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Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

~ The life of Katharine Susannah Prichard, the art of biography, and other things

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

Tag Archives: noughties

My favourite novels of the decade

02 Saturday Jan 2010

Posted by Nathan Hobby in books, lists

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

noughties, novels

I don’t read many new release novels – maybe only a couple a year. I’d rather draw on the decades of great novels published in the past. But there’s something to be said for reading current fiction – it keeps one’s finger on the pulse and engaged with the current conversation. This list is an account of my favourite novels published between 2000 and 2009 – of the limited number I’ve read. There are quite a few obvious choices which made a big impact on the world, as well as some underrated, lesser known works. What do you think of my choices? And what are your favourites?

1. Atonement / Ian McEwan (2001)
One of the most beautifully written novels I have ever read. McEwan’s prose has an exquisite transparency and elegance. His page turning story of a young girl’s jealous accusation against her sister’s working class lover turns into a bigger exploration of forgiveness and writing itself. He has such insight into the characters’ minds, and an ability to represent everyone’s reality. For me, a perfect novel.

2. The Corrections / Jonathan Franzen (2001)
This is the best portrait of the decade I’ve read, even though it’s probably set in the late nineties. It is an engrossing picture of a family set against all the anxieties of a world of economic rationalization and a middle class which doesn’t know why it’s alive. A bit like John Updike, but darker, more blackly humorous and less warm. Like Updike writing as Easton Ellis. It has the funniest scenes I have ever read in any book, especially when Chip tries to steal a fish stuffed down his pants and when he decides at the last moment to send out some Christmas presents.

3. What I Loved / Siri Hustvedt (2003)
A story of art and a story of family, full of the poignancy of years. It is a strange novel, spanning a couple of genres with some twists that reflect life itself. The elegiac beauty of the title captures the tone of the whole work.

4. The Book of Illusions / Paul Auster (2002)
Auster near his best. A grieving academic is summoned to the house of a silent film star, Hector Mann, long thought to be dead. It’s a sophisticated page turner, a kind of treasure hunt where the treasure is some films previously unknown to the world. But it’s also an examination of death and the meaning of life.

5. The Turning / Tim Winton (2004)
This collection grabbed me completely. A beautiful Western Australian portrait of big moments in small lives. The connections between the stories make reading the book compulsive, hoping but not guaranteed to know more about the characters as we are shifted back and forward between narrators and decades. In the end the tapestry is almost a novel, particularly the story of Victor and Gail.

6. We Need To Talk About Kevin / Lionel Shriver (2003)
The story of a high school massacrer, told by his mother. Shriver has an ability, like McEwan, to articulate experiences I thought were inarticulatable, modes of thinking, feelings which I am only half aware of.

7. Youth / J.M. Coetzee (2002)
A sparse account of a troubled youth who dreams of literary greatness in London as an exile from South Africa. He cannot connect with people. The prose is lean without a spare word, getting so well to states of mind and insight into youthful ambition and disappointment.

8. On Chesil Beach / Ian McEwan (2007)
A heartbreaking short novel about a couple’s disastrous wedding night, brilliantly insightful into the differences in perception and emotion that can cause devastating conflict between lovers.

9. Saturday / Ian McEwan (2005)
Manages to show the state of the world through one man’s mind on one day. Perowne is a neurosurgeon; the Saturday in question is the day of the anti-war protests just before the invasion of Iraq. In his relationship to his family, a game of squash and a road-rage incident which turns into a home invasion by a thug, he feels and thinks about the state of the world and the state of his life. McEwan’s prose has these moments of intense insight that are beautiful to read. He manages to write about what it’s like to listen to a certain piece of music, or the subtle feelings you might have waking in the middle of night and watching your wife sleep. The final scene lifts the whole novel another notch, an inspired piece of writing with Henry Perowne looking out on the square at the end of the long Saturday and thinking about what will come in the future, the leaving of his children, the death of his mother and father-in-law; the terrorist attack that has to happen. He imagines another doctor standing looking out at the square in 1903, and how this doctor would not believe what was to happen in the next one hundred years.

10. Sweet / Tracy Ryan (2008)
The story of three women caught in the thrall of a manipulative pastor of a conservative Baptist church in the outer-suburbs of Perth circa 1986. The Reverend William King is a complex figure, genuinely caring but always controlling. The prose is smooth and unintrusive and filled with flashes of beauty. The structure effectively balances and interweaves the stories of the three women connected by William. It is at once an engrossing drama of broad interest and yet also an important portrait of the evangelical world, a world rarely depicted in literature.

