{"id":1674,"date":"2011-12-20T00:30:33","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T22:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=1674"},"modified":"2024-12-27T11:25:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T11:25:29","slug":"the-reading-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/12\/20\/the-reading-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reading Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Vianne Venter
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\u201cIt didn\u2019t take much to bring down the card house of civilisation. Just a few gusts and it was done, the balance tipped, the spell broken. Good citizens realised the lines that had shaped their lives were imaginary and easily crossed. They had wants and needs and the power to satisfy them, so they did. The moment the lights went out, everyone stopped pretending.\u201d <\/em><\/td>\n\"\"
\nFrom Issue 16 (Oct 2011)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Something Wicked\u2019s fiction editor Vianne Venter gives us the gristle on her favourite reads of the year. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I recently subbed an article for a publication (which will remain nameless) that compared computer games to reading, and concluded that both are fine, as long as they are practiced in moderation. For real. It\u2019s author would no doubt be most disappointed at the reckless abandon and lack of restraint I\u2019ve displayed with regard to reading. It\u2019s been a very good year for reading. Bizarrely, this is largely due to the birth of my daughter, which forced me to sit still for the first time in, well, my life really. Just about the only thing you can do with a baby sleeping on your lap is read \u2013 terrible, I know, but I bore my sentence bravely. The best thing I read this year was Justin Cronin\u2019s The Passage<\/strong>. Until I read Isaac Marion\u2019s Warm Bodies<\/strong>. But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself. Here\u2019s how I got there:<\/p>\n

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Let the Right One In by <\/strong>John Ajvide Lindqvist<\/strong><\/p>\n

I adored the 2008 Swedish film (which we saw here in 2009) and had been after the novel ever since, so when SW editor Joe Vaz gave me the book for my birthday, I couldn\u2019t wait to start reading. The story follows twelve-year-old Oskar, who lives in the bleak Stockholm apartment block suburb of Blackeberg. Oskar is bright, sensitive, bullied and low on friends. Till he meets Eli \u2013 the new girl next door. Eli isn\u2019t a girl at all of course, and her arrival in Blackeberg with her \u2018father\u2019 heralds the start of a series of bizarre, brutal and bloody murders. I can\u2019t avoid telling you that this is a vampire story, but if you\u2019re shopping for rose-tinted vamp romance, you\u2019re very much in the wrong aisle here. Lindqvist has brought together horror, fable, vampire story and the darkest of crime fiction, executing it all with the skill of a literary master.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because I live in Africa, I have a thing for stories set in cold climes, particularly where the snow and ice seem to seep into the characters themselves. Let the Right One In is frosty right through, peopled with beautiful, sad characters who all seem chilled to the bone, each trying in their own way to find warmth. The novel is magnificently crafted. (Even more so than the film, which, if you haven\u2019t seen, you need to find and watch. Now. Shoo, go. Now.) It\u2019s absorbing, well-paced and truly, truly frightening. Its triumph lies in the exquisite sensitivity of its portraiture \u2013 every character is fully complex and heartbreakingly mortal (well, almost). There are no unsympathetic villains or plastic heroes here.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for me, the book also crosses lines that the movie, wisely, doesn\u2019t. Eli\u2019s origins are brutal and horrifying, and I could have done without that chapter of the story. It\u2019s far from out of place though \u2013 the horror is brutal and sustained, heightened by the humanity and vulnerability of the people it touches. Already a cult classic, Let the Right One In<\/strong> is strong stuff. Don\u2019t pick it up lightly, but do pick it up.<\/p>\n

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Heart-Shaped Box<\/strong> by Joe Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t really fair of me to chase this one with Joe Hill\u2019s Heart-Shaped Box<\/strong>, but it held up well. It\u2019s silly not to mention, if you don\u2019t know already, that Hill is Stephen King\u2019s son. At the very least one is going in wondering how one plucks up the courage to write at all when your father has published 50 novels in less than 40 years.<\/p>\n

Hill\u2019s debut novel is a racer \u2013 riveting and blackly funny, it delivers the goods from the get-go.<\/p>\n

Retired rocker Judas Coyne likes to collect macabre memorabilia \u2013 the stranger the better. So when an online ad offers to sell him a ghost \u2013 attached to a suit that comes in a heart-shaped box – it doesn\u2019t take much deliberation for Judas hit the Buy Now button. And what do we know about the little boy who didn\u2019t really believe in ghosts? Right. And then some. I didn\u2019t enjoy Jude\u2019s company much at first (you\u2019re not supposed to) but Hill hit his stride and indeed peaked so early on, that I just had to see where he was going with it. He doesn\u2019t disappoint. Heart-Shaped Box<\/strong> a blast of a read.<\/p>\n

