August 15th, 2006
Is the Booker “posh bingo”?
Well Julian Barnes apparently once said so but is it just me or has there been even less fuss than usual about the announcement of this year’s Booker Prize longlist? I was half hanging around the MBP website yesterday ahead of the announcement and then fed up waiting. Definites for the short list include Peter Carey, David Mitchell, Nadine Gordimer, Howard Jacobson and Sarah Waters. Great to see independent Scottish publishers Canongate with two books on there, including one by Irish-born writer MJ Hyland. I interviewed her around the time her debut, How The Light Gets In, was published and discovered a shared love of the American short story writer Lorrie Moore.
I have Hyland’s new one in the ever-expanding ‘to read’ pile as well as Jon McGregor’s second book. If the Booker tradition of giving the prize to authors who should have won in other years persists, the smart money would have to be on David Mitchell who was robbed not to win for Cloud Atlas. I haven’t yet read Black Swan Green - has anyone else?
We may moan and quibble with the selection and the exlusions, but at least some justice is done with the absence of Zadie Smith’s vastly over-rated On Beauty.
The final six for the shortlist are announced on September 14th (when I won’t be here).
The full longlist:
Peter Carey - Theft: A Love Story
Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss
Robert Edric - Gathering the Water
Nadine Gordimer - Get a Life
Kate Grenville - The Secret River
MJ Hyland - Carry Me Down
Howard Jacobson - Kalooki Nights
James Lasdun - Seven Lies
Mary Lawson - The Other Side of the Bridge
Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin
Hisham Matar - In the Country of Men
Claire Messud - The Emperor’s Children
David Mitchell - Black Swan Green
Naeem Murr - The Perfect Man
Andrew O’Hagan - Be Near Me
James Robertson - The Testament of Gideon Mack
Edward St Aubyn - Mother’s Milk
Barry Unsworth - The Ruby in Her Navel
Sarah Waters - The Night Watch
August 15th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Black Swan Green is the ONLY book on the longlist that I have read (hangs head in shame) but I am Mitchell’s biggest fan after all! It has been said that he has written what should have been his first novel as his fourth book - i.e. it has a traditional form, limear narrative, one narrator, semi-autobiographical. I liked it a lot, although I thought it faced the same problems that most books have which have a young narrator. To my mind, it’s not the amazing novel that Cloud Atlas was (and I wholly agree that he should have won the Booker for that) but it’s still excellent. Will it be third time lucky for him? Three Booker nominations and he’s only written 4 novels!
August 15th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Out of curiosity, how long does it take you to get through a book like one of those? Do you ever reach the point where it feels like a chore rather than something to enjoy?
August 15th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Alex, great to hear from you, hope all is well in London town. BSG is the book on the list I want to read before anything else. I’m amazed I haven’t read more of them either, given how much stuff I have to read that’s work-related.
Dealga, speaking of which, it can be a chore for sure and lately I’ve been craving a book I’ve chosen to read myself! (I’m going back to Rebecca when I finish work later). Time-wise, it depends. A couple of days if I’m in the mood, longer if I’m not (or if the book is not very good). Have you read any of the books, or even authors, on the list? Any recommendations?
August 15th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
I’ve read the Sarah Waters book and the Peter Carey one. The Sarah Waters novel is very good, maybe a little more hesitant than her previous works (she seems happier writing about the distant past rather than the 1940s), but I’d be extremely surprised if it didn’t make the shortlist. The Peter Carey novel is also a major return to form for him (My Life as a Fake was woeful)…but here’s the thing: having read about four of his books, I remain not entirely convinced that he’s the world-beating talent everyone else seems to assume he is. Good, yes, but does he really deserve to have won the Booker twice? I’ve also got the Jon McGregor and MJ Hyland books on my shelf — I liked Hyland’s debut a lot, but friends have said the newie’s not as good…
August 15th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
I hear Jacobson’s is good. I’ll read that, and maybe one or two others.
