Best of 2008 Picks -- Andrew Wheeeler
Part One: Books
I read a number of good books in 2008, but hardly any that I’d call great – that could mean that it was a weak year, or that I was just reading the wrong books. (That’s always the problem: it’s hard to generalize from what’s always a limited, idiosyncratic selection of a vast range.) But, instead of complaining about the disappointments, it’s better to celebrate the achievements – so I’ll do that instead.
My reading was all over the map this year – lots of popular nonfiction (mostly not great, but interesting), piles of fiction across a couple of genres, and a strong focus on comics and graphic novels, which I’ve been reviewing elsewhere online for the last year and a half. And, after sifting and sorting and thinking for a while, I have two lists of good books – one of Science Fiction and Fantasy (which, I’m afraid, I spent a lot less time reading in 2008 than I had in previous years) and one of whatever we’re calling comic books with a fat square spine this year.
List One: SFF
As with anybody’s list, this is very much the best of what I managed to read – and I managed to read a lot less SFF in 2008 than I used to. (Ah, well. Such is life.) But here are the gems I did find:
Iain M. Banks, Matter – A new Culture book, with strange new societies, well-rounded characters, and some interesting Big Dumb Objects. Shame about the stately pace, though.
Toby Barlow, Sharp Teeth – The most audacious novel I’ve read or heard of in years: an epic novel in verse about love, death, and werewolves in Los Angeles. It’s exceptionally successful at something that seems impossible, the work of a modern skald.
Terry Pratchett, Nation – His first standalone in ages tells the story of one young woman and one young man building a society – it’s as quietly, secretly didactic as all of his best books, and as totally rational and thoughtful as we’ve come to expect from Pratchett.
Matthew Stover, Caine Black Knife – I have a soft spot – or, to be more accurate, a hard, calloused outcropping of bone – for this series, so it was a thrill to see it come back after a decade. Caine is one of the great bastards of fantasy, and this is a great story.
Charles Stross, Saturn’s Children – Stross tries to emulate the positivity and neuroses of late Heinlein, and ends up creating something weirdly mixed: a universe dour and depressive at its core, with a bubbly heroine skating over the surface. It’s odd, idiosyncratic, and compellingly readable.
Michael Swanwick, The Dragons of Babel – The very loose sequel to Swanwick’s magnificent The Iron Dragon’s Daughter betrays its fix-up origin in several ways, but it’s still a great picaresque tour through a very 21st century Faerie, by one of our best writers.
Walter Jon Williams, Implied Spaces – Williams does something different each time out, and this time he’s expanded a nearly swords & sorcery novella into a medium-future novel of a society holding itself just this side of the Singularity – and of the forces that want to push it over.
List Two: Comics
My reading was much deeper in comics, graphic novels and manga this year than it had been in the past, but I’m still sure I didn’t see half of the good stuff. (And I avoided most of the “mainstream” superhero comics to begin with.) But here are ten books worth reading that came out in 2008:
Lynda Barry, editor, The Best American Comics: 2008 – This one is probably a cheat, since it collects comics that originally came out in 2007, but it’s a wonderful collection of amazingly varied things, well-curated by Barry and wrapped up with a great new comics introduction from her.
Holly Black & Ted Naifeh, The Good Neighbors, Book 1: Kin – A story of teenagers encountering the faerie world, from a fine artist and one of our best novelists for young readers.
Joshua W. Cotter, Skyscrapers of the Midwest – Comics, at their best, can turn metaphors into reality and vice versa, which is what this great graphic novel does: it tells the story of a ten-year-old boy in 1988 with and through his fantasies as well as his real life – all mixed up until it doesn’t matter which is which.
Rick Geary, The Lindbergh Child – Geary has been crafting stories of Victorian murder and mayhem for a decade now, but he’s moved a bit forward in time to tell, in his usual impeccably-researched and carefully nuanced way, the story of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son.
Gilbert Hernandez, Speak of the Devil – A very dark noir tale of stalkers, peeping toms, love triangles, and gymnastics – a rare self-contained story from the author of the vast, sprawling Palomar epic.
