People out in the book blogosphere are still talking about The Guardian’s “Tears, Tiffs and Triumphs” article about 40 years of Booker Prizes, and we’ve got quite a few things to say as well–as you’ll see after the jump.
If you haven’t seen the article, you should check it out–if only because it’s just about the best collection of great titles that we’ve seen since the Modern Library released that list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century (holla the Irish! Ulysses, right at the top!) and then everyone else started making their lists, and it was possible to cross-reference them, and debate them, and well–it was sheer readerly heaven
We were pleased to find out that PF’s The Beginning of Spring was on the shortlist in 1988–we’d missed that one. And we loved the honesty of judges like James Wood about what appears to be the innate the absurdity of the process:
it is almost impossible to persuade someone else of the quality or poverty of a selected novel (a useful lesson in the limits of literary criticism). In practice, judge A blathers on about his favourite novel for five minutes, and then judge B blathers on about her favourite novel for five minutes, and nothing changes: no one switches sides. That is when the horse-trading begins. I remember that one of the judges phoned me and said, in effect: “I know that you especially like novel X, and you know that I especially like novel Y. It would be good if both those books got on to the shortlist, yes? So if you vote for my novel, I’ll vote for yours, OK?
And, we should also add that the Booker committee seems to be pulling out all the stops for this anniversary–to include an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum–this American sure wishes she could go.
Speaking of which–the book that seems to emerge most in that category did NOT actually win a Booker–PF’s The Blue Flower. Instead it seems to have taken on the role of the book most mentioned by Booker Prize judges as a book that ought to have one it. Novelist, Paula Morris, who blogs at Trendy but Casual , and Canada’s Sassymonkey, are among the many who are saying the many mentions of the book’s omission is inspiring her to read it.
The Kenyon Review’s blog about the piece is here–definitely worth a look.
Another great example of the mad absurdity that is the world of book reviews and book awards.
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