Taking Stock of 2024

Well this is rather embarrassing. The best book I read in 2024 — They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy — is one that I have singularly failed to write about. I keep thinking that I will sit down and write about it stages until I have given the work its due, and hasn’t happened in the several months since I finished reading this amazing but little-known novel. Bánffy himself led quite a life. He came from one of the most distinguished families in Transylvania and rose to be Foreign Minister of Hungary between the two world wars. He organized the last coronation of a King of Hungary, in 1916. He championed the avant-garde music of Béla Bartók. During the Second World War, he tried to lead Hungary and Romania out of the Axis alliance, but negotiations foundered over which country would control Transylvania.

He also wrote plays, short stories and The Writing on the Wall a trilogy of historical novels set in Hungary in the last years before the Great War. They are in the grand tradition of nineteenth-century novels about people and society. Bánffy could keep company with the great Russian novelists, except that his work is practically unknown. The first volume of the trilogy was published in Hungary in 1934; the last in 1940 in the middle of the war. The works were first translated into English in 1999, and into German in 2012. I don’t know if they’ve been translated into any other major languages yet. I hope they eventually find an audience; They Were Counted is brilliant. Bánffy’s two main characters are young cousins, members of the Hungarian nobility. One would like to reform both his estates and national affairs more generally; he is pushed and pulled by entrenched interests as well as people who would go much further. The other is a talented composer and musician, but he can never quite get over being adopted, and plenty of the noble caste are willing to remind him of his status. Both young men struggle with love and prospects of marriage; they are also prone to some of the vices of their class. The book drew me into a lost world, filled with a large number of rounded characters whose joys and struggles are with me still. Maybe I will write more about it soon. Ish.

I read a baker’s dozen translations this past year, spread a bit more widely among languages than in recent years. The most common pair was Russian to English (The Road, Metro 2033, An Armenian Sketchbook, The Helmet of Horror), and those were disparate in their content: two from the middle of the 20th century by Vasily Grossman, some pulpy science fiction, and more strangeness from Viktor Pelevin, which is what I read him for. Hugo nominations led me to two works translated from Chinese to English; one was to my taste (Seeds of Mercury), the other very much was not (Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet). I read two books translated from Polish, one into English (The Issa Valley) and one into German (Die Welt hinter Dukla). All the others were singletons: from Hungarian (They Were Counted), from Swedish to German (Der Tod eines Bienenzüchters), from Korean (Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982), from French (The Way by Swann’s), and from Spanish to German (Landschaften nach der Schlacht). The three translations into German were all from the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s two sets of great novels of the 20th century. I’d disagree with the newspaper’s editors in that one of the three was great (Der Tod eines Bienenzüchters), one was fine (Die Welt hinter Dukla), and one left me skeptical about ever reading another of the author’s works (Landschaften nach der Schlacht). But the series keeps introducing me to authors I would probably never read otherwise, and that’s exactly what I want it to do. The best of the translated novels was They Were Counted, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of Bánffy’s trilogy.

The only real re-reading I did in 2024 was Little, Big by John Crowley. While in Texas this summer, I bought a copy of the twenty-fifth anniversary edition, which was published just in time for the book’s fortieth anniversary in 2021. It is a gorgeous example of the printer’s and bookmaker’s arts. The pages are smooth and strokeable; the art complements the text and is generously placed throughout the novel. The publishers have paid attention to a great many small details. I think that each of the novel’s six major sections begins a new signature of pages, so that the book opens very naturally at breaks in its story. The tale itself is every bit as deep and engrossing as I remember from several previous readings, though I had not visited in many years. I have not quite finished as 2024 comes to an end — 630 pages out of 736 — but Little, Big is not a book that needs hurrying. I did not read any full volumes of poetry this year. That happens sometimes. I read 37 books that were written by men; I read 25 books that were written by women; if any of the authors listed below are non-binary, I am happy to be corrected.

