Chattering Classes & End Times

I started the reading list at the beginning of 2011 ostensibly to keep track of what books I read throughout the year and as reference when people asked me for recommendations, but I really just wanted to see if I could read 50 books in one year.

I did.

Ok, A Chef’s Christmas is probably cheating because it’s really an extended short story and the audio version is all of an hour.  However, not only is this my list, but I spent the ENTIRE SUMMER reading those G. R. R. Martin books – including Feast for Crows which was just like slogging through The Silmarillion and made about as much sense – so if I want to include a lightweight like Bourdain’s raunchy holiday tale or the newest Stephanie Plum novel to reach 50 books for 2011, I can!

None of the other books on the list completely sucked.  The newest by Neal Stephenson was a huge disappointment though.  The story starts out like an awesome Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster complete with a massive multiplayer online game, Chinese hackers, gun nuts and crazy Russian mobsters. Unfortunately, it becomes more “ensemble” film like New Year’s Day where the producers figured they’d hire as many actors as they could then come up with small parts for all of them and then string it all together as a movie.  I wonder if Stephenson had all these characters rattling around in his head with nothing much to do so he “hired” them all to fill the pages of Reamde.

I’m a huge fan of cyberpunk, and Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books ever – it might even be my favorite but I’ve read so many books, that’s a tough call – and Stephenson’s been my favorite author for years. Haruki Murakami, Roberto Bolano, and oddly enough Elizabeth George are also contenders for all time favorite author … and if I had to choose based on their Twitter feed, John Birmingham would rise quickly to the top of the list!  I hate to hold a less than stellar effort against an author, but Mr. Stephenson’s hold on the top spot on my all time list is now pretty precarious.  What with John Birmingham’s Angel of Vengeance arriving in March, I think Neal Stephenson’s reign at the top may be coming to an end.

So what was good in 2011?  I started the year with The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud and ended the year with The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, two books about Brown students and their inability to achieve what they expected upon graduation.  The former takes place at the start of the current century and ends on 9/11; the latter takes place in 1982.  The New York Times refers to Messud’s characters as “the chattering class”, and both books contain a lot of chattering, navel gazing, and love triangles.  That said, as someone who was in college in 1982, Eugenides’ book was almost eerie in its accuracy of what college students did, said, and aspired to back then.  Messud’s characters are beyond my experience, but who doesn’t love eavesdropping on a bunch of 20-something New Yorkers expressing their angst over their existence (which, less face it, is better than 99% of the rest of the country) and then watching them react to the devastation of 9/11.  I’ve met more than a few New Yorkers like these characters and as someone who was affected firsthand by that event in 2001, I have to include Messud’s book in my top 5 reads of 2011.

When I’m not reading about Ivy League grads bemoaning their fate, I enjoy a good disaster epic. If said epic involves technology gone bad, all the better.  Every so often I wonder why this is my favorite fictional storyline – growing up during the Cold War, too many Irwin Allen movies in the 70s, or a real fear that my MacBook Pro may morph into HAL – whatever the reason, I’m a cyberpunk / techno-thriller junkie.  This means entries number 3 and 4 on the top 5 for 2011 are Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero by John Barnes.

Directive 51 is real.  Enacted by that George W. Bush in 2007, this directive replaced similar continuity-of-government plans of the past. What made this one unique is the Bush Administration’s willingness to make its contents public.  In the event of a significant loss of United States leadership, Directive 51 creates the office of National Constitutional Continuity Advisor (NCCA) which at this point in time would be filled by the current Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security. What’s really significant here is that the NCCA can do anything necessary to help the country recover, without the checks and balances put in place by the founding fathers, and with the ability to abolish our Republic if he or she believes it necessary based on the current situation.

In Barnes world, people are fed up with technology and all that it entails. From unibomber types to disaffected teenagers, people go online to express their frustration with the “Big System” and get caught up in the Daybreak phenomenon.  Working as one large force, this group destroys all modern technology – all that’s left is at best 19th century editions, and America’s thrust back in the early industrial age.  It’s like we decide to take down Cyberdyne only to discover we really liked the world of advanced technology but, oops, it’s gone now, and who the heck is going to run the country when all our leaders are dead and gone?

Kind of makes you want to find out who our current Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security is right?

… and if that doesn’t make you wonder if the Mayans were on to something come 2012, there’s the fifth entry on my best of 2011 list: Feed by Mira Grant.  Thirty years after the zombie apocalypse caused by the combination of the discovery of the cure for the common cold and cancer – we don’t get sick but when we die, we rise again because the virus created by these two miracle cures goes to work to bring us back – 3 bloggers sign on to cover the presidential campaign of a liberal Republican. I listened to the audiobook and almost turned it off based on the initial “young adult” feel, but am so glad I stuck with it.  Bloggers, zombies, back room politics, and journalists divided into “newsies”, “fictionals”, “stewarts” who write opinion informed by fact, and “irwins”, the Hunter S. Thompsons of this new world order (or maybe the Irwin Allens?) populate the near future where no one goes outside for fear of zombie attack, and every mammal over 40 pounds is suspect.

Did I mention in this post-rising world, we can’t get cancer? The advertisement below should give you a taste of the fun and excitement (and a little horror) to be found in Mira Grant’s world:

Feed is book one in the Newsflesh trilogy, and someone went to a lot of trouble to build an amazing website to go along with the book.  If you like a good futuristic novel don’t let the zombies put you off – this one is well worth a read or listen!

To recap, my top five reads for 2011 are:

1.  The Emperor’s Children  by Claire Messud

2.  The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

3.  Directive 51 by John Barnes

4.  Daybreak Zero by John Barnes

5.  Feed by Mira Grant

The last book in the Daybreak series comes out in April 2012 and the last in the Newsflesh series comes out in May.  What with John Birmingham’s Angel of Vengeance appearing stateside in March, I can only say that my reading list for 2012 will be apocalyptic so stay tuned!

One final note: If you want to read and review 26 or 52 books this year (biweekly or weekly or your own schedule I suppose), check out Cannonball Read IV hosted this year by my good friend @mswas.