Books: Best of the Decade: Books

FICTION

Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (1981). In his third incarnation as the titular hero of an Updike novel, Harold C. ("Rabbit") Angstrom makes good money selling Japanese cars (Toyotas) to Americans. Still, something has gone wrong in Rabbit's native land, and Updike's valedictory to the late 1970s creates an unforgettable comedy of diminishing expectations.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (1982). Juxtaposing a romance between the narrator, Mario, 18, and his nonblood relative Julia, 32, with the saga of a writer of soap-opera scripts, this novel, set in Peru during the 1950s, displays Vargas Llosa -- now a candidate for the presidency of that troubled country -- in a wry, confessional, accessible mood that may never appear again.

The Collected Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1982). An assembly of 47 fictions -- teeming with demons, dybbuks and exuberant men and women -- that remains the best introduction to the Nobel laureate and world-class writer who transformed Old World folktales into modern art.

- Him With His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories by Saul Bellow (1984). Another American Nobel laureate presents his patented array of characters -- big thinkers and big shots -- with typical energy and verve. The author here makes limitations of length a positive virtue; the pressure of high-toned ideas passing through the minds of flawed, often comic figures gives the impression of short stories that are bursting at the seams.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1984). The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia forces the surgeon Tomas, his wife Tereza and his mistress Sabina into involuntary exile. Kundera, who was himself driven from Prague by that upheaval, examines his characters' reactions to the new winds of freedom. Hailed as an apotheosis of East European dissent when it first appeared, the novel now begins to look prophetic.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (1985). The 1980s finally gave Tyler the broad readership her talents deserve. Her tenth novel is a poignant portrait of a travel writer who caters to people who hate to travel. Behind this whimsical premise lies a tragedy (the death of a child) that is never played for easy irony or pathos.

Zuckerman Bound by Philip Roth (1985). Roth's trilogy of novels about the American Jewish writer Nathan Zuckerman seems even more impressive whole than it did in its serial installments. Zuckerman is not Roth, exactly, but neither is he entirely unlike his creator, trapped by work and celebrity. The interplay between these fictional and real beings is unfailingly rich, comic and engaging.

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (1987). This vivid portrait of fear and loathing in New York City, circa now, is hilarious, unsparing and eerily premonitory, especially about Wall Street jitters and deteriorating race relations. The author is carrying on the panoramic tradition of Dickens and Thackeray but with updated social material. A better decade might have spawned a more comforting novel.