August 15th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
They have chosen some interesting reads in previous Booker prize short lists; but I tend to agree with visitors to this site that the lists some years are cause for puzzlement. Prizes like Booker are needed so that writers get the funds to give them peace of mind enough to continue their literary careers. Some writers have been able to drop worrying daytime jobs - like school teaching - and concentrate on the time consuming demands of imaginative writing. Maybe the members chosen to sit on prize awarding panels like Booker should be required to publish a thousand-word report on the reasons for their short list selections. It would give the book buying public an insight into their literary standards.
August 15th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
I agree with Nadine about Carey - his is the only book I’ve read on this longlist, by the way, to my utter shame - and I’ll be surprised if he even makes the shortlist. Yes, Theft is an assured piece of writing, but it’s not an important book, and I don’t think it will be one of the works for which he’s remembered. But then, I very much enjoyed My Life as a Fake.
And on Zadie Smith - it’s true that On Beauty has no place on the shortlist of a serious prize, if the Booker is that any more, but I must say I find it surprising, and very interesting, to see her excluded from the longlist. There is a sort of conspiracy of silence surrounding her work, and this last book in particular - she’s such a major figure in the world of contemporary British literature that it seems almost heretical to point out that she’s only ever won one major award. Why is she such a major figure? Is it for reasons that literary editors/commentators would rather not admit - to do with her public profile? There’s a huge feature on her in American Vogue this month, which does lipservice to her writing in very broad and bland terms, but is mainly about her vintage wardrobe. Not that you’ll ever find me knocking a girl’s vintage wardrobe, but still…something’s out of synch about Smith right now. You have to wonder what she’ll come up with next; the next book will have to be very good indeed for her not to vanish from the radar to some extent.
No Irish writer on the list this year. Were there any serious contenders?
August 15th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Sinead,
Unrelated, I know, but are we going to see you partake in the Library Thing fad?
August 16th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
i really liked BSG, though it’s no cloud atlas
Haven’t hecked out the new JMcG but i thought his first one was very overdone tbh though nice in (small) parts. I’m somewhat disappointed with this year’s list - it fails to excite me in any great way or inspire to read anything I hadn’t thought of anyway. Wasn’t On Beauty on last year’s shortlist? Must check out Jacobson though, heard lots of good things!
August 17th, 2006 at 8:50 am
“Have you read any of the books, or even authors, on the list?”
Nope, not a single one - I’ve never given novels a chance. More of a memoirs/biography/history kind of reader. I find reading a character’s thoughts and thought processes (as opposed to dialogue or narrative) on a page a bit odd!
August 17th, 2006 at 11:53 am
I’m glad ‘Cloud Atlas’ didn’t win the booker because it wasn’t very good. All we learnt from it was that from the 18th century to the distant future, given the opportunity, humans behave in a predatory manner towards each other. Heigh-ho. Mitchell forgot to create any memorable characters or insights, instead preferring to show his ability to write in different genre styles. He can do it but so what?
August 17th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Mish, you’re right. It was. Feeling even dumber than usual now.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Dealga, I’m getting a bit jaded about fiction at the moment but I couldn’t forego it completely.
Mish, thanks for that, I agree re the underwhelming nature of the list
HH, I second that dumb feeling, but I blame those literary lists that overlap chronologically. On Beauty won two awards this year and don’t get me started on the logic behing The Master (which was on the 2004 Booker shortlist) winning this year’s Impac award.
I tried to come up with some Irish writers who may have been made it, but couldn’t think of one except maybe Ailbhe Keogan?
“Maybe the members chosen to sit on prize awarding panels like Booker should be required to publish a thousand-word report on the reasons for their short list selections”
- Gareth, I really like this idea as I’m annually baffled by a chunk of the books that make these lists.
Welcome Nadine & Dotsy -
Nadine, I’m not convinced by Carey either (like Oscar & Lucinda), but another multiple Booker winner who’s written one or two good books and a lot of over-rated stuff is Ian McEwan.
Dotsy, have you, or will you, read BSG?
Kevin, I have a half-written post about Library Thing and Dick O’Brien already invited me to join the Irish Blogs group on it. I feel another internet drain of my time coming on… PS Well done on the Leaving results
August 17th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Zadie Smith isn’t on this year’s list because On Beauty was short listed last year for the Booker prize! Though I agree it is painful.
