Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2000

to have rde witt, is to vote for it

Greed by Elfriede Jelinek
Ignorance by Milan Kundera
My Sad Republic by Eric Gamalinda

^ mood

sorry to say that I have read precisely 0 of these, though feel like I know a few of them fairly well from reviews & review shows of the time, think I paid a lot of attention to the booker prize this year for some reason.

looks like it might be a stronger year than usual but can still see this being a blowout, provided you've all done your homework (on the circle line)

Liked Ravelstein and The Amber Spyglass Pullman. Loved Perdido Street Station. But House of Leaves has left a peculiar mark on me that won't wash away. So that.

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

I haven't read anything else. Guess White Teeth is going to win though.

I've read 5 of these plus half of The Last Samurai. I think I'll vote for House of Leaves despite the Johnny Truant parts.

I read The Last Samurai but I remember really enjoying True History of the Kelly Gang so I'll give that a vote.

last! samurai!!!!

House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin
True History Of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
Baudolino by Umberto Eco

I thought House of Leaves was a good ghost story suffering under the weight of too much metatextual nonsense, The Last Samurai was ok I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, voting for True History Of The Kelly Gang.

my conjecture lies in ruins

the only other book i've read on this list is house of leaves, almost twenty years ago at this point, tho i remember vividly when he discovered prostate stimulation

I read The Amber Spyglass in one night like a good little boy. (the other book I read in one sitting at that age was Clive Barker's The Thief Of Always, lol.) anyway, Pullman is fine to good but TLS is some all-time pantheon material, also lol at reading half of it and putting it down forever just as shit kicks off

My end-of-teens self is smashing that button on House of Leaves with nary a regret.

I thought House of Leaves was a good ghost story suffering under the weight of too much metatextual nonsense

I think it's a v good ghost story with great metatextual nonsense but suffering under the weight of having a supposedly "punk" "cool" guy as a narrator who made me cringe even as a teen. Sort that issue out and I don't think even old me would have any problems with it.

Perdido Street Station for me, the weird bug sex, the terrifying moths, the bit early on where the city council casually calls on Satan to help with them and he disappears in a puff of smoke as soon as he finds out what they're up against, great stuff.

Will also give a s/o to When We Were Orphans, doesn't get much mention in Ishiguro's ouevre but its depiction of an immigrant who thought he'd blended in perfectly but was actually super obvious made me cringe with recognition.

More enthusiasm in this thread than for the entire 90's it seems.

Feast of the Goat was horrifying and left a big impression on me when I read it, but it has to be The Last Samurai. It’s a book that endlessly rewards you with more of what you want even if you don’t know that you want it. Hers are character types that you just don’t see depicted anywhere else. Her counterpoint to the Great American male academic felt so refreshing. And it’s mad. Didn’t she stitch the whole thing together from dozens of separate projects?

There’s nothing better imo than a decent metatextual narrative that requires a lot of detective work and engagement with pockets of clues to discover new truths. That’s what I wanted House of Leaves to be, but the writing was so distractingly bad and puerile it was impossible to get through. Maybe he was supposed to be a hack and I failed to see the levels, but it seemed far too pleased with itself for that.

oh nice we're starting to get books i've read again

write-in vote for Revelation Space

have read nothing else 8(

A lot of good books on this list (surprised not to see any love in the thread yet for White Teeth or Chabon's most popular book) but True History of the Kelly Gang towers above them all!

(But tbf I haven't read Last Samurai or House of Leaves)

I've read White Teeth, Ravelstein, and When We Were Orphans, which were all decent to good, but this is an easy vote for True History of the Kelly Gang.

The Last Samurai is not quite like anything else I've read, a unique combination of pleasures, on field trips with just the right mad professor.

House of Leaves (because I liked it but also because I finished it - there are a couple of books on this list like White Teeth that I couldn’t really get more than a few pages into).

House of Leaves (because I liked it but also because I finished it - there are a couple of books on this list like White Teeth that I couldn’t really get more than a few pages into).

(I don’t think Zadie Smith is a bad writer; she may just not be for me, or maybe I’m not fully ready for her. The only book of hers I’ve read all the way is NW. It was OK.)

'the last samurai' is perhaps my most successful book gift ever; the recipient read it twice within six months

and now i'm fucked because nothing will ever measure up but i still want to try

feast of the goat is very solid late Vargas Llosa. voted for it because no-one else will.

Joining in the votes for The Last Samurai.

Kavalier and Clay was pretty good too, Chabon's best book I think, but the middle section with the South Pole and all those dead dogs really dragged it down.

Strongly disliked The Amber Spyglass.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Human Stain was one of my favorite novels after reading it twice. Now falls into the realm of problematic 90s art that might be best in memory. But I still think of it often.

Voted The Last Samurai, probably my favorite book of the 21st century. When We Were Orphans drove me nuts, though it at least feels more like a real novel than The Buried Giant.

Voted The Last Samurai, probably my favorite book of the 21st century. When We Were Orphans drove me nuts, though it at least feels more like a real novel than The Buried Giant.

argh sorry about that

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2001

Little surprised at only one vote for White Teeth, guess she's never been an ILX fave (I haven't read).

Same here, thought there would be more.

The Human Stain is a pretty troubling book but it has a superb closing set piece on the ice that comes to mind fairly often.

Didn't see this on the list but Popular Music from Vittula is GREAT, not so great it makes me regret my vote for Kelly Gang, but seriously, people, read this really good traditional coming-of-age novel set in Northern Sweden, it's just plain good

Love Smith but she got much better after White Teeth, On Beauty will be a serious contender for me depending on what it's up against

thankfully the other Beauty novel is from the previous year

i like white teeth a lot, probably would have voted for it if it came out in a different year than last samurai

i haven’t read anything else of hers but i once read an interview where she says that she was embarrassed by white teeth and how young and naive and reckless she was when she wrote it and how brazenly she assumes the voices of all these different perspectives and my rxn like nooo that’s what was so good about it