March 20th, 2007
Orange “Broadband” Prize and longlists V shortlists
Every year when the contenders for the
Orange Prize are announced, you can usually set your watch by a handful of grumbling columnists who come out of the woodwork to say that a women-only fiction prize is a bad idea. No one of course, seems bothered to tackle the other inherent problems in book prizes. If it’s not odd judge selections, it’s the sneaking suspicion that marketing is taking over the whole thing. Take this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction. Sorry Orange “Broadband” Prize for Fiction. Now that the mobile phone company are expanding their online enterprises, they’re happy to force this nugget of information down our collective throats by shoe-horning the word into the actual title of the prize.
Sarah Crown on the Guardian’s book blog is not a happy bunny either and feels a 20 title field is more akin to a random list of books than a carefully-culled representation of women’s writing over the last year.
“Is it merely the case that any list of 20 books by 20 different authors will be diverse by definition? And at what point does ‘diversity’ blur into amorphousness? Looking at the selections this morning, my first reaction was not pleasure at the diversity it exhibited, but exhaustion at the thought of having to wring some sense from it: a list of 20 books, it seems to me, is too long to convey any of the “judgment” we expect from prize committees. It’s simply a list.”
Building on this year’s prize buzzword of ‘diversity’, Crown (in the main paper) points out that the list includes 20 novels from seven different countries, eight first-time novelists, six longlist veterans, a Booker winner and one author (Margaret Forster) who has written more than 20 novels.
In many ways, I’m inclined to agree with Crown. With a 20-strong field, there’s about as much clarity to the list as a typical Grand National field: a handful of predictable favourites and a majority of outsiders. You also can’t help but think that the whole concept of a longlist is something that has publishers rubbing their hands together with glee. After all, if your author’s book a) doesn’t win or b) doesn’t even make the shortlist, you can still blithely print off a ton of stickers saying “Longlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize”, which translates as “was on a first-stage-only-wide-open-major literary prize list along with 19 other books”.
Oh, and one more moan: Rachel Seiffert’s Afterwards has made the longlist. I read when it came out last month and it’s an appallingly dull, all over the place book, which claims to be about the relationship between a physiotherapist and a former soldier who served in Northern Ireland now suffering from post-traumatic stress, when it fact most of it is about DIY.
Good to see MJ Hyland included for her Booker-shortlisted Carry Me Down. Booker-winner Kirin Desai is on also there, as is the much feted Half of a Yellow Sun. About four people (included two of the book club lasses) have recommended Lori Lansens’ The Girls to me, so I better add that to my ‘to read’ pile. Also intriguing is Clare Allan’s Poppy Shakespeare, a book inspired by the fact that the author has spent a third of her life as a psychiatric patient.
The 2007 Longlist:
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fourth Estate)
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan (Bloomsbury)
Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk (Faber)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton)
Peripheral Vision by Patricia Ferguson (Solidus)
Over by Margaret Forster (Chatto & Windus)
The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger (Picador)
When to Walk by Rebecca Gowers (Canongate)
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo (Chatto & Windus)
The Observations by Jane Harris (Faber)
Carry Me Down by MJ Hyland (Canongate)
The Girls by Lori Lansens (Virago)
Alligator by Lisa Moore (Virago)
What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn (Tindal Street Press)
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (Quercus)
Careless by Deborah Robertson (Sceptre)
Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert (Heinemann)
Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley (Faber)
Digging to America by Anne Tyler (Chatto & Windus)
The Housekeeper by Melanie Wallace (Harvill Secker)
Links:
2007 Orange Prize Longlist
Win all the books on the longlist
March 20th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Another in a long list of reasons for disregarding the Orange Prize is that Zadie Smith’s On Beauty won it last year.
This was the first book I ever literally threw at a wall upon finishing reading it.
I had three reasons for ploughing on with it after I realised it was rubblish:
1. It won a major literary prize, so it must get better at some point, right?
2. I was relishing throwing it at the wall.
3. The list of books I have failed to finish is quite short, and ‘On Beauty’ wasn’t fit to be on that list.
In case you are wondering what this has to do with the 2007 long list, well, not much, but I needed to vent.
Jim.