Scott McCloud, Zot! 1987-1991 – Some of the best meta-superhero comics of the past twenty-five years are finally collected, and it’s about time.
Cyril Pedrosa, The Three Shadows – A stunning story, magnificently told, with art as wonderful as the events are powerful; it’s simply one of the best novels of the year, in any form or medium.
Nate Powell, Swallow Me Whole – Another dark tale of adolescence and change, focusing on a brother and sister cut off from the world by their own perceptions and feelings.
Dash Shaw, Bottomless Belly Button – A massive family story in deceptively cartoony art; the Looney family bounces off each other for one last week as their parents prepare for their irrevocable divorce after forty years of marriage.
Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Good-Bye – The third volume of Tatsumi’s devastating stories to be translated and published in the West includes “Hell,” a corrosive tale of cynicism and Hiroshima and eight more that are nearly as powerful.
Part Two: Music
I feel less of a need to explain away my sporadic patterns of consumption when it comes to music – everyone has their own, idiosyncratic areas of music that they like, and we all are unreliable outside of that area. Come to think of it, there’s no guarantee that any of us are very reliable even within the areas we like, but let’s leave that aside for now.
My own tastes tend to run towards indy pop and rock: the mutated shards of what was “alternative” last decade and still sometimes bear that banner now. And I learn about music almost entirely through the Internet these days, so my picks skew that way – which generally means small and quirky, but also implies young and tech-savvy as well. So there are vast areas – including nearly everything that gets played on the radio these days – that I’m pretty much ignorant of. With that in mind, here’s some music I really liked that came out last year.
List One: Albums
I have an even dozen records – I’m old enough to call them “records,” and even to have some in that format lying around somewhere – to call to your attention:
The Airborne Toxic Event, The Airborne Toxic Event – How could I resist a band with a name straight out of Don DeLillo’s White Noise? Their sound is a bit like that – urgent, pulsing, demanding – and the best song is “Wishing Well,” which leads off.
Camphor, Drawn to Dust – Quiet and moody songs about various kinds of loss, including the great “Confidences Shattered.”
The Charlatans, You Cross My Path – Yeah, it’s those guys – the early ‘90s “Madchester” band – still around, with a resurgent sound and a great title track.
KaiserCartel, March Forth – She’s Kaiser, he’s Cartel – they live in Brooklyn and make music about changing seasons and the usual relationship stuff, but with an elegance and grace that sets them apart.
Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue – Splitting the difference between the country twang of her first solo album Rabbit Fur Coat (with the Watson Twins) and the harder guitar edge of her regular band Rilo Kiley, Lewis here sings straightforwardly but no more happily than she usually does.
Aimee Mann, @#%$! Smilers – The hardest title to spell of the year is another feast of remorse and broken dreams from the reigning queen of the sad song.
Shannon McArdle, Summer of the Whore – She emerged from the long-expected break-up of The Mendoza Line, and of her marriage with the other main singer of that band, with this strong set of songs that I hope is the definitive version of her bad-relationship work. Particularly strong are the title track and “He Was Gone,” about a baby that never was.
Mono in VCF, Mono in VCF – Widescreen music from a new band, with every song sounding like the end credits of some ‘60s movie you’re sure you saw once, long ago.
Mr. Gnome, Deliver This Creature – Aggressively arty rock, all spiky tones and sudden shifts of tone and volume.
New Frontiers, Mending – I could say that this is the great follow-up to New Miserable Experience that Gin Blossoms never recorded, but that would be facile and unfair. There is a mid-‘90s radio-friendly alt-rock feel to New Frontiers, but they keep it from sounding musty and old-fashioned.
Rupa & the April Fishes, eXtraOrdinary Rendition – Jazzy world music in several languages, with less political content than you’d expect from the title.
Anna Ternheim, Halfway to Fivepoints – I hadn’t known that Beth Orton had a posse, but Ternheim comes from the same area – quiet songs, usually with spare instrumentation, and a clear, crisp but obviously accented voice floating above it all.
