Good year for the Man Booker Prize
It's a good year for the Man Booker Prize. The longlist generated significant press coverage and sales, with The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas doing particularly good trade.
But, like a giddy thoroughbred in the Grand National, Tsiolkas has fallen at the shortlist hurdle along with David Mitchell, Lisa Moore, Alan Warner, Rose Tremain and Paul Murray.
That leaves Peter Carey (Parrot and Olivier in America), Tom McCarthy (C) Emma Donoghue (Room) Damon Galgut (In a Strange Room) Howard Jacobson (The Finkler Question) and Andrea Levy (The Long Song) in the running for the prize with its attendant £50,000 and sales surge.
All are good books; intelligent, well-crafted, captivating stories. And none would look inappropriately dressed if adorned with a Man Booker Prize Winner 2010 sticker. So, as ever with these things, the decision will come down to the taste of the judges, which is necessarily subjective. My suggestion would be to read them all and make your own mind up.
Much has been made of Tom McCarthy's novel C, which has been described as experimental and has been praised for its willingness to challenge the form. I wonder how many of those who have commented had read his previous novel Remainder? It struck me as a much more experimental book, at once both annoying and alluring, like reading Catch 22 with a John Cage CD playing in the background.
If there were ever a Man Booker Prize for overlooked novels, Remainder would get onto my shortlist.
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Comment number 1.
At 7th Sep 2010, John Self wrote:I read Remainder when it was published in the UK (not, sadly, the Paris edition which is worth a pretty penny these days). I had mixed feelings about it, but the ending was so strong that I found myself revising my opinion long after I'd finished it. I'd certainly like to revisit it and see what I make of it this time, as it seem to have a lot in common with some European fiction I've been reading more of recently (and which I hadn't at the time).
I've read four of the shortlist and would be happy to see McCarthy, Galgut or Jacobson take the prize. I'm an admirer of Andrea Levy's earlier books but couldn't get through The Long Song. Similarly, I've tried most of Peter Carey's novels but - other than Oscar and Lucinda - I don't think I've finished any of them, so I felt discretion was the better part of valour and skipped Parrot and Olivier altogether.
I didn't like Emma Donoghue's Room much, I'm afraid, and it's the only one on the list that would cause me a shudder of despair if it won - a little like The White Tiger did in 2008.
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Comment number 2.
At 8th Sep 2010, ian-russell wrote:So, is Catch 22 annoying while Cage is alluring, or the other way around? I think Catch was the final book I stuck with and finished without enjoying it - it was a big disappointment. I expect it won a prize in its time too.
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