By Răzvan Ion
Refusing to compile a ‘best of’ list—there is no ‘best of’ in literature, only literature and the pleasure of reading — these are the books that gave me intellectual pleasure this year, in 2024: Justin Torres, Alan Hollinghurst, Judith Butler, and Danez Smith.
Justin Torres, whose novel Blackouts won the National Book Award, discusses sex in fiction, censorship, and the allure of what unfolds in the shadows. Blackouts is the kind of novel that reshapes literature. Two distinct forms—erasure poetry and queer history—collide to create an epic dialogue between a seminal 20th-century queer sexology text and two unreliable queer Puerto Rican narrators (or perhaps three, depending on how one interprets the conclusion). Although marketed as a novel, Blackouts resists easy categorisation as either fiction or non-fiction. It is a work of both grace and indignity; of bruises and bones; of the ever-entwined eroticism of life and death. ‘From a certain distance, the catastrophic must be indistinguishable from the sublime,’ Torres writes. In Blackouts, this luminous book, he achieves precisely that: holding us at the perfect distance to witness it all.
I have read all his marvellous books, from The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), now firmly established as a modern classic, to The Line of Beauty (Booker Prize, 2004). But I am convinced that Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst is the author’s finest novel yet. Spanning decades of gay life in England, from the 1960s to the pandemic, it captures an actor’s memories with glowing intensity. Its chapters feel almost inhabitable: places to which one might return for sustenance on ‘little mental occasions’ not yet imagined. Hollinghurst’s precision with sentiment puts any loose sentimentality to shame. Above all, he is an appreciator, revelling in the inexhaustible particularity of what people do, create, and perceive. That extraordinary capacity for appreciation takes on new emotional and political resonance here, in Our Evenings—undoubtedly the finest novel yet from one of the greatest writers of our time.
In Who’s Afraid of Gender?, Judith Butler, the renowned gender theorist, ventures into the mainstream. The American activist, who has been falsely accused of denying the importance of sex, makes a poignant appeal for gender diversity. As both a human rights advocate and a theorist, Butler conveys an urgent message that runs through all their work: why are so many people so willing to surrender their power to increasingly authoritarian forces? And why are they so confident that this power will never be turned against them? Butler’s book is best described as a perceptive examination of the ideologies and systems of power that exploit gender—and, more specifically, fear—as tools to categorise and diminish lives. With characteristic sharpness, they critique these forces while urging a vision to ‘make gender promising again.’ Yet, the book also serves as a sobering reminder: it is all too easy to act from a place of raw emotion, but doing so may not always advance one’s cause.
Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith has been described by The Guardian as “‘Afropessimism’ as an art form.” The American poet’s dark, politically charged fourth collection addresses the deep-seated issue of anti-Blackness and the aftermath of the George Floyd protests. ‘Apologies. I was part of the joy/industrial complex, told them their bodies were/ miracles & they ate it up.’ Smith experiments with form, structure, and design throughout this collection. It is experiential and existential, perhaps signalling a new era of politically conscious poetry that moves away from notions of individual empowerment in favour of collective enlightenment. Bluff is a sharply focused work, meditating on grief, home, the next world—both here and beyond—and, most unexpectedly, guilt. A brilliant poet with a fresh, new vision.
Poetry, non-fiction, genre-bending brilliance—these are the gifts these books offer in 2024. The authors are among those rare voices that invite us to see the world through shifting lenses, each one unveiling new truths and expanding our understanding. With every page, they lead us to think, feel, and experience the world anew.
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