Booker Prize 2012

[Liam]

Another rather "pale"-looking list, I must say, with the exception of Mantel and possibly Levy and Eng (question, how was he even qualified to be nominated, I thought he was Malaysian?)

They've announced the 2012 Booker longlist today:

• The Yips, by Nicola Barker
• The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman
• Philida, by André Brink
• Skios, by Michael Frayn
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
• Swimming Home, by Deborah Levy
• Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
• The Lighthouse, by Alison Moore
• Umbrella, by Will Self
• Narcopolis, by Jeet Thayil
• Communion Town, by Sam Thompson
• The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng

[Stewart]

Eng (question, how was he even qualified to be nominated, I thought he was Malaysian?)

Commonwealth writers are eligible, and Malaysia's in that group. So effectively, it's just excluding the USA.

I'm going to give one or two an investigation, but other than that, the Booker is a bit boring these days.

[Daniel del Real]

Haven't read Andre Brink but I had the chance to see him in a conference and have read good reviews about his books

[Stiffelio]

Brink is the only writer that I have read. He used to write very good novels back in the 70s. The rest on the list are virtually unknown to me. It seems as though they decided to ignore the well established writers this time. No Amis, McEwan, Gordimer, Mo, Boyd, Carey, Smith to name just a few who were in contention with new fiction and who had received good reviews. I'm particularly disappointed about Timothy Mo's absence from the list. His new novel was a comeback after more than ten years of silence.

[kpjayan]

Jeet Thayil, One of the long listed writer is discussed here : http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper...cle3684502.ece

I havent read the book, hence cant comment on his quality.

[Galatea92]

I wouldn't call either Nicola Barker or Will Self "pale", Liam. Stylistically, they're both pretty outrageous; neither of them writes the kind of straightforward narrative that usually wins the Booker.

[Liam]

Yeah, but compared to the kind of literature I usually read these are pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants, .

[Galatea92]

Yeah, but Chaucer isn't eligible for the Booker .

[Hamlet]

I've recently heard a rumour that Geoff Chaucer is living in Bethnal Green and writing again...

... so you never know!

[Flint]

I suspect that if there were a Time Machine Booker Prize, Chaucer wouldn't stand much of a chance - too hard to read.
Dickens, Thackeray or George Eliot would be more likely to win.

[Hamlet]

Yeah, I think most only get to look at the Wife of Bath's Tale, I studied The Pardoner's Tale, and recently picked up a copy of the collected works, it's not an easy read, for sure...

[Liam]

Compared to what's going on in much contemporary fiction elsewhere, British authors often come across as three-year-olds playing in a sandbox.

[Liam]

A recent piece on the uneven distribution of nominated authors among Commonwealth countries.

[Hamlet]

Compared to what's going on in much contemporary fiction elsewhere, British authors often come across as three-year-olds playing in a sandbox.

Not true, there's a few five-year-olds in there too.

[Hamlet]

A recent piece on the uneven distribution of nominated authors among Commonwealth countries.

Yes, I've never taken any notice of it, to be honest, I almost feel that if I do, it's the beginning of the end, objectively I mean... at best, it's just promotion, but what we have to do as readers is find what we enjoy and evaluate according to our own needs and outlook.

[Flint]

I can remember quite a number of good novels among the Booker winners (for example both Coetzees - especially the first one).
When the new owners of the thing decided that it needn't be a prize for "serious" fiction (and consequently they awarded the prize to that very, very silly tale about the boy and the tiger) I, logically, stopped taking it seriously.

[Incidentally, I would propose that the prize be renamed "The Ian McEwann Prize", because Mr McEwann's has designed and perfected what I think is the ideal, quintessential prototype of what a Booker Prize novel should be (considering the sort of people who take the Prize seriously and buy the books selected): English-set, well-researched, populated by highly educated mid/upper middle class characters, smoothly and reassuringly narrated but with a hint of menace from dark forces (a thrill for the middle-class reading constituency). It is an act of injustice of historical proportions that so many McEwann Booker-Prize novels managed not to get awarded the Booker Prize: ah, those Atonement, Enduring Love, Saturday, novels that were so Booker-Prize and yet never won the prize - and what an irony that he should have won the Booker Prize for that least Booker-Prize of all his books, Amsterdam].

By the way, Liam, were you saying something about sandboxes?

[Liam]

By the way, Liam, were you saying something about sandboxes?

Well, if you're into bubblebaths with plenty of little toy-ducks, I'm sure that can be arranged, .

[Flint]

Originally posted by Liam:
"British authors often come across as three-year-olds playing in a sandbox"

I suppose a simile to refer to the mythical "insularity" of British fiction.

Originally posted by Liam:
"bubblebaths with plenty of little toy-ducks"

A very apt metaphor to refer to big, character-filled, TimeMagazine-puffed American novels.

[Eric]

The failure of the Booker is to notice that the rest of the world doesn't always write in English. If some Brit wins the Nobel everyone in Britain drools, but the British publishing & bookselling, profits & bestsellers industry can no longer cope with literature as such, i.e. serious books. It's all hype and glamour, and interviews and readings (aloud). Adding a few names from "our former colonies" does nothing to disguise the sheer introversion of this prizes - write in English, or go away. Only Anglo-Indians and people such as André Brink who gave up Afrikaans because of the stigma, or maybe some bilingual French-Canadian can actually win the Booker.

Whether British fiction is insular is neither here nor there. It's whether the snooty British literary establishment is prepared to accept foreigners writing in funny lingos or patois - that is the point.

[Flint]

On second thoughts, the prize ought to be called "The Barnes-McEwann Prize". It should be awarded to Julian Barnes and Ian McEwann on alternative years.