What about the tension between the individual and the collective? 'The Sympathizer' is literally about a man torn between two collective ideologies. 'A Brief History of Seven Killings' weaves individual stories into a national tapestry. 'The Buried Giant' asks if collective forgetfulness is necessary for peace. These novels questioned how much of the self can survive when subsumed by a group—be it a nation, a revolution, a family, or even a marriage—and what is lost or gained in that submission.
The body politic vs. the physical body. This is a bit abstract, but stick with me. Novels like 'The Sellout' and 'A Brief History of Seven Killings' deal with the 'body politic'—the nation, society, its health and sickness. At the same time, novels like 'A Little Life' and 'The First Bad Man' are obsessed with the individual physical body in all its fragility and grotesqueness. The best novels of the year often mirrored these two scales, showing how the sickness of a society manifests in the broken bodies of its people, and vice versa.
Hey, can anyone recommend which of these 2015 books holds up the best for a re-read? I read 'The Girl on the Train' and enjoyed the ride, but it didn't leave a lasting mark. Wondering if any of the heavier hitters have good re-read value, or if they're one-time emotional experiences.
Economic anxiety and class mobility, or the lack thereof. It's not the loudest theme, but it's there in the substrata. The struggling artists in 'Fates and Furies', the working-class roots in the Neapolitan Novels, the stark inequalities in 'A Brief History of Seven Killings'. Even 'The Sellout' is fundamentally about economic and social disenfranchisement. The American Dream narrative was being picked apart, showing the systems that keep people in their place or the sheer luck required to climb. It was a post-financial-crisis mood lingering in the background.
Okay, but can we talk about how brutal 2015 was for fictional characters? Like, just emotionally devastating across the board. It wasn't a year for light, uplifting reads at the top of the lists. It was a year for getting your heart stomped on in the most beautifully written way possible. Maybe the theme was just 'suffering, but make it literary.' I'm not complaining—some of my favorite books are from that year—but you had to be in a certain headspace.
2026-07-24 04:20:51
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Honestly, I wonder if the themes resonated because of the digital fatigue setting in. Physical books about tangible, slow lives—farming, making art by hand, enduring in isolation—felt like an antidote to the frantic online world.
I’d push back a bit on the idea that it’s all about Catholicism. For a modern, secular reader, the throughline is more about radical doubt and commitment. What do you cling to when you can’t believe in God, country, or ideology? His characters are often committed to something—a person, a cause, a code—but that commitment is constantly tested by a world that doesn’t reward fidelity. The theme is the exhausting, noble struggle to maintain a personal integrity when all external signposts have been removed.
There's a definite trend toward autofiction—that blurry line between novelist and narrator. It creates an intimacy that critics eat up, but sometimes it just feels like navel-gazing.
The symbiotic relationship between humans and nature is arguably the central pillar. Nature isn't just a backdrop; it's an active, almost sentient force that guides, comforts, and teaches his characters. The hills, trees, animals, and weather patterns are intimately woven into the plot and character development. This ecological consciousness, presented without preachiness, connects all his major works.
Characters find solace in nature when human society fails them. Storms mirror internal turmoil, blooming flowers signal hope, and animal companions offer pure, uncomplicated loyalty. This theme promotes a quiet, respectful coexistence, suggesting that human well-being is inextricably linked to the health and spirit of the natural world. It’s a persistent, gentle environmentalism that feels deeply spiritual, making his novels timeless in an age of disconnection from the environment.