List Two: Songs
Some of these folks don’t have full-length albums out yet, and some of them have albums that I haven’t managed to hear. (And some of them might have albums where I’m not crazy about the rest, but I won’t say so specifically.) Since I find that music is so often dependent on mood, I’ve divided this list further, into quiet songs and rocking songs:
Quiet:
Biirdie, “Who Were You Thinkin’ Of” – Asking that unlikely question, the morning after an unexpectedly good night before, in a song that stops just short of actually rollicking.
Haley Bonar, “Big Star” – A lovely song about stardom and longing – maybe the distaff side of Fountains of Wayne’s “Hackensack.”
Doug Burr, “In the Garden” – I haven’t decided what this one is about yet – it doesn’t seem to be the obvious biblical “garden” – but I keep listening to its building power and murmured vocals.
Jaymay, “Blue Skies” – It has a slow, steady rhythm that feels like holding back from something, as if it’s gathering force to launch itself up into those blue skies.
Caroline Keating, “Ghosts” – Opening with a plinky, stop-and-start piano and Keating’s neo-flapper voice, it sounds like the best song from 1927 that you never heard.
Loom, “Song for the Winter Sun” – Almost entirely handclaps, mandolin and voice, it’s a lovely, and surprisingly sunny, shuffle through the darkest time of year.
Midwest Dilemma, “The Great Depression” – This song has a sound and elliptical lyrical style reminiscent of late ‘80s Camper Van Beethoven, and is part of a larger song cycle about the singer’s family story – it’s about the Great Depression.
Pale Young Gentlemen, “The Crook of My Good Arm” – Violin – or maybe a viola; it’s very deep – introduces an orchestrally dark song that never quite explains what is in the crook of that arm.
Tracy Shedd, “Whatever It Takes” – Another fine female singer/songwriter, with a confident voice, a point of view, and a way with words.
Jane Vain & the Dark Matter, “C’mon Baby Say Bang Bang” – Some songs just create their own worlds, as this one does, right from the beginning.
Elizabeth Willis, “One” – Another woman singing over piano about loss, with a well-trained and deeply expressive voice.
Rocking:
65days of Static, “Dance Parties (Distant)” – Even I want to jump up when I hear this – possibly to take up arms against the totalitarian future dictatorship; it has fantastic energy but I’m not precisely sure what it’s about.
The Blood Lines, “Modern Science” – Softly melodic rock that grows stronger as it goes on; pretty traditionalist but incredibly listenable.
Chevelles, “Get It On” – Pure kick-out-the-jams rock from an Aussie band that knows how to do it right.
Creature, “Brigitte Bardot” – A bizarre, compelling catchy dance tune about having sex and doing drugs with Bardot – well, maybe, and only if she wants to – and partying on a satellite.
Cruiserweight, “Balboa” – Another straightforward rocker with a female singer with a crisp voice, singing a metaphor about that boxer dude from the movies.
The Ettes, “Marathon” – The Ettes are like what would happen if half of the Donnas kidnapped a man for a cross-country ride of destruction, then got bored and just decided to trash the place.
Gram Rabbit, “American Hookers” – A distorted, fuzzy romp through what’s probably a nightmare version of today.
Hypernova, “Fairy Tales” – The greatest, rockingest band from Iran – and, despite how that might sound, it’s both true and meaningful – tears through a story of unhappy love. The fact that they risked prison or worse to play this music adds that extra bite.
Killola, “This Is How the World Ends” – Another female singer, with that growly delivery we all used to love about fifteen years ago. I know nothing about the band, but it’s a great song.
Terrordactyls, “Growing Old” – Plinky, low-fi energy – there’s a kazoo solo about halfway through, which works amazingly well – lurches through a cover of a song I’d never heard before.
Tilly & the Wall, “Pot Kettle Black” – This is the band famous for having a tap dancer as their percussion section – sure, it’s a weird gimmick, but it really works, especially on this song.
