The ten best works of fiction I read in 2022

 The Ten Best Works of fiction I read in 2022: 

Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1898)

Inspired by the play-within-a-play in the film Drive My Car, I re-read Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, one of his 4 late-life plays, and was blown away by its beauty and pathos - as audiences (and readers) have universally for a century - the essence of what’s considered Chekhovian: adults living their late life in a provincial setting, a sense that their lives were of great promise that has never materialized; many missed connections among the unmarried, who are generally on the cusp marital eligibility, time has passed them by, and secret longings are never realized or recognized much less consummated, bursts of violence and remorse. (See also: Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull)

George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life (1857)

There’s a long way to from here to Eliot’s masterpiece, Middlemarch; that said, there are in this short many of Eliot’s insights and apercus - plus some sharp-witted addresses to the reader, all of which will sustain her throughout her career. (See also Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda) 

Lion Feuchtwanger. The Oppermanns (1933) 

This novel has to rank among the greatest (if lesser known) grand 19th-century novels that conveys a great movement in history as seen through a group lens - usually a number of family members, each affected by the change and upheaval taking place around them, and their dawning awareness - or oblivion to and denial of - the change that is gradually becoming universal: e.g., Buddenbrooks of course, also The Leopard, Lucky Per, maybe A Fine Balance, maybe Lonesome Dove, 100 Years of Solitude, The Makioka Sisters, and let’s not forget Middlemarch. What makes The Oppermanns stand out even more among this august group of novels is that Feuchtwanger was writing even as the events - the Nazi takeover of the government of Germany under the leadership of the man called in this book always The Leader - took place all around him.

Annie Ernaux. The Years (2008)

I was blown away and deeply moved by the beauty and intelligence of this novel, which I took up with some trepidation but thought I’d like to check out the latest Lit Nobelist of whom I’d never heard - the Nobelists haven’t rung the bell pretty much since the Dylan surprise of ’16. But here this surprise work comes along, so smart, so insightful, and so accessible.

Graham Greene. A Burnt-Out Case (1960)

This Greene novel follows Querry (note the homonym), a lost soul, highly intelligent, a bit acerbic, self-destructive - in this case a renowned architect (of churches primarily), famous on the order of, say, Frank Lloyd Wright, who gives up his profession/vocation and journeys aimlessly up an unnamed river in central Africa - shades of Conrad here, obviously - and we find him at the terminus of the river ferry days or even weeks upstream at what we (and he) soon learn is a leper colony staffed by a medically skilled team of (mostly) Catholic priests. Query decides to stay, and he helps out, to some degree. (See also The Quiet American, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory) 

Shirley Hazzard’s The Bay of Noon (1970) captures a time and place like too few contemporary novelists. It lacks the humor and irony (or sarcasm) of some of Hazzard’s earlier writing, in particular the novel and stories built on her experiences working at the UN in the ‘50s; but it is in tune with some of her short fiction about Americans in Italy in mid-century. I can’t help but think that Hazard would be much better recognized and more often read today had she set more of her fiction in the U.S. (or London). (See also Collected Stories, The Great Fire, Cliffs of Fall) 

Julia May Jonas. Vladimir (2022) 

Vladimiar must have been the success de scandale of the year, maybe the century, at Skidmore College, the thinly veiled setting. So there’s lots to enjoy here, lots of insight into the character of a middle-aged woman desperately seeking to retain and rekindle the allure of her youth, some great skewering of academic politics, and all in not much more than 100 pp.

Per Petterson’s first work, Echoland (1989) has finally been published in English and it’s obvious that this guy would be a real talent - beautiful passages (a night-time fishing expedition, an exuberant bike ride on fitted nearly deserted roads, family waking up in early hours nearly dead because of propane leak, first realization of sexual urges, complicated relationships with domineering dad and a demanding grandfather, puzzlements about his friend’s attraction to older sister. (See also Out Stealing Horses) 

Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

The writing is at times quite beautiful, esp in Rhys’s evocation of the look and feeling of the tropical Windward Island, in its beauty, danger, isolation - in particular the subtle and mean interaction of the proud English landowner and the slave/servant population, on the verge or just past the verge of outright revolt.

A.B. Yehoshua. The Lover (1977)

This early work by Israeli writer boy the great Israeli novelist, who died in 2022, and possibly his first translated into English is a really excellent novel and a great intro to Yehoshua’s interests and style. (See also Mr. Mani, Open Heart, A Woman in Jerusalem)