2017 is the first year when I completed the Reading Challenge on Goodreads, pledging to read 24 books. Some of them I loved, some of them not so much, but every single one gave me something to think on.
Below is the list of all the books I have read in 2017, without the chronological order.
The thrilling adventures of Ijon Tichy
If I read these books as a kid, the main character, Ijon Tichy, would definitely become my idol. Countless stories across three books featuring the adventures of a brave and quick-witted astronaut, traveling in his spaceship across the universe, gave me the thrill of something fascinating and unknown. Not only is the character extremely likable, his journeys are full of the most uncanny events, like getting stuck in a time loop and having to fight himself from a different time-verse. What strikes me the most, however, is that each of the stories is also a hyperbole and deals with very important philosophical topics such as: the nature of humankind and intelligence, the future of the natural environment and the overwhelming limits of the known universe. The stories are fun to read and full of puns, but it’s the moral in each of them that gives me the goosebumps.
Lem, the father of Polish science fiction
- His Master’s Voice
- Eden
- The Invincible, all by S. Lem
Stanisław Lem, a famous Polish sci-fi author, wrote plentiful books that were translated to over 40 languages and sold in over 30 million copies. Philip K. Dick once created an interesting theory in his letter to FBI, claiming that Lem is a collective of authors rather than a single person (pointing to his varied style and language as a proof) and works for the communist party, aiming to take control over the public opinion. Whether one believes him or not, the genius of Lem is undeniable - his writing reached far beyond the genre.
In His Master’s Voice he explores the subject of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) with a very critical approach - the signal received from another form of life is impossible to decode, and for many different reasons. Even if a single information was successfully extracted, it could mean nothing without a common language or cultural context. The other two books I’ve read, Eden and The Invincible, share a similar subject of the relationship between different life domains. In The Invincible, the extraterrestrial form of life that the characters come across is a swarm of insect-like robots with a hive mind (which reminds me of Ender’s Game), and in Eden it’s an almost Orwellian bio-engineered society of soldiers and their victims, living in a ghettos. In both cases the astronauts visit a foreign planet they know nothing about, and in both cases they fail to establish a lasting relationship, and yet manage to introduce a meaningful level of chaos and destruction. This topic is also deeply explored in Solaris, which is my favourite book written by Lem, and one of the favourite books in general.
The Masterpiece
- Swann’s Way (volume 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) by Marcel Proust
If any form of extraterrestrial life ever contacted me and asked: “What is the biggest masterpiece of the written word of your species?” I wouldn’t think twice - it’s definitely Remembrance of Things Past, all 7 volumes, all 4,000 pages of it. Some critics call it a pseudo-autobiographical novel because of how much the narrator and the events of the book resemble these of the author (n.b. directly contradicting the concept of The Death of the Author).
The first thing that strikes me in Swann’s Way, the first volume of the series, is that even though the main character is still a young child, he seems to be able to process and describe emotions on a level that only very few adults could. So when he describes the misery of being dismissed from a dinner with guests, and having to go to sleep, it’s really heart-wrenching. I think this kind of exaggeration is a really clever way to make adults feel like a child would do - when mom doesn’t come for a good night kiss the child feels like the world is falling apart. Another great thing about the book is that it pictures the life of noble families in the early 1900s in Paris, so reading the book is like entering an idyllic, perfect world. In this world the biggest crime is to salute and bow to someone you were not introduced to (which can be only done by a common acquaintance) on your afternoon walk through Elysian Fields.
Despite the idyllic setting, it’s not really a book you could read on your daily commute. The language is pretty demanding, and the page-long sentences take some time to sink in. The plot starts with adult Marcel taking a bite of Madeleine, and the taste of it takes him back to his memories from childhood. Later on there are similar mechanisms used all over the book to jump from in the timeline. Sometimes one recollection starts within another, then it all comes back, one step at a time, to the main story line, creating a fractal out of the plot points. It takes the genius of Marcel Proust to use this unusual form of narration so subtly, and yet with such a jaw-dropping effect.
The Spice must flow
- Dune
- Dune Messiah
- Children of Dune
- God Emperor of Dune, all by Frank Herbert
Forget about A Song of Ice and Fire, no other epic series is as good as Dune. Set in the distant future, where advanced technology is prohibited for religious reasons, it tells the story of Paul Atreides, who is believed to be the foretold messiah, Kwisatz Haderach. The events of the book oscillate around the topics of religion, politics, ecology and are heavily influenced by the concept of eugenics - a belief that selective breeding of the finest noble families may result in a superhuman.