Part Three: Movies
This list is, if anything, even more disorganized and haphazard than the first two. I don’t see movies systematically for any reason, and there’s probably less reason to trust my judgment on movies than on books. (Though there’s no strong reason to trust me on music, either – come to think of it. Hell, my book credentials mostly add up to “has worked with them for a long time.”)
Added to that is the fact that I don’t see a whole lot of movies in the theater, since I’m a boring suburban guy with two kids. So I’m cheating, and including some 2007 movies in my best of 2008 list, since I didn’t get to see them until 2008. So, with all that stated up front, here are some interesting movies that I saw last year. They’re certainly not the nine best movies of 2008, but they’re all worth seeing:
Dan in Real Life – It doesn’t quite live up to what it could be; the ending is pleasant and conclusive enough, but very Hollywood-y. But, along the way, this movie depicts yearning, sudden attraction, and the desire not to do the wrong things – staples of romantic comedy, and usually homogenized down to blandness – honestly and clearly, with a fine performance by Steve Carrell at the center. Watch it in particular to see how he doesn’t notice how he pisses off his three daughters, one by one, as the movie starts, and what that says about him and them.
The Dark Knight – It’s clearly the best of the year’s big superhero movies, but, honestly, that still isn’t saying much: Hancock was a big mess and even Iron Man is a thin bubble holding in Robert Downey Jr’s performance. Dark Knight got an even better performance, as a more interesting and extravagantly damaged character, out of Heath Ledger’s Joker. That, and Christopher Nolan’s street-level story and direction, made Dark Knight work, despite Christian Bale’s annoying sore-throat voice and the various lapses of logic and coherence. Dark Night was clearly the best movie to be enveloped by in 2008.
Eagle Vs. Shark – Imagine two characters, a boy and a girl – the traditional romantic protagonists – in a lower-middle-class New Zealand setting. Imagine them meeting. Then imagine that they’re both just a tad dim and lacking in social graces. (The boy is one of the guys from Flight of the Conchords, which gives you a hint.) This isn’t exactly a love story; it’s the story of how some oddballs can cope with life and, just maybe, find some happiness in the end.
Get Smart – A big slab of entertainment that absolutely delivered from beginning to end – it managed to channel what was good about the original TV show without trying to replicate it. If they were more regularly like this, we wouldn’t dread the announcement of yet another movie made from an old TV show.
Hamlet 2 – It starts out as an off-handed parody of the “inspirational teacher” genre, but dives off the deep end into something funnier, more specific, and quite demented. The movie works entirely because “Hamlet 2” – the show within the movie – is both clearly horrible and an engrossing piece of theater, with a great, goofy toe-tapper in “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus.”
The Savages – A fine film about family and that feeling that death is starting to sneak up on you, acted superbly by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffmann. It was on a whole bunch of “best of the year” list by actual movie critics last year, but I missed it then.
Son of Rambow – I particularly love seeing deeply individual stories, ones that clearly are informed by the filmmakers’ real lives instead of what made $200 million at the box office last year. This is a wonderful British film, set in the mid-’80s, about a boy who grew up in an exceptionally close-minded religious community, and what happened to him – and a new friend – when he saw a movie for the first time and had all of his horizons blown away.
Wall*E – The second half is undeniably lesser than the first. And the lesson is delivered with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And that ending makes anyone who thinks science-fictionally wince. But, all in all, Wall*E is a triumph of character and story – showing, once again, that the talents at Pixar can tell any story they care about, and turn any character into a real person before our eyes – even a far-future trash-compactor robot.
You Kill Me – I will accept that not everyone will become as gleeful as I did upon hearing about a very good romantic comedy about an alcoholic hitman from Buffalo starring Ben Kingsley. But that fault lies in them, not me: this is a fine movie that dances around some serious issues without utterly trivializing them, and manages to get some good jokes in along the way. I may be the world’s biggest fan of hitman comedies, but You Kill Me is a lot of fun, and not nearly as black as you might expect
