; it’s not hard to see why.

Like many things, this book reminds me of a Mountain Goats song, in particular a line near the end of this one: When you punish a person for dreaming his dream, don’t expect him to thank or forgive you.

What were the best books you read in 2021?

Recommended Reading: ‘Love Is Whatever You Can Still Betray’Post + Comments (118)

Hello and welcome to a special holiday edition of Recommended Reading! Today we’ll be talking about our Light Solstice Reading Club selection, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. I’m so happy we could share this reading experience together. I didn’t remember much from my prior read, so this was almost like reading it for the first time. And what can I say? Pratchett is almost always good, but when he’s transcendent, he’s transcendent.

Hogfather tells the story of the time Santa Cl the Hogfather is, for lack of a better term, killed. By the assassin Mr. Teatime, which is of course pronounced the-ah-tim-eh, though everybody mispronounces it immediately, even if they’ve never seen it spelled. Death must step in and deliver  the presents. Meanwhile a surplus of belief is sloshing around the Discworld, giving rise to the Oh God of Hangovers, the Eater of Socks, and more. We follow various heroes and villains as they navigate this new reality. In the end, balance is restored, reality’s humorless scolds defeated (for now).

Hogfather hits a real sweet spot for me: I’m a sucker for holiday specials, and like Neil Gaiman I think Death is Pratchett’s best character. This book is a pile of contradictions, a god-riddled argument for secular humanism, a rationalist’s paean to irrational belief, where Death is the only character who seems to understand the meaning of life. And it’s so well-engineered that it actually works. In the hands of a lesser author, so many things could go wrong. But they don’t, because this is Pratchett at the top of his very considerable game. Everything comes together in the end for a denouement that I’m not ashamed to admit made me cry a little. Especially Banjo’s fate.

When I read a paperback I dog-ear the bottom corners for favorite passages. I ended up with a lot for this one, sometimes on facing pages. So much to love in this book. As somebody who’s attended his share of Episcopal, Jewish, and Neo-Pagan solstice celebrations, I think Pratchett does a great job capturing the true meaning of Hogswatch–fire and blood, annoying relatives in paper hats, ancient rituals to chase away the smothering darkness with lights and pretty pictures. And big, stupid myths we tell our children. The tiniest worm in the ocean, a red flame in the crushing black depths, speaks volumes in this story. Its life is so irrational, striving against oblivion, and why?

Because otherwise, the universe is just a bunch of rocks moving in curves. Without our sometimes ridiculous applications of the anthropic principle–personified here as a professor–when the sun rises after the darkest day of the year, it’s just a ball of flaming gas. Without the Hogfather–or that silly, pointlessly red worm–we forget ourselves.

And that is why, at this time of the year, we light things on fire. Happy Hogswatch, everyone! What did you all think? Opening discussion question: what does Death sound like in your head?

Hogfather Reading Club: Talk Amongst YourselvesPost + Comments (98)