In good years for reading in German, about 10 percent of the books that I read are in that language. Last year that bumped up to eight, though 2022 was more typical with five, and though 2021 was a weird year for reading I also read five books in German that year. This past spring, though, I noticed that my interests — finally catching something I had meant to read for years, a recommendation about a Berlin book, a new Tintenherz adventure from Claudia Funke — had led me to read a book auf Deutsch each month so far in 2024. Could I keep up that pace for a full year? And thus an observation turned into a goal. The answer turned out to be yes, and I read 13 books in German (two in October), by far the most in at least 20 years. (Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift, Marzahn Mon Amour, Die Farbe der Rache, Der Tod eines Bienenzüchters, Stille Zeile Sechs, Menschen im Hotel, Die Welt hinter Dukla, Das Konzert, Mein litauischer Führerschein, Die Physiker, Das Lied von der russischen Erde, Landschaften nach der Schlacht, Der Geliebte der Mutter)

It was a good exercise, on the whole. I read some books that I had intended to read for a long time. I dove back in to the Süddeutsche Zeitung‘s list of great novels of the 20th century. My speed increased, and I felt more at home reading in the language. The goal, combined with already owning so many books from the Süddeutsche sets, meant that I tried ten authors whose works were new to me, three of them translated from yet other languages: Polish, Spanish and Swedish. (Even at its best, my Polish was nowhere near good enough to read whole books.) But I probably won’t push to reach the same number in 2025. For one thing, the goal made me too conscious of finishing the books in a certain amount of time. For another, I found that I have a practical limit of about 300 pages in German per month, with rare exceptions. Twelve a year means I’m limiting myself to shorter works, and there are some longer books I’m looking forward to. Finally, reading is enjoyable. I don’t want to clutter it up with too many other concerns.

Best alternate history with a final scene that I’m still somewhat cranky about almost a year later: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. Most unsettlingly brilliant short-story collections: After the Apocalypse and Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh. Most astonishing example of the historian’s craft: Empire of Refugees by Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky. Most furious book I read this year: either Stille Zeile Sechs by Monika Maron or Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. Funniest book I read this year: Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Best Elizabethan-era adventure mysteries: A Famine of Horses and A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm.

Full list, roughly in order read, is under the fold with links to my reviews and other writing about the authors here at Frumious.

Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift by Franz Werfel
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
The Chemical Wedding by John Crowley
The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard
The Road by Vasily Grossman
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
Marzahn Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp
Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree
The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher
What Could Possibly Go Wrong by Jodi Taylor
The Joy and Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh
Die Farbe der Rache by Cornelia Funke
The Issa Valley by Czeslaw Milosz
Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh
Der Tod eines Bienenzüchters by Lars Gustafsson
Empire of Refugees by Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky
An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman
A Song of Comfortable Chairs by Alexander McCall Smith
The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
Stille Zeile Sechs by Monika Maron
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling
The Way by Swann’s by Marcel Proust
City of Bones by Martha Wells
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Mammoths at the Gate by Nghi Vo
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
Seeds of Mercury by Wang Jinkang
Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das
Die Welt hinter Dukla by Andrzej Stasiuk
The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin
Das Konzert by Hartmut Lange
And Go Like This by John Crowley
Mein litauischer Führerschein by Felix Ackermann
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
False Value by Ben Aaronovitch
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold
Die Physiker by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
The Helmet of Horror by Victor Pelevin
Witch King by Martha Wells
Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch
Das Lied von der russischen Erde by Michael Thumann
A Famine of Horses by P.F. Chisholm
Wiinter’s Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch
Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch
Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer
A Season of Knives by P.F. Chisholm
Landschaften nach der Schlacht by Juan Goytisolo
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Der Geliebte der Mutter by Urs Widmer
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Lagniappe:
Hugo Awards 2024: Wrapping Up
Hugo Awards 2024: Best Short Story
Hugo Awards 2024: Best Related Work
Hugo Awards 2024: General and Some Novellas
Hugo Awards 2024: Best Novelette
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, Pt. 3