And as for Mitchell’s new book, hasn’t growing up in the eighties been done before by Johnathan Coe and Tim Lott? And the eighties more generally by Hollinghurst and Peace?
August 17th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Dotsy, see Hesitant Hack and my comments above - too many prizes overlap in years and the book was so damn tedious who cares what year it was shortlisted?
Re Mitchell and the 80s - Isn’t it unfair to say to vilify an author because they’ve written about the same era as someone else? You could say the First World War has been done to death in fiction, but it’s been done consistently well by everyone from Pat Barker to Sebastian Barry (book Booker nominees).
August 17th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
To say I’m vilifying Mitchell for writing about the eighties is harsh. To me the idea seems somewhat tired or his approach to it at least - for example I would love to read a novel about growing up in Dublin in the Eighties or an Irish state of the nation book a la David Peace ‘GB84′. I just don’t find the idea of another narrative about middle class English childhood of that period particularly enticing.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
“I would love to read a novel about growing up in Dublin in the Eighties or an Irish state of the nation book a la David Peace ‘GB84′”.
You know, I can’t actually think of any Irish books about growing up in the 80s, unless PPaddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha is set in the 80s (it’s so long since I read it I can’t remember).
Any suggestions anyone?
Has GB84 got something to do with the Miner’s Strike? It rings a bell…
August 18th, 2006 at 10:14 am
I dont think Paddy Clarke is set in the 80’s, more like the early 60’s. His trilogy (can’t remember the fictional name he gave Kilbarrack) of the Van, Commitments and Snapper is as close as it gets to eighties fiction but they were fairly light hearted romps. I recall Tom Paulin on the Late Review caustically observing that Doyle had managed to write a book about contemporary Ireland that failed to mention the north. Of course by not mentioning it, he drew attention to its absence, or the absence of discourse on the north in the literature of southern Irish writers.
And what about novels on the Irish emigrant experience in London, New York or even Dusseldorf (In High GErmany a play be Dermot Bolger an exception)? Where are our Monica Ali’s?
August 18th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
I recall Tom Paulin on the Late Review caustically observing that Doyle had managed to write a book about contemporary Ireland that failed to mention the north. Of course by not mentioning it, he drew attention to its absence, or the absence of discourse on the north in the literature of southern Irish writers.
That’s kind of an irrelevent criticism on Paulin’s part, surely? It’s not like by writing about working class Dublin families without mentioning the North Doyle was somehow trickily evading some huge elephant-in-the-sitting room topic; there’s no “managing” about it. It would have been much odder if Northern Ireland had suddenly cropped up as a subject in the books. Yes, the north isn’t really important in the daily lives of many (if not most) Dubliners, and that may be a matter for criticism, and the question of Irish writers’ general apathy to the North could be an interesting one, but to express surprise or annoyance that a book like The Commitments or The Van for not mentioning it is pretty absurd.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Gah, that last “that” should have been an “at”.
August 18th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
If Paulin had criticised a Spanish or Polish writer for failing to mention the north it would be an irrelevance but Doyle is Irish and Paulin is a critic interested in how writers engage with, reflect on and represent politics and society. Writers mightn’t like this type of analysis but they probably don’t fancy being deconstructed much either. For you a political reading of Doyle’s books may be absurd for others it is enlightening.
And I don’t think Paulin was suggesting Doyle was consciously evading the north or that he expected him to include token references to it in his books. It was more that Doyle (and southern Irish writers generally) didn’t even engage with the subject.
Whatever you think of Updike or Amis, in Terrorist and The Last Days of Mohammad Atta, at least they are trying to write about what is happening around them.
BTW I noticed on your website you were in Berlin recently. I’m going there next week - any tips re bars, clubs etc?
August 19th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Whatever you think of Updike or Amis, in Terrorist and The Last Days of Mohammad Atta, at least they are trying to write about what is happening around them.
I do see what you mean, but at the same time, if you’re in Dublin the northern situation simply isn’t happening around you. Unless you have family up there or you’re actively engaged in cross-border politics, it’s not relevant to your daily life at all. I know lots of people who’ve never even been across the border - I’m thirty (and grew up in north Dublin just down the road from Doyle’s native suburb) and have been in the north about five times in my life, never for longer than a weekend. And these are people who are politically aware and often active in local left politics down here, but still don’t have any personal relationship with the north.
