2022 is here. And it's time for what everyone has been waiting for: my best books list.
Sit down. Stop getting excited. Let us begin.
1. India in the Persianate Age: 1000 -1765 by Richard Eaton
The best book I read in 2021 was a history book covering the rich and vibrant interaction between the Sanskrit and Persianate worlds between 1000-1765. New identities arose -- the Rajputs, for instance -- and a palimpsest of regional kingdoms grew prosperous and carved out their own cultures, in Bengal, the Deccan, Kashmir, and so on. Richard Eaton's informative and unputdownable book elegantly demonstrates the rich intermingling of these cultures connected by a common style, amply justifying the "Persianate Age" in the title.
There are many delightful facts generously sprinkled throughout the book. There are anecdotes worth repeating to friends and family. The book, naturally, covers the Sultanate and the Mughals but there is so much more besides that was, for me, novel and exciting. As I mentioned in my Goodreads review,
My favorite part was his discussion of 15th century India, what has often been described, rather dismally, as the 'long fifteenth century.' Eaton describes a wonderfully vibrant time of regional dynasties and cultural movements, in Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, and Kashmir in the north, and the Vijayanagara empire and the Bahmani sultanate in the south. Through this time, new identities developed in each of these regions, and local courts patronized artists to create architecture and written works that synthesized traditional styles with the Persian influence.
Eaton persuasively argues that colonial constructs of imagining this period in India are hopelessly narrow. Chapter by chapter he provides insightful examples and evidence for an India in constant churn, not split on modern notions of identity; rather constantly synthesizing new and old influences, led both by grassroots movements and by rulers of all shades.
I think this book is a must-read. Other notable history books include The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India by Manan Ahmed Asif for an academic dissection of the condescending colonial episteme of writing history (India as a mix of despots and savages essentially) and how histories written by people in India before the British were distinctly different and displayed significant evolution in focus over time; and India's Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy by Madhav Khosla which is a thought-provoking legal history of the basis for India's constitution and how it must be read in the context of the challenges facing India's founding fathers faced with the onerous task of creating a democracy from scratch.
2. The Decameron by Boccaccio
The Decameron is a daunting book. The setting is apt for our times: a group of women and men decide to escape Florence during the plague and move to the countryside. In this beautiful, tranquil and Eden-esque landscape, they resolve to pass their days by narrating stories based on a theme. They do this for ten days, each individual providing their tale each day, for a total of 100 stories.
Boccaccio wrote The Decameron, it is believed, as a literary response to Dante's Divine Comedy. This book is not a lament about losing one's way in the eyes of God. Instead, the focus is on human beings and their frailties, their deviousness and misdemeanors, and their occasional nobility of character. In other words, The Decameron is about the world we inhabit rather than the Divine.
Boccaccio writes with unsparing wit. Much before the likes of Voltaire, Boccaccio demolishes any aura of honor among authority figures such as members of the clergy and aristocracy. Resourcefulness is a recurrent theme. So is bawdiness.
The Decameron also possesses deep wisdom. Some stories are parables worth repeating and narrating to friends and family. And Boccaccio leaves no misgivings to the reader about his writing skill. In his introduction and the first chapter, he exquisitely presents the meta-narrator of the story (Boccaccio), a person who is only trying to express his gratitude to those who have helped him in dire circumstances, by offering in turn this collection of humanly stories. He hopes these stories will educate and entertain. Moving then to to the first chapter, he sets the scene in Florence during the plague. One could pluck quotes and passages at random and easily use them to describe the past 2+ years we've all faced.
I must add that reading the book is no straightforward task. It's a gigantic book and hops between themes and characters with tremendous ferocity. But I think anyone who manages to read through it will be delighted and rewarded for a lifetime.
Other notable fiction reads include The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the much awaited sequel to The Sympathizer, where our protagonist lands up in France, to the land of his former colonial masters, to the land of the father who abandoned him. I also read two cli-fi (ugh, hate the term) novels in Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. The former is considered a classic while the second is jarring in its vision for the future, if a tad optimistic. Finally, a special mention to a re-read of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. This was before I began the Amazon Prime series (which lost a lot of steam after the first season).
3. Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem by Michael Schmidt
The best critical work I read last year was Michael Schmidt's Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem. Schmidt compares many different translations and interpretations of this ancient poem and does so with delightful zeal. I wrote a long long review of the book on Goodreads, and let me be lazy and let it take over,
What is Gilgamesh? Michael Schmidt's beautiful book excavates the origins and meaning of an ancient chronicle, or a collection of genres or, quite simply, a poem, that resists interpretation through classical and modern structures and conventions.
The poem dates back to before 2000 B.C. In it, you find the story of a great Deluge, where a man, Uta-napishti builds a boat that saves humans and animals alike. A familiar story? In fact, the fervor first associated with Gilgamesh was spurred by comparisons with and echoes of Biblical themes found in its story.
Unlike the Homeric epics, scholarship on Gilgamesh is recent: cuneiform had to be translated; tablets had to be discovered and brought together; the Sumerian [Old Babylonian] and Akkadian [Standard Babylonian] accounts had to be compared.
And so Gilgamesh is a poem that continues to change as our understanding of that ancient period changes, and as further discoveries are made: perhaps, of missing sections of extant tablets, or fresh discoveries of older, but different, versions of the same chronicle.
The story of Gilgamesh is fascinating. Here is a mighty man who starts off as an impetuous and tyrannical ruler. He meets his match in Enkidu, a wild man who is tamed, and who in turn tames Gilgamesh...
You can read the full review here. The other interesting book in this category was a collection of essays by recent Nobel laureate Louise Glück, Proofs & Theories: Essays on Poetry, giving an insightful glimpse into the mind of a poet critiquing other prominent poets, both recent and old.
4. Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
We've covered non-fiction, fiction, and critical analysis. Quite a sweep. It is fitting that the best biography/memoir I read was about the greatest polymath to have ever lived. Indeed, Leonardo would have covered ten times more ground in half the time, and he would've described it all in a few corners of his mysterious notebooks.
Isaacson's biography is very enjoyable. Leonardo was a man of destiny. Born a najaayas aulad (bastard), he knew he couldn't inherit his affluent father's business and estate. He was free to explore. Ultimately, he joined Verocchio's studio as an apprentice. This was no ordinary time. This was Florence at its glorious peak hosting every kind of artist, engineer and men of war. Leonardo took it all in. As the years went by and his fame grew, he remained nimble on his feet, politically speaking. Inevitably selected into the close ranks of changing rulers, he had the license to explore throughout his life.
But Leonardo wouldn't have been what he is today if he was merely in the right place at the right time. It was his ethereal genius and incessant curiosity that made him an icon then, as he is now. Isaacson shows Leonardo spending every day of his life trying to understand, to their very dark depths, a gamut of phenomena.
Isaacson expertly builds on Leonardo's interests in optics, anatomy, engineering, architecture, geology -- the list goes on -- suggesting that his most famous works, such as The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, are the natural culmination of an incessantly curious and incredibly talented mind.
Of course, Leonardo's life is so much more than these justly celebrated paintings. Leonardo wanted to learn as much as he could about the world and his explorations were unhindered by a desire to publish his findings or to demonstrate his erudition. At the very least, these more mundane considerations always took a back-seat to the more pressing matters of understanding the world. Here is a person who truly wanted to know. The paintings may even be said to be incidental to the larger task of gathering a complete understanding of everything.
It's a very well-written biography. Other mentions: if you are, like me, an Amartya Sen fan, then you should read his memoir Home in the World. I didn't completely enjoy it but there's enough to keep the Sen enthusiast happy.
And there you have it. A special mention to V.S. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain. In a year dominated by heavy tomes in fiction and history I was lucky to read a very thought-provoking science book. Also, they weren't the best books I read last year but I wish I could have talked about graphic novels. Then again, novels like Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh have been read by many before me.