Check out Joe Hill\u2019s surreal, funny-as-in-strange twitter feed to see what growing up with the master of horror does to a mind.<\/p>\n

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The Talisman<\/strong> by Stephen King and Peter Straub<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wanted to slow down after that, so I was looking for something meaty, that I could chew slowly. Joe suggested an oldie but goodie – The Talisman<\/strong>. It took me a while to understand that Stephen King and Peter Straub\u2019s 1984 epic was a fantasy, not a horror. And once I did it gleefully scared the pants off me. It\u2019s a classic journey book in which twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer embarks on a quest to save the life of his dying mother. He has a long, lonely way to go, and he won\u2019t find what he\u2019s looking for in this world. Jack is a great character, and the supporting (and opposing) roles are fantastic. The parallel story worlds are beautiful and threatening, and the fairy-tale horrors of The Territories just heighten the menace of the monsters of our world.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m giving it a little break before I start the 2001 sequel, Black House<\/strong>, which is waiting patiently on my bedside table.<\/p>\n

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The Passage by Justin Cronin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, bio-engineered beasties. This is one of my favourite post-apocalypse tropes \u2013 where some arrogant wise-ass decides to play God, hits a bunch of buttons on the evolutionary console and then stands around wringing his hands while humanity\u2019s place on the food chain goes into freefall. It\u2019s a great premise when it\u2019s handled well, which The Passage<\/strong> is.<\/p>\n

I knew almost nothing about The Passage<\/strong> when I started it on the strength of Sarah Lotz\u2019s recommendation. I did know it was post-apocalypse fic though – my favourite Favourite. I\u2019ve been smitten with this sub-genre since my mom gave me A Gift Upon the Shore<\/strong> by MK Wren when I was about 16. I think most post-apocalypse stories are essentially road books (as in road movies), where the final destination is nothing less than the survival – or not – of mankind.<\/p>\n

In The Passage,<\/strong> a vampire apocalypse wipes out most of America, but that\u2019s not till later. Technically, it\u2019s both apocalypse and post-apocalypse, because Cronin has wisely chosen to get us re-acquainted with humanity before he wipes out the species.<\/p>\n

Time Magazine\u2019s Lev Grossman places The Passage alongside Stephen King\u2019s The Stand<\/strong> and Cormac McCarthy\u2019s The Road<\/strong> (anyone else see a trend here?): \u201cLike some power-mad scientist, Cronin has taken his literary gifts, and he has weaponized them.\u201d I warn you, this is a very accomplished writer. He knows what he\u2019s doing. That means two things \u2013 a: you\u2019re in safe hands, you can relax and enjoy the trip, and b: when you\u2019re nice and comfy, he\u2019s going to gut you like a little fish. He starts out flaying the hide off you, and once he\u2019s got your guard down, you\u2019ll follow him to the end. There\u2019s more action in the first 100 pages of this book than most get in from cover to cover, and The Passage<\/strong> is a hiccough shy of 1000 pages \u2013 vast, sweeping and brilliant. The ideology is complete and enthrallingly believable, and the creature design is great \u2013 Cronin\u2019s vampires are strong, fast, and voracious. His characters are wonderful. Indeed, if the book has a flaw, it\u2019s that one falls so hard for the characters in the first third of the book that it\u2019s hard to invest as deeply in the people you meet later. (Some <\/em>authors might have split the book into two, or even three.) Plus, it\u2019s scary. One particular scene nearly made me drop the baby. I can\u2019t wait to share it with you.<\/p>\n

Here, have a taste:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cShe dreamed. She dreamed of voices, and the Man. For some time of months or years she could hear the Man in the howl of the wind and the scrape of the stars if she listened just so, and it gave her a longing in her heart for his care. But over time\u2019s passage his voice became all mixed in her mind with the voices of the others, the dreaming ones, both there and not there, as the dark was a thing but not a thing, a presence and an absence joined. The world was a world of dreaming souls who could not die. She thought: there is the ground below my feet, there is the sky over my head, there are the empty buildings and the wind and rain and stars and everywhere the voices, the voices and the question.<\/em><\/p>\n

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The sequel, The Twelve<\/strong>, is due out in 2012. I absolutely have to know what happened to Anthony Carter.<\/p>\n

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The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men<\/strong><\/p>\n