I certainly don’t think a political reading of Doyle’s work - or any fiction - is absurd, but I’d see the real fodder in his Barrytown trilogy to be in class and the sorry state of Dublin in the ’80s, rather than Northern Ireland, which just didn’t impinge on the lives of most people like Doyle’s characters. Doyle is writing about his own society - and doing it brilliantly - and the north isn’t a part of that. There does seem to sometimes be an automatic expectation outside southern Ireland that Irish writers should automatically be expected to tackle a subject that really may not mean anything more to them and the general society in which they live than it does to someone from Liverpool. So while I agree that the absence of the north from most southern Irish writing is notable, I don’t think Irish writers are failing in their duty to engage with society by not writing about it. And I think Paulin was setting up a bit of a straw man.
As for fantastische Berlin - there are lots of great little bars in Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg in the old east, and Kreuzberg in the west. Unfortunately every time I go to Berlin my friends and I seldom registered the names - we refered to them in more general terms, like “the gay bar-cum-cake shop” (which is on Oranienstrasse in Kreuzberg and which is delightful) or “the place with the bowling alley in the basement” (somewhere near Dunckerstrasse in Prenzlauer Berg). The best thing to do is just wander around until you find somewhere that looks good - believe me, there are a lot of cool bars, so that won’t be hard.
Oh, and it’s past its prime, but Tacheles in Mitte (Oranienburgerstrasse, I think) is probably still worth a visit. It’s a former department store turned squat with bars and studio spaces and a gallery. It was one of the coolest places in town when I was first in Berlin in ‘95 but it’s a lot slicker now. Worth looking at, though. Also, if you have any German, it’s definitely worth getting one of the local listings magazines like Zitty - they’re very good for gigs and club nights. There’s usually a lot on, too, so there’s a lot of choice. It’s a truly amazing city, and it’s not hard to have a great time there!
August 19th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Hmmm, when I used “personal” in that first paragraph, I should have said “direct”. I really meant to say that the north isn’t part of people’s political lives on a daily basis, not just that it’s not part of their personal lives. Because I certainly don’t expect writers to ignore things that aren’t part of their own tiny world.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:21 am
I should say that I am from south side of Dublin, have no relations in the north and am not a member of a political party. By your reckoning I should have no interest in what went on or goes on in the north and to be fair the north wasn’t a topic of conversation at home or in school when I was growing up – even though I went to an all-Irish college where you might have imagined a greater level of interest than in other places. It wasn’t until I was well into my twenties that I developed any real awareness of the relationship between what was happening there and how it affected society in the south. And it was happening around you, it was just that people avoided it to the point that it seemed unnatural or worse ‘bad form’ to talk about it. Why was this? How can we have strong opinions on say American foreign policy but not the north? How could a person living in Dublin in the eighties feel the same way as someone from Liverpool about the north? No wonder British companies regard Dublin as ‘regional centre’ like Leeds or Manchester rather than the capital city of another country.
Maybe writers don’t have any duties to anything or anyone (although the Paulin critique centred on Doyle’s failure to engage. While I accept not every writer is political, I have always found the plea to be left alone to write a little, well, whiny) but if they place their work in the public realm it then becomes a subject for discussion and analysis. The critic George Steiner once remarked that Jane Austen’s novels were ahistorical, never mentioning the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. But various studies have kicked this observation into touch most famously by Edward Said in ‘Culture and Imperialism’ where he showed how Austen wrote about the slave trade in ‘Mansfield Park’. So you can read Doyle for his depiction of class in Dublin or for his comic rendering of the daily lives and struggles of northsiders but you can also ‘read against the grain’ and take it as an example of how Irish people (and Irish writers) somehow avoided what was going on north of the border, or simply just didn’t want to know.
On Berlin, I was there in 95 too and am looking forward to going back. I hear Potzdamer Platz is completely rebuilt but the city’s inhabitants are disappointed with its anonymous skyscrapers and corporate logos. Apparently for Berliners the problem is you could be anywhere.