Best Books of the 2012 (So Far)

We're halfway through the year, so it's time to look back on 2012's reads so far and list favorites:

The End of the Affair - Graham Greene:  Loved this!  Set in London during and just after World War II, the novel examines the obsessions, jealousy and discernments within the relationships between three central characters: writer Maurice Bendrix; Sarah Miles; and her husband, civil servant Henry Miles.





The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje:  Again, set during World War II.  The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out the end of World War II in an Italian villa.



  

The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham:  Maugham is one of my favorite writers.  This is set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s and is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to a remote region of China ravaged by a cholera epidemic.





 
Consequences of the Heart - Peter Cunningham:  Wonderfully engaging.  A love story, a war story, a thriller, and a generational story of two Irish families.








Old School - Tobias Wolff:  Prep school, literary contests, famous writers - this is a book for book lovers and would-be writers!  Set in the early 1960s and narrated by the unnamed protagonist from the vantage point of adulthood, a scholarship boy at a New England prep school grapples with literary ambition and insecurity.








The Traveler - Antal Szerb: More Hungarian authors! I loved the two Dezso Kosztolanyi novels I read last year, but The Traveler tops them both. What's not to like? A honeymoon in Italy, a secret past, a missing childhood friend - I could not stop reading and cannot wait to find a copy of Szerb's Journey by Moonlight.





 
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins: My first Wilkie Collins and, so far, my favorite. This is a perfect mystery!









Lorna Doone - R. D. Blackmore: I finally read this novel after watching the 2001 film dozens of times. It's enormous and thankfully so. Blackmore managed to draw out the drama of Lorna Doone's life without once losing my interest.








The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde: It's hard to believe, but I had not read Dorian Gray before this year. That was my loss, really. I love this story (I have seen the 1945 film - featuring this painting - many, many times), and the end will never cease to surprise and shock me.







Piccadilly Jim - P. G. Wodehouse: I have previously read a few Jeeves and Wooster tales and Leave It to Psmith, but Piccadilly Jim is currently my favorite Wodehouse novel. There is Wodehouse's typical mistaken/false identity surrounding the character of Jimmy Crocker and convoluted plots for revenge. It is filled with witty scenes and a brilliant character in Ann Chester.

The End of the Affair - Graham Greene

     Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is a dark, compelling, and beautifully written novel.  The narrator begins his tale by stating that it is "a record of hate far more than of love."
     Set in London before, during and after World War II, the novel tells of a doomed passionate, romance between a novelist, Maurice Bendrix, and Sarah, the wife of a dull civil servant, Henry.  But it is far from a traditional love story.  Bendrix is consumed by jealousy and even as he is in Sarah's arms he is envisioning the end of their love. His jealously tortures Sarah so that the precious time they spend together is poisoned by it.  His insecurity undermines their love.
     The story begins eighteen months after the affair has ended and Greene moves between past and present to weave the tale of the love and its destruction.  As the story opens, Bendrix meets Sarah's husband by chance and learns that he suspects her of infidelity.  Henry has no idea that Bendrix had an affair with her.  When he mentions that he has considered hiring a private detective to discover if she is being unfaithful, Bendrix, offers to see an investigator for Henry.  The seething jealousy that Bendrix has continued to feel is fueled once again.  He proceeds to hire a detective but the eventual outcome is not what he expects.
     Greene's characters are deep, flawed, tortured, and believable.  Told from the view of Bendrix and also using excerpts from Sarah's journal, their doomed love story is haunting. William Faulkner said of Greene's book, "For me one of the most true and moving novels of my time, in anybody's language."  It is certainly one of the best written books I've read lately.

~ Frances