My favorite fiction of 2021 - Marginal REVOLUTION

Marcel Proust, The Mysterious Correspondent: New Stories. Not the very best Proust, but even so-so Proust is pretty superb. These are fragments to be welcomed.

Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary. At least as good as The Martian, and arguably more conceptual.

Judith Schlansky, Verzeichnis einiger Verluste [Inventory of Losses]. Conceptual German novel with roots in Borges, not as good in English.

Patrick McGrath, Last Days in Cleaver Square. Unreliable narrator!

Karl Knausgaard, The Morning Star. The master returns with a full-scale novel, with theology galore.

Anne Serre, The Beginners. Short, French, about relationships, fun.

Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You? She is quite the conservative, don’t be put off by the left-wing rhetoric.

Mario Levrero, The Luminous Novel. The best Uruguayan novel of all time?

Domenico Starnone, Trust. The better of the two “Elena Ferrante” novels released in English this year?

As for retranslations of classics, I very much like the new Oedipus Rex trilogy and the new translation of the Kalevala. I hope they are fiction! And kudos to Sarah Ruden’s work on the Gospels, I am not sure where to put them…

Overall I thought this was an excellent year for reading fiction, much better than the few years preceding. My number one pick here would be the Andy Weir, noting that, for purposes of your norming, I do not usually select science fiction for this designation. (Here is my earlier CWT with Andy Weir.)

Note that I just ordered a whole new batch of appealing-sounding novels (FT link), and I will read some before year’s end, so I will give you an update when appropriate, most likely toward the very end of the calendar year. And my non-fiction list will be coming soon. And also note: “missing” titles from this list are very often missing on purpose!