It is 22/12, so I suppose it’s right that I create a Best of the Year post.
1/ Unlike 2020, the year I (finally) read Nguyễn Du and classic Vietnamese literature; discovered Murasaki Shikibu and Heian literature, and Cao Xueqin; and read a few writers I had never read before (such as Edith Wharton, Carson McCullers, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Natsume Soseki, Yasunari Kawabata, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, etc.), 2021 has mostly been a year of re-discoveries.
The most important one was the re-discovery of Shakespeare—I finally saw the magic, finally found something that eluded me several years ago. Shakespeare is now one of my obsessions, one of the authors who mean the most to me.
I also re-discovered Chekhov and Ibsen.
2/ There will be other lists, and this list may look different, when I’ve read all of Shakespeare’s plays.
10 favourite Shakespeare plays (no particular order):
Macbeth
Othello
King Lear
Measure for Measure
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 2
Hamlet
The Merchant of Venice
The Winter’s Tale
Much Ado About Nothing
(The last 3 spots may be different tomorrow)
3/ 10 favourite Chekhov stories (no particular order):
“Three Years”
“In the Ravine”
“Ionych”
“The Bishop”
“My Life”
“The Lady with the Little Dog”
“The Name-Day Party”
“Verochka”
“The Kiss”
“Ward No.6”
4/ In 2021, I also reread Anna Karenina.
When I read it for the first time 8 years ago, I thought it was the greatest novel I’d ever read.
8 years later, I still think it’s the greatest novel I’ve ever read.
(I know I’m reading In Search of Lost Time, but I don’t think it will replace Anna Karenina for me).
5/ This year I also read Bleak House. My pick for the greatest novel in the English language remains to be Moby Dick, but my pick for the greatest novel of 19th century British literature, and perhaps British literature in general, would be Bleak House, not Middlemarch.
6/ 10 best films of 2021 (excluding Shakespeare films, features that are part of Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes, and features that are part of David Suchet’s Poirot):
A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Ace in the Hole (1950)—revisit
Early Summer (1951)
A Star Is Born (1954)
Good Morning (1959)
The Third Alibi (1961)
Educating Rita (1983)
Ran (1985)—revisit
Memories of Murder (2003)—revisit
Ballad of a White Cow (2020)
(The list may change by the end of the year)
If I have to single out a film that made the strongest impression on me, it would be A Star Is Born. I have not seen any of the remakes.
7/ This year I also watched Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes and David Suchet’s Poirot.
10 favourite Sherlock Holmes episodes (in order of broadcast):
The Dancing Men
The Solitary Cyclist
The Speckled Band
The Blue Carbuncle
The Resident Patient
The Red-Headed League
The Second Stain
The Man with the Twisted Lip
The Six Napoleons
The Problem of Thor Bridge
8/ 10 favourite Poirot episodes (in order of broadcast):
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The ABC Murders
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Hickory Dickory Dock
Murder in Mesopotamia
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
After the Funeral
For Evil Under the Sun and Death in the Nile, the Peter Ustinov versions are much better. You should watch them even if you don’t care for Poirot.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everybody!
My top ten Shakespeare plays would probably change depending on the time of day. I think Othello, King Lear, the Tempest, Measure for Measure, As you Like It, Richard II, and Julius Caesar would always make the list -- wait, that's already 8, isn't it.
ReplyDeleteHave also read Chekhov plays, or just his short stories?
Hahaha.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Chekhov's plays. I borrowed a copy of his plays from the library but my reading took a different direction.
This is pure gold... I love Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes! I got here via your posts on Truyện Kiều - really great stuff. I will have my students read them for a class on Vietnamese language and culture next term.
ReplyDeleteYep, Jeremy Brett is my favourite Sherlock Holmes. It used to be Basil Rathbone, but I've now betrayed Basil.
DeleteAnyway, I'm glad you enjoyed my posts about Truyện Kiều, though I don't know if they're any useful to your students hahaha.
Wow, I just saw your posts about Proust... I finished volume 1 a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd read a few other things before starting volume 2 but nothing compares! I was able to get into Ishiguro's Remains of the Day but in the end nothing can match Proust :-( Your posts on Kieu are fantastic. You might be interested in this: https://www.iias.asia/the-newsletter/article/rival-nationalisms-rebranding-language-early-20th-century-tonkin
ReplyDeleteThe essay by Phạm Quỳnh is also worth a read. I can send a pdf you are interested.
ReplyDeleteThere are some discussions on my Proust blog posts, join in!
DeleteI'm intending to have breaks between the volumes, so I might face the same problem you've had. However, my plan is to read Shakespeare, Joyce, and perhaps Nabokov, so I wouldn't worry about "nothing compares to Proust".
I was also planning to reread War and Peace next year, but that might have to change because it is long, too long to read in the breaks between Proust's volumes.
Thanks for the link, I will look at it later.
Is the Phạm Quỳnh essay in Vietnamese or English?
Phạm Quỳnh's essay is in Vietnamese. It's from Nam Phong, 1919. There's also a later discussion from 1924 that was translated into English and included in the Sources of Vietnamese Tradition edited by Dutton et al., but it's not as interesting.
DeleteOoh nice. Send it to me please.
Delete& Merry Christmas!