11. The Diviners / Rick Moody (2005)
An ambitious, sprawling novel depicting America in the uncertainty of the disputed election of 2000 through the prism of the flurry around a mini-series project that is picked up and hyped throughout the media industry. It is the same sort of book as Ulysses – with constant literary innovation and such a wide range of voices and styles. Of course, it’s not nearly as good; the only passages that approach brilliance are those where Moody returns to his forte – the suburbs and the family. But even where it isn’t brilliant, it is always good, entertaining, engaging and insightful. It finishes with a futile flourish, as the network CEO is assured by a judge in the disputed returns that the climate is right to crush the mini-series and everything it stands for; the future is reality TV, Republican and patriotic.

12. The Blind Assassin / Margaret Atwood (2000)
A literary mystery with a span of decades. Her characters leap off the page.

13. Gilead / Marilynne Robinson (2004)
The best Christian novel I have ever read, a testimony of grace and faith in small town America in the 1950s as an old man looks back on the life he has lived and hopes for the future of his young son.

14. Trip to the Stars / Nicholas Christopher (2000)
A beautiful novel of coincidence, tracing a boy after he is kidnapped from a planetarium in the 1960s. One for fans of Paul Auster.

15. The Brief History of the Dead / Kevin Brockmeier (2006)
A rare book set in an afterlife in which the dead live while people on Earth still remember them. Wonderful territory, stretching our imagination and beautifully told.

16. Atomised / Michel Houellebecq (2000)
A bleak novel about death and the way it wipes out any hope in the world, tempered by the (disturbing) hope of a future individual-less Buddhist utopia.

17. Liv / Morgan Yasbincek (2000)
A lyrical Western Australian novel told in short fragments and telling the story of the daughter of an immigrant family finding her feet in the world.

18. Dirt Music / Tim Winton (2001)
Winton has done something special in writing a book so full of Western Australia, a compulsive story with broad appeal and moments of profound observation.

19. Notes on a Scandal / Zoe Heller (2003)
Page-turning diary of a passive-aggressive teacher observing her teacher friend embark on an affair with a student. Witty and insightful.

20. Bedlam Burning / Geoff Nicholson (2000)
A comic novel in the best British tradition telling the story of a writer-in-residence at an asylum.

[Thursday 3pm #35] Nathan’s Top 30 Films of the Noughties

26 Thursday Nov 2009

Posted by Nathan Hobby in film review, lists, Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009)

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2000s, film and television, noughties

1. American Beauty (2000)
I need to watch this film again (I saw it four or five times early in the decade) and see if it still has the hold over me it had then. It is, by turns, a beautiful and savage look at suburban life.

2. The Science of Sleep (2007)
A film with the atmosphere of a dream in the best possible sense; Stephane pursues his neighbour Stephanie and his artistic ambition in a world with all the distortions and twists of dreams.

3. The Virgin Suicides (2000)
I love this film’s evocation of the 1970s and of adolescence. It is a film of rare beauty, humour and drama.

4. Synecdoche (2009)
A sad film about death and art, and a play which consumes the world.

4a. LATE ADDITION : A Serious Man (2009)
A comic film about suffering and the meaning of life, sharply witty.

5. I’m Not There (2007)
The lives of Bob Dylan told in myth; strange and wonderful.

6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Would you erase all the memories of a failed romance if you could? Crazy and beautiful at the same time.

7. Me, you and everyone we know (2005)
A film about awkward people in love; quirky and warm with splendid dialogue.

8. Donnie Darko (2001)
I don’t pretend to understand it, but it’s a startling, inspiring journey with Donnie, an authentic and brave teenager.

9. Amazing Grace (2007)
The most mainstream of the films on this list, an inspiring biopic of William Wilberforce’s fight against slavery.

10. Amelie (2001)
Every second person’s favourite film is genuinely brilliant, a whimsical, exploration of the meaning of life.

11. Adaptation (2002)
Charlie Kaufman for the third time in this list; he was meant to adapt The Orchid Thief, a conventional non-fiction narrative, but instead he wrote a script about the whole idea of ‘adaptation’ and a writer battling to write the script for The Orchid Thief.

12. Atonement (2007)
A classy adaptation of one of my favourite books, retaining much of the tragedy and drama; also visually stunning.

13. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
Director Michael Winterbottom has crafted a brilliant postmodern biopic of Tony Wilson and his involvement with Joy Division, New Order, The Happy Mondays.

14. The Quiet American (2002)
An excellent adaptation of the Graham Greene novel; a sombre exploration of colonialism and personal ethics.

15. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
The Coen brothers’ film noir about a barber who gets himself in over his head. The first time I watched, it was an all time favourite, but it had less impact on repeat viewings.

16. Death at a Funeral (2007)
The funniest film I saw all decade.

17. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
As good as the hype – an energetic, pulsing thriller-drama.

18. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
Two teenage boys go on a holiday with a married woman.

19. Palindromes (2004)
An awkwardly funny and disturbing film about abortion and paedophilia; I don’t think I’m brave enough to watch it again.

20. Memento (2000)
A crime film about a man with no short term memory, with a very effective narrative innovation.

21. Storytelling (2001)
I love the creative writing class scenes early in this film; a shocking and funny film about ‘fiction’ and ‘nonfiction’ from Todd Solondz (Palindromes).

22. Pan’s Labrinyth (2006)
A violent fable set in wartime Italy.

23. Match Point (2005)
The only Woody Allen film of the decade I liked, and I speak as a fan; a kind of Dostoveskian drama.

24. As It Is In Heaven (2004)
A heartwarming Swedish film about a composer who goes back to his small home town; I saw it in a tiny seaside cinema in NZ on our honeymoon.

25. Team America (2004)
A puerile, hilarious satire on the international politics of the decade from the South Park creators.

26. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
A kind of J.D. Salingeresque look at a crazy family from Wes Anderson.

27. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
A nasty thriller/ family drama brilliantly executed by octogenarian director Sydney Lumet; you’d need to be in the right mood to enjoy this.

28. Mullholland Dr (2001)
I don’t know what to think of David Lynch’s nightmares; there was a time I lived by them.

29. He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (2001)
A funny Australian look at share houses.

30. The Dark Knight (2008)
Batman as he should be; epic filmmaking at its best.
A strong contender for the number one place – Fight Club – was released in November 1999, just outside the decade. It was still playing at cinemas well into 2000 when I finally saw it. American Beauty was released in 1999 in the USA, but not until January 2000 in Australia. Some arbitrary decisions, then.

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9/11 19th century 33 1920s 1921 1930s 1950s 1970s 1971 1981 2000s 2004 2011 2015 2017 20000 Days on Earth A.S. Byatt Aboriginals activism Adam Begley Adrian Mole adultery afterlife Agatha Christie Alan Hollinghurst Alberto Manguel Alfred Deakin Amazing Grace Americana Amy Grant An American Romance Andre Tchaikowsky Andrew McGahan angela myers anne fadiman Anne Rice Arabian Nights archives art arts funding A Serious Man Ash Wednesday ASIO atheism Atonement Australia Australian film Australian literature Australian Short Story Festival autism autobiography autodidact Barbara Vine beach Belle Costa da Greene Bell Jar best best-of Bible Big Issue Bill Callahan biographical ethics biographical quest genre biographies birthday birthdays Black Opal Bleak House Blinky Bill blogging blogs Blue Blades Bodega's Bunch bog Booker book launch booksale Borges Brenda Niall Brian Matthews Brian McLaren Britney Spears Burial Rites Burke and Wills buskers C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis canon capitalism Carol Shields Carson McCullers Catcher in the Rye Catholicism celebrities Charles Dickens Charlie Kaufman childhood Child of the Hurricane children's books Choir of Gravediggers Christianity Christian writing Christina Stead Christmas Christopher Beha Cinque Terra Claire Tomalin classics cliches climate change Coen brothers coincidence Collie Collyer coming of age Communism concert Condensed Books consumerism Coonardoo Cormac McCarthy Corrections cosy fiction Dara Horn David Copperfield David Ireland David Marr David Suchet death Death of a president definition demolition Dennis LeHane dentist diaries divorce doctorow Doctor Who documentaries donald shriver Don DeLillo Don DeLillo Donna Mazza Donna Tartt Don Watson Dostovesky doubt drama dreams of revolution Drusilla Modjeska E.M. Forster ebooks editing Eichmann Eisenstein Elizabeth Kostova email empathy ensmallification existentialism faith Falling Man fame families fantasy fiction film and television folk football Frank Barscombe Fremantle Press G.K. Chesterton Gabrielle Carey Gallipoli genealogical fiction Genesis Geoff Nicholson George W. Bush Gerald Glaskin Gilead Golden Miles Goldfields Trilogy Graham Greene grandad great novels Greenmount Guinness World Records Guy Salvidge Hannah Arendt Hannah Kent Hans Koning Hans Koningsberger Harper Lee Haxby's Circus Hazel Rowley He-Man headers heaven Heidegger hell Henrietta Lacks Henry Morton Stanley Herman Hesse heroes Hey Dad! historical fiction history Holden Caulfield holidays Homer & Langley Home Song Stories House of Cards house of zealots House of Zealots Hugo Throssell humour Ian McEwan In between the sheets Indonesia Infamous Inside Llewyn Davis interstellar interview Intimate Strangers Invisible Ireland ISBNs Ishiguro itunes J.D. Salinger J.M. 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