You’re just using a different definition of argument to the one I am. Under the one I was using, every work of art makes some form of argument. Even if your definition is narrower, I’d say way more novels than you seem to be acknowledging present fairly explicit arguments.
We’ll just have to disagree on the possibility of an independent objective evaluation of “quality”, especially when it comes to characterization. I mentioned the diametrically opposed opinions on characterization I encountered with some people I know about two very different books. I’m not willing to conclude that that is simply because they are wrong and I am right.
I’m not sure what you mean by “argument.” If it’s “theme,” then perhaps, at least for prose fiction and perhaps for literature generally (I’m not sure what kind of “argument” there is in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, or Bernini’s David). But it rather seems to me that such categories as “persuaded by or open to” or “discarded as irredeemably flawed” apply to argument in the logical or philosophical sense, but not to the theme of a literary work.
I can’t even imagine doing that. The closest I come is finishing a book and immediately picking it back up and rereading it, or parts of it.
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Well, that’s a philosophical question, and I will agree not to argue over questions of philosophy. I’m just noting that I have a different view.
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I’m not making up new definitions, the difference is simply one of scope. For example, an argument made by David is “this is a beautiful man”. Quite a few others follow on or are linked to that.
I feel that this digression is unlikely to be of interest to other forum members.
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I’m interested (in the philosophical discussion about arguments in novels and what it is that makes a novel good), but I’ve canned my contribution, because I suspect you’re right in general.
So in an attempt to get this bus back onto the main highway, Here’s a question. If you had to recommend one fiction book published in the last 10 years, what would it be and why?
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I think that would depend to a very large extent on the person to whom I was recommending it; there’s very little about which I feel that everyone should read it. So with the proviso that if you ask me tomorrow I may give you a different answer…
Ruthanna Emrys’ Winter Tide would be near the top of my list. Not only is it hugely enjoyable in itself, but it does a masterful job of disentangling the good Lovecraftian ideas from the mess of personal terror in which they’re cooked.
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Ooooh
So many to choose from, but I’m going to say
Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler.
This is the first of 12? and counting so I’m recommending the whole series. These books have a pair of Septugenarian detectives - Arthur Bryant and John May who are the heads of the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
All set in London, they are funny, warm, dark (but not too dark) crime novels. Funny crime is probably my favourite genre (Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Brookmyre and now Mick Herron).
The crimes all have a twists that often seem to be supernatural. The way Fowler writes about London makes the city the star.
Most things mentioned upthread are too highbrow for my taste so view this in that light but I adore this series.
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I am re-reading Tom Holt’s Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?, as I needed something to read, came across it while digging through our boxes of books in the garage (along with all my Conan story collections). I know I read it, but it was years ago and I have no memory of the plot or characters, so it is essentially like reading a brand new to me novel.
It is a humorous fantasy, with the humor in the vein of Douglas Adams’ works, where the situations tend to be somewhat ridiculous and you just have to roll with them. I am enjoying it, and must have before or I would have sold it.
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The problem that I had with this question, and one of the reasons that I posed it, was that everything I thought of was more than 10 years old. It surprised me each time. On that note @Captbnut according to Amazon, Full Dark House was published in 2004.
Really? I think I’ve bought it 4 times because we keep lending it to people. I can’t believe it’s 16 years old.
In which case Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Spy thriller with a twist. Later books in the series are genuinely funny. London is not the magnificent place that Fowler writes.
Excellent characters, all with their own foibles, failings and disappointments.
Got to give my reactions here, cos Stephenson said he wrote Zodiac and it was enjoyed only by a few environmental chemists (which was me at the time), and I very much enjoyed it and Snow Crash. (I do science and also mystical woo, so I didn’t even mind the ending).
And then I haaaated Diamond Age. I re-read it last year and it’s… better, but needed to be about half as long. But then, I also read all of Cryptonomicon (which has NO excuse for being as indulgently long as it is) and found it exciting right to the end. Really interesting to see how everyone has bounced off these differently.
Gene Wolfe: I made myself finish New Sun 1+2 (in the fantasy masterworks editions) and thought they were boring as hell, and cannot work out his personal politics from them. However, his “Wizard Knight” is completely different and a bit amazing. He gets the mythology wrong, but writes about personal honour and failure in a good way.
I’m coming from being about as liberal and lefty as there is, especially by US standards, so I was really surprised when I found out later Wolfe was Conservative. I didn’t see that in the writing at all.
Pratchett is, from approximately book 3-5 onwards, the greatest humanitarian writer of our age and I shall hear no argument 
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Loved Slow Horses, am on the latest book!
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Ancillary Justice, it’s extraordinary. (And won everything).
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Wow i has to use my goodreads to correct my own recollection error.
The best novels i’ve read that are published in the last 10 years. Ken Liu paper menagerie and other stories has some high points but some stories aren’t as impactful. Excellent collection though. So probably since I enjoy his style of writing I would give it to the two dandelion dynasty books.
Apart from its generally excellent qualities, I think it attracted lots of attention because of the pronoun thing. But I suspect most of the people reading it didn’t notice that the pronoun thing is part of a deliberate policy of alienation by Anaander Miaanai, just like the gloves thing; I didn’t notice myself, until my second read.
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Joe Country? I think I may be getting it for Father’s Day. It’s what I’ve bought my Dad!
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If we’re talking about the Discworld, my feeling for a long time has been that the first three books in the series aren’t really quite Discworld books yet. It starts to become the real Discworld with the appearance of Granny Weatherwax in the third book, Equal Rites, but I feel that it really gets there in Mort, with the central role for Death, and that Granny Weatherwax really only becomes fully herself in Wyrd Sisters. I just don’t have the impulse to reread the first three.
I can reread nearly all the rest with pleasure (I don’t care for Monstrous Regiment, which seems to have only one joke). But I can’t quite put Pratchett in my top few authors; even in fantasy, I’m going with Tom Shippey’s calling Tolkien the “author of the century.” Other than him, I think my top favorite novelists would be Austen, Kipling, Heinlein, Rand, Sayers, and Kingsbury. Pratchett would be in the second tier.
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