I generally avoid back covers, but this one is a pretty accurate introduction to the premise, so here\u2019s the blurb:<\/p>\n

\u201cTodd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown. But Prentisstown isn\u2019t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else\u2019s thought in a constant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets. Or are there?<\/p>\n

Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence. Which is impossible.<\/p>\n

Prentisstown has been lying to him. And now he\u2019s going to have to run\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember when last the world of a book seemed more real to me than my own, and had me stealing every opportunity to duck out of reality and read. Then I picked up The Knife of Never Letting Go<\/strong> by Patrick Ness. It\u2019s deceptively charming and genuinely beautifully written. Take a look:<\/p>\n

\u201cNoise is noise. It\u2019s crash and clatter and it usually adds up to one big mash of sound and thought and picture and half the time it\u2019s impossible to make sense of it at all. Men\u2019s minds are messy places and Noise is like the active, breathing face of that mess. It\u2019s what\u2019s true and what\u2019s believed and what\u2019s imagined and what\u2019s fantasized and it says one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time and even tho the truth is definitely in there, how can you tell what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not when yer getting everything?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first book in the Chaos Walking<\/strong> trilogy is a masterpiece of character and world creation, and goes a long way to reinforcing my love of so-called teen fantasy, which so often manages to pull off what it\u2019s adult fic counterparts lose the scramble to be either worthy or popular \u2013 good story telling, the ability to make you care, the ability to tackle content that actually matters without getting its didactic head so far up its literary ass that the reader loses all emotional investment in the characters. That said, I would hesitate to give a \u2018young-adult\u2019 this book, because it leads to a very violent place.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, book one is not self-contained, the story doesn\u2019t end there. So you have to proceed to the next instalment, and act two, The Ask and the Answer<\/strong>, is very dark. It\u2019s about power, and the ugliness of war, and how it disfigures everyone it touches. Essentially, that\u2019s what this is \u2013 a war story. Fortunately, I was too deep in by the time I realised that to pull out. Ness doesn\u2019t spare his characters \u2013 he drags them through hell and gets plenty of blood on their hands. So much so, that I spent a large portion of the journey not liking Todd very much. But that is the point. Ness offers no pat solutions or easy redemptions. He exposes the wiring that connects resistance-in-principle to complicity-in-practice – the fears, ambitions, uncertainties, agendas, indecisions and inertia that make monsters of all men in wartime. For this message alone it is perhaps best placed in the hands of young readers after all.<\/p>\n

In an interview with guardian.co.uk, Ness said, \u201cIf you’re telling [teenagers] how it should be rather than how it is, why should they trust you to tell a truthful story?\u201d Fair dos, and I have to say the ending of book three, Monsters of Men<\/strong>, is pretty superb. I\u2019m very glad I stayed for it. But it takes a lot of killing to get there, and the hero takes on too much damage along the way. It felt to me like there should have been two books, instead of three. By the time the ultimate redemption is offered, this reader for one, was no longer convinced anyone deserved it.<\/p>\n

The trilogy has earned Ness multiple awards, including a Carnegie Medal and a shortlisting for the Arthur C Clarke award. Ness has a new book out, titled A Monster Calls<\/strong>. Lauren Beukes says \u201c”Blew my head off. One of my favourite books of the year, emphatically about what storytelling is, devastating, beautiful, Wept and wept.” It\u2019s on my wishlist.<\/p>\n

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Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t take much to bring down the card house of civilisation. Just a few gusts and it was done, the balance tipped, the spell broken. Good citizens realised the lines that had shaped their lives were imaginary and easily crossed. They had wants and needs and the power to satisfy them, so they did. The moment the lights went out, everyone stopped pretending.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The lovely people at the bookstore hadn\u2019t read Warm Bodies<\/strong>, but said it was \u201cjust some sort of teen zombie story\u201d. And it\u2019s really not. It\u2019s not \u2018just\u2019 anything. (Though I would give it to a teen reader with far less hesitation than the Patrick Ness trilogy, which was actually on the teen fic shelf, while Warm Bodies<\/strong> was on the Sci-fi\/Fantasy shelf).<\/p>\n

