I’ve been in a terrible fiction slump for most of the last year or so. Toward the end of 2004 I was astounded by Ha Jin’s War Trash and even more so by David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas—easily the best book I’ve read in at least three years. But as often happens after reading a masterpiece, I couldn’t start the engine on anything else. I took in Ha Jin’s Waiting (not as good) and Mitchell’s Ghostwritten (not as good), but both were almost residual pleasures—I didn’t want their other novels to end, so I simply read more by them. Beyond those, I’ve had a lot of false starts—Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Russell Banks’ The Darling being the most recent duds. Instead I’ve found refuge in science books. But I have to admit I feel incomplete when I’m not reading a novel. The good news is that two favorites have new books coming very soon.
First up, Colson Whitehead’s long anticipated new novel, Apex Hides the Hurt, arrives this week. I was thrilled with Whitehead’s debut novel, The Intuitionist, when I read it three or four years ago. It was a fast paced noir mystery with some inventive tweaks, particularly that it concerned elevator repairmen with obsessive knowledge of their trade—no, craft—and its conspiracy-laden history. It had small flaws, usually cropping up in little flashbacks or character tangents that slackened the pace, but overall it was such a unique work that I could easily look beyond these hiccups. Whitehead’s second novel, John Henry Days, unfortunately took all the flaws of The Intuitionist and wore them like a badge. The book was sprawling and polyphonic, drowning the story. Somewhere in there was a story that hooked me, but I don’t find myself recommending it as I do The Intuitionist. Now we have Apex. I’m eager to see the direction Whitehead goes, and whether he can recapture or reinvent the magic of his first book.
Next month David Mitchell returns with Black Swan Green, a novel I’d venture to guess will inevitably fail under the weight of the residual hype of and immense expectations resulting from his last novel, Cloud Atlas. Ed Champion and Bookdwarf apparently already have advance copies and have begun discussing the book as if we can all follow along. Me, I’ll wait until I’ve read it myself before I delve too deep into what they have to say.
Update: The reviews for Apex are already trickling in. Conversational Reading points to a handful of reviews (which I'm not reading yet), one of which is by Mr. Reading himself.
I agree, Cloud Atlas is one of the best books I've ever read, can't wait for his new novel...
If you're looking for the same kind of genius, I'd recommend reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
Posted by: jan | March 26, 2006 at 05:14 AM