Tom Crewe’s Five Books

I have simply chosen five of the best novels I’ve read so far this year – unsurprisingly (for me) they are all 19^th century, and, as it happens, the majority is Russian. 

The Golovlyov Family (1880) by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin 

This is a great Russian novel that is still largely unknown in this country. It is a bleak, but strange and funny, depiction of a family in dissolution. Read it for the astonishing character of Porphyry, a study in hypocrisy. 

Oblomov (1859) by Ivan Goncharov 

Another funny, strange novel. Another great character study in Oblomov himself, who cannot summon the energy to get out of bed, never mind to actively partake in life. And yet somehow, all of life is summoned to him. 

John Caldigate (1879) by Anthony Trollope 

I’m convinced that Trollope’s greatness is underestimated by readers because they don’t get far enough into his massive oeuvre to recognise all that he was capable of. John Caldigate has it all: brilliant descriptions of life in the gold-mining camps of Australia, brilliant anatomies of differing forms of family life, a gripping trial, comedy, pathos and excitement. It is ultimately a panoramic examination of belief – what we believe, who we believe, and why we believe. 

A Sentimental Education (1869) by Gustave Flaubert 

Overlooked by many readers, I think, who stop (as I had) at Madame Bovary. A book that you experience as a world, and whose profundity creeps up on you: the education is your own, as much as Frédéric Moreau’s. 

The Idiot (1868) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I had been a long time away from Dostoevsky, and was shocked and energised by being reacquainted with him. All that action, speech, movement! So much psychological nuance curiously packed in. I love this book, as presumably all readers do, for saintly, harassed Prince Myshkin.