March 20th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Jim, I salute your book-throwing. You’ve reminded me that I also hated On Beauty and that Zadie Smith leaves me cold. I wonder if it made it onto the recent ‘unfinished books’ list?
March 20th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“On Beauty” is on my “To Read” list, along with about 40 others. Should I bin it? Actually, it’s kind of intriguing me now - may pick it up next…
March 20th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Shane, God no, definitely give it a go. Various pals read it and loved it. If you do, be sure and report back..
What else is in your wobbly pile of 40 ‘to read’ books?
March 20th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Oh, off the top of my head, and to kill about 60 seconds before I knock off for the day.
Christine Falls - Benjamin Black (aka John Banville)
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
The Damned United - David Peace
The Bush At War Trilogy - Bob Woodward (I need to read them en masse)
I’ve just read:
Enemy Combatant - Moazzam Begg. Truly astonishing
Q & A - Vikas Swarup. An almighty swindle, from beginning to end.
Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs - Jeremy Mercer. One of best books I’ve read in many a year. An absolute must if you love books and/or Paris.
I’m reading now:
The Ginger Man - J.P. Donleavy. Why haven’t I come across this before? Those years of censorship must have filtered down to the modern consciousness. It’s our Gatsby. Not an easy read, but I love the impressionistic quality of it, if not its abominable hero.
Anyway, must dash.
S.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
thanks sinead, i felt like i really should like afterwards, as the reviews were all great and i devoured the dark room, but i found it such a chore to finish and it seemed to go nowhere. it’s books like that, that make me think i should get out the typewriter myself!
March 20th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
‘The Girls’ is fantastic. I finished it last week and it’s absolutely brilliant, I really enjoyed it. I loved the way it was written in real time but went back and forward between past memories and the present. I hadn’t heard of the author before and actually picked the book up in a bit of a hurry, so was pleased that I actually liked it in the end. I’d recommend it
(I bet now that I’ve said that, everyone else will hate it!)
March 21st, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Re-reading Moby Dick at the moment. Nothing to beat it.
March 21st, 2007 at 2:41 pm
As with Jim, I’m in the middle of ‘On Beauty’ at the moment, and I’m finding it hard going.
Some of the sentences are just horrible - one in particular is memorably awful [it uses the phrase ‘but this American poet’ in a horrible, lazy expository sort of way - I’ll find the whole thing if anybody’s interested].
For a similar reason to yourself, I’ll be sticking with it (On Beauty is not fit to join Ulysses!) but I’ll admit that I have also abandoned it for a while and read two or three other books (a Phillip Roth phase) in the meantime.
My choice is between starting Edna O’Brien’s In The Forest or finishing the second half of Zadie Smith (and probably never reading another word of her again!).
I’m guessing here but I think a major problem ‘On Beauty’ is that it seems to have been edited lazily or without enough forthrightness from whoever was involved. Not enough red pen with ‘REWRITE’ in the margin!!!!!
March 21st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I tried Moby Dick when I was in college. Just couldn’t master it. Every time I picked it up I was over-powered by a feeling of lethargy - to me, it felt like one of those books which should be prescribed as a cure for insomnia.
But then that was just my reaction; I still have it at home, the old £1 penguin copy, and I could be persuaded to give it another shot some time…
March 21st, 2007 at 9:04 pm
A further thought; while all the downsides of longlists mentioned above are valid, I’d like to point out one or two good consequences.
1) Getting on a long-list probably gives encouragement to people who may only have sold a small number of books. Seeing your name beside leading lights must be a confidence booster for people who apsire to join them.
2) Longlists generate a bit more publicity for the sponsor and in a roundabout way probably contribute to the value of the prize being worth more to them . Eventually, the prizemoney on offer must (mustn’t it?!) go up, giving writers more money. Which is good, as the vast majority of writers don’t make enough (or so they tell us).
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:50 am
Female or male,if you find one in ten books thats worth the effort your winning. What is interesting about that short long list is the publishers. Not that many small/medium independents in that little lot.
Using your horsey simile,its more flat than jumps.
March 25th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I agree with Vin, I was struck by the large number of large publishers, some on the list 2 or 3 times. Canongate are small (and brill at what they do) but are on of the biggies now, if only by reputation. WHy the same old asme old crew ALL the time? So boring….