In the world of Dune, there are a couple of fractions that aspire to rule it: the Emperor that has the authority and controls the Spice production, the Spacing Guild that holds the secret of navigating through space but is dependent on the Spice, and Bene Geserit - a religious sisterhood that needs the Spice for their magical abilities. It’s all about the Spice, and young Paul Arteides moves to Arrakis, the only source of the Spice in the universe - that’s how the book starts! If you think that George R. R. Martin in his Song of Ice and Fire is brutal, you should see the wicked ideas used by Frank Herbert to make his characters fight for the ultimate power in the universe.
Whether you’ve read the books or not, don’t miss the upcoming movie! It’s being directed by Denis Villeneuve (whose other notable works are Sicario and Blade Runner 2049) and scheduled to be released in 2020.
One Hundred Years of Overrated
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
I haven’t finished the book. I keep hearing about how fascinating and jaw-dropping the ending is, but I guess I will never know. Maybe the book is just not for me, or maybe I had too many expectations of it. I found the book boring and the events and characters forced.
The dark tale from Prague
- The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
It’s a mysterious tale full of symbolism and esotericism, Golem itself is a character from a Jewish legend. I recommend it for anyone who likes any of the following books: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse or The Trial by Franz Kafka.
The genius émigré
- The Captive Mind
- Legends of Modernity, both by Czesław Miłosz
Miłosz, a Polish poet and prose writer, escaped to France and then to the USA after the new post-war communist authorities of Poland threatened his safety. In The Captive Mind he assesses Stalinism and - using fictional characters based on real Polish artists of that time - analyses different attitudes towards the system of people who, unlike him, decided to stay in the country. He shows deep compassion and understanding, even for people who seem to live a cushy life for a price of not producing authentic art, putting the most criticism on the system itself. Legends of Modernity is a set of essays analysing genius minds of modern literature and philosophy, and letters he exchanged with another writer on various philosophical topics.
To me, reading Miłosz is like visiting a world that is no more. The way he puts together his thoughts and the sharp, analytical approach he uses to describe his opinions makes me regard him as one of the most intelligent people that I know of. And I’m not alone in that. He was nominated as a professor at University of California at Berkeley where he was offered a honorary doctorate, and later won a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Graphic novels
- Maus by Art Spiegelman
- Ordinary Victories by Manu Larcent
- Mute by Sebastian Skrobol, Dennis Wojda, Bartosz Sztybor
- Jak schudnąć 30kg? (literal translation: How to loose 30kg?) by Tomasz Pstrągowski, Maciej Pałka
- The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 10: 1969–1970 by Charles M. Schulz
I don’t remember when it all started, but I’m really fascinated with graphic novels. They’re mostly quick to go through and great for imagination. I love the variety of topics that can be dealt with in the graphical medium. In order to demonstrate it, let me focus on two very contrasting examples from the list above.
Maus is my go-to answer whenever someone asks me for recommendation for starting with graphical novels. It’s a story of Władek Spiegelman - a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor - told many years after the dreadful events that changed him forever. The book is sometimes regarded as controversial, not only because of the fact that it’s a “comic book about Holocaust”, but also because the author decided to picture all characters as animals. And so: the Jews are pictured as mice (German “Maus” literally means “mouse”), the Germans as cats that hunt them, and the Poles as pigs. The illustrations are black and white and their character changes depending on the emotional state of the characters. The most interesting element of the book for me is how it pictures the consequences of trauma of the main character - many years after the Holocaust, living a comfortable life in the US, he’s hostile towards people of colour and shows the same xenophobic behaviour as his oppressors used to show towards him.
Peanuts is on the exact opposite side of the comics spectrum. It’s a huge collection of 4-panel comic strips that were published continuously for 50 years and tells a story of Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy and their close friends. In this idyllic world the adults almost don’t exist, and the children never grow up. The style of the illustrations is very minimalistic, and it forces readers to focus on subtle nuances and really dive into their relationships. Originally it was released on a daily basis in newspaper, but nowadays a printed version The Complete Peanuts is available. Because of the huge popularity, the books are hard to get, especially the early volumes - fortunately the strips are also available online.
The underwhelming Witcher series
- The Last Wish
- Sword of Destiny
- Blood of Elves
- Time of Contempt, all by Andrzej Sapkowski
I’ve read The Last Wish many years ago and loved it, and after a very enjoyable play-through of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt I was tempted to finally give the whole series of books a go. Let me just say that I should’ve stopped after the first, maybe the second book. The plot is very far-fetched, the characters are flat and there’s not much going on apart from people looking for other people and killing each other. The fact that the Lodge of Sorceresses seemed to only have two ambitions: to have the most see-through evening dress to impress Geralt, and to sleep with Geralt, was only one of many aspects that grossed me out. The books are quick to read, and they are now famous because of the game, but by no means are they good fantasy books.