The Kammerzelt List

 The New York Times recently released a list of the 100 best books of the 20th Century. That list is  . . . fine. I like some of the books, haven't read many of them, and am only outraged by a few omissions. 

But I like lists. And their exercise prompted me to create my own "Best of," which is only 30 entries. Here is the authoritative, Dan Kammerzelt, list:

The Best Books of the 21st Century

30. A Time for Everything -Karl Ove Knausgaard

29. War & Turpentine -Stefan Hertmans

28. Shadowlands: Fear and Freedom at the Oregon Standoff -Anthony McCann

27. Political Fictions -Joan Didion

26. Ducks -Kate Beaton

25. Like You'd Understand, Anyway -Jim Shepard

24. The Quick and the Dead -Joy Williams

23. A Book of American Martyrs -Joyce Carol Oates

22. Battleborn -Claire Vaye Watkins

21. The Morning Star -Karl Ove Knausgaard

20. The Son -Philip Meyer

19. NW -Zadie Smith

18. The Road -Cormac McCarthy

17. The Human Stain -Philip Roth

16. We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland -Fintan O'Toole

15. Whereas -Layli Long Soldier

14. The Marriage Plot -Jeffrey Eugenides

13. Shadow Country -Peter Matthiessen

12. Between the World and Me -Ta-Nehisi Coates

11. The Year of Magical Thinking -Joan Didion

10. The Netanyahus -Joshua Cohen

9. Wolf Hall (trilogy) -Hillary Mantel (Unlike the Times, I grouped collected works. In this case, the last book--The Mirror and the Light--is the best of the three.)

8. Swing Time -Zadie Smith

7. The Argonauts -Maggie Nelson

6. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius -Dave Eggers

5. Gilead -Marylinne Robinson

4. The Books of Jacob -Olga Tokarczuk

3. Stay True - Hua Hsu

2. My Struggle (1-6) -Karl Ove Knausgaard

1. Outline (trilogy) -Rachel Cusk

Honorable Mention: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, Just Kids by Patti Smith, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, The Best of It by Kay Ryan, Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang

Trask

 Trask by Don Berry is a paragon among Oregon novels. It isn't Sometimes a Great Notion, but it's a terrific story of European settlement and Indigenous resistance that makes me, an Oregonian, view the foothills around my house with a new sense of gratitude and wonder. Elbridge Trask, a (real, historical) mountain man lives in the coastal plains south of Astoria. He feels an inchoate desire to explore the interior--the thick forested regions south down the shore. To do this, he needs to recruit local Clatsop tribesmen to help him navigate the many obstacles and negotiate with the wary Killamook tribe. Their journey is meticulously detailed and fraught with tension. The collapse of Trask's optimism and the subsequent conflicts lead to an ending that is shocking, original, and transcendent. 

One of the joys of Trask is its reality: the landscape is familiar to anyone whose visited the north coast of Oregon, from Seaside to Ecola State Park to Short Sands and beyond. They aren't called that in the novel, of course, but the shore is accurately portrayed as it would exist without Anglo settlement. The landscape itself is a major character, at times benevolent, often hostile. Trask is a book that stays with you, and visits to the Oregon Coast--which happen about three times a year for me--will forever be altered by this powerful text.

The Leopard

 The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is widely considered one of the great historical novels. His only work of fiction, The Leopard describes the family life of an Italian prince (with the titular nickname) during the shifting allegiances of the Risorgimento. Jim Shepard considers this a top work, which is what drew me to it, and I enjoyed it. Tomasi was a real Sicilian nobleman and prince. His novel is skillfully written, with engaging characterization, and a perspective that only can come from a certain position in a certain historical moment.

That perspective is interesting. I'm fuzzy on 19th-Century Italian politics, but it essentially describes the decline of the aristocracy through the eyes of the aristocracy. In that way, The Leopard reminds me of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur. Farrell's novel tells of the fall of British colonialism, in India, from a colonial perspective. Those two narrative voices--aristocratic and colonial--are certainly out of favor today. But both novels are successful, perhaps because they're so authentic. Farrell and Tomasi aren't apologists for the oppressors; they simply understand that culture better. The strength of both novels comes in the periphery of the action, where history is surging and infringing on the daily manners of out-of-touch protagonists.