This is a beautiful book. It made me so happy. The chapter headings alone deserve some sort of award. And it\u2019s funny! I dog-eared so many pages (yeah, I do that), just for the writing. So, yes, this is a zombie story. Very loosely, it\u2019s about a zombie who starts having thoughts he shouldn\u2019t \u2013 thoughts like maybe he shouldn\u2019t eat that girl cowering under the desk.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s being labelled zombie romance, but as with most labels, that doesn\u2019t cover it, and actually does the book a disservice. This is not Twilight with zombies, though it is begging to be made into a movie.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a snip of the opening:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am dead, but it\u2019s not so bad. I\u2019ve learned to live with it. I\u2019m sorry I can\u2019t properly introduce myself, but I don\u2019t have a name any more. Hardly any of us do. We lose them like care keys, forget them like anniversaries. Mine might have started with an \u2018R\u2019, but that\u2019s all I have now. It\u2019s funny because back when I was alive, I was always forgetting other people\u2019s names. My fiend \u2018M\u2019 says the irony of being a zombie is that everything is funny, but you can\u2019t smile, because your lips have rotted off.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

My only complaint about Warm Bodies<\/strong> is that it seems to have broken my streak of genre fiction, simply because I\u2019m struggling to find a novel that captures my attention the way it did. It also has a wonderful gimmick that I refuse to spoil for you because by the time you realise it\u2019s there, you\u2019ll be thoroughly hooked already, so it\u2019s strictly bonus. Now don\u2019t go and Google it and run straight into the spoilers, but once you\u2019re done and smitten with this man\u2019s writing, visit his blog \u2013 www.burningbuilding.com<\/span><\/a>, where he\u2019s posted a bunch of his short stories. I haven\u2019t started on them yet, but I suspect they\u2019ll begin to account for the accomplishment of this author\u2019s debut novel.<\/p>\n

If you pick up just one book off this list, make it Warm Bodies<\/strong>. It\u2019s a quick read, and if it doesn\u2019t put a smile on your face, you\u2019re probably dead already. Buy it for someone you love.<\/p>\n

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Cabin Fever by Diane Awerbuck <\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe reviewed this short story collection in Issue#13, (https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/\/09\/cabin-fever-by-diane-awerbuck\/<\/span><\/a>) so I won\u2019t carry on too much, but it really has ended my year on a high note. Awerbuck\u2019s writing is lyrical, wry, dream-like, underwater-immersive and molasses-thick. I felt like I was wading up from the pages every time I had to put it down. It\u2019s a special treat for Capetonians, because it\u2019s mostly set here. But familiar settings become beguilingly strange beneath Awerbuck\u2019s pen, and the lines between the real and the surreal blur like overlapping layers of watercolours. This author\u2019s superpower is her gift for endings. Endings are hard to do, and I haven\u2019t shuddered with delight at so many last lines since I first read Dorothy Parker\u2019s poetry.<\/p>\n

The book is beautifully structured as well. It opens in fresh water, with a cut, and closes in salt water, with a stitch. The journey between the two feels like listening to a well-compiled album in which one might meet friends and strangers. Some stranger than others. When a short story collection works, as this one does, it becomes a literary box of all sorts, and I can see myself going back to dip into my favourites in the years to come. If I had to choose just one, today, it would be The Boy Who Opened Doors, about a young graffiti artist who sneaks out at night. Or maybe “Mami Wati”, on the dangers of swimming in rock pools\u2026 Or, wait, maybe\u2026<\/p>\n

So now you know what I like. What are your recommendations? Let us know, in the comments below.<\/p>\n

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[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockOpen’ \/]<\/p>\n

Vianne Venter<\/h2>\n

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Vianne Venter<\/em> is a freelance writer and sub-editor for various South African publications. She served as story editor and sub for Something Wicked since its inception in 2005. She is also an artist and mother. She can communicate with inanimate objects, but only if they\u2019re feeling chatty. In her spare time\u2026 oh, who are we kidding? What spare time?<\/p>\n

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by Vianne Venter
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It\u2019s been a very good year for reading. Bizarrely, this is largely due to the birth of my daughter, which forced me to sit still for the first time in, well, my life really. Just about the only thing you can do with a baby sleeping on your lap is read \u2013 terrible, I know, but I bore my sentence bravely. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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\nFrom Issue 16 (Oct 2011)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[116,150,30,144,138,133,143,141,148,142,140,146,145,149,147,109,139],"class_list":["post-1674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-reviews","tag-cabin-fever","tag-chaos-walking-trilogy","tag-diane-awerbuck","tag-heart-shaped-box","tag-isaac-marion","tag-issue-16","tag-joe-hill","tag-john-ajvide-lindqvist","tag-justin-cronin","tag-let-the-right-one-in","tag-patrick-ness","tag-peter-straub","tag-stephen-king","tag-the-passage","tag-the-talisman","tag-vianne-venter","tag-warm-bodies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1674"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3375,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1674\/revisions\/3375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}