Catch-up-2015
Since I last updated this blog, two pillars of the
Booker Prize have passed away. Martyn Goff, administrator of the prize
from 1972-2006, died in March, aged 91. Then a couple of weeks later, his
successor, Ion Trewin, succumbed to cancer, aged 71. Trewin had been the
youngest chair of a Booker jury in 1974, and was the editor of Thomas
Keneally's Schindler's Ark which won the prize in 1982.
The last of Ion Trewin's many contributions to the
literary world was to write an obituary of
his predecessor, from which I learned that Goff had written nine novels in the
1950's and 60's, several with explicitly gay themes. This at a time when (male)
homosexuality was still a crime. The Plaster Fabric (1957) and TheYoungest Director (1961) in particular were credited with helping to gain
public support for a reform of the law. (So there are another couple of additions to
my growing list of pioneering gay novels which ought to be reissued -
preferably as part of a set of LGBT Classics. Along with works by authors such
as Ronald Firbank, Stephen Spender, Francis King, Paul Bailey, etc. Are you
listening Penguin? Vintage? Bright pink covers optional.)
Goff expertly kept the Booker prize in the headlines
with strategic leaks (or “tactical indiscretions” as Nicholas
Clee puts it.) A similar attribute was required of his successor. When
Trewin was being interviewed for the position of literary director, Julia
Neuberger, one of the trustees of the Booker Prize Foundation, asked him
whether he was devious. He said yes, and got the job.
Everyone who follows the Booker Prize owes the pair of
them much respect and many thanks for the work they did in overseeing and
promoting the prize for so long. My commiserations to their families and
friends. Good luck to Gaby Wood, head of books at TheDaily Telegraph, and a Man Booker judge in 2011, who will take
over as Literary Director from October.
RIP Martyn Goff (1923–2015) and Ion Trewin (1943–2015)
In May, the 2015
Man Booker International Prize was awarded to the Hungarian author László
Krasznahorkai - whose first, and most acclaimed, novel Satantango,
originally published in Hungary in 1985, was belatedly translated into English
in 2012. The judges lauded his “extraordinary sentences, [...] sentences of
incredible length that go to incredible lengths, [...] epic sentences that,
like a lint roll, pick up all sorts of odd and unexpected things..." Which reminds me of the longest sentence I
ever read. It occurred early in Tim Parks' Europa, shortlisted in 1997.
If I remember correctly it went on for several pages and innumerable
subclauses. It was also the last sentence by Tim Parks I ever read.
Krasznahorkai will be the last author to win the Man
Booker International Prize for a body of work, as the prize has now merged with
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and becomes an annual award for a single
book, with a £50,000 prize split evenly between the author and the translator.
The 2016 longlist will be announced in March, the shortlist in April and the
winner in May. Boyd Tonkin of The Independent will chair the judges. For
speculation as to what may be in the running, there is, already, a
list on goodreads.
But what of the main event, the 2015 Man Booker Prize?
What might we see on this year's longlist next Wednesday?
Well it is very easy to imagine Kazuo Ishiguro's The
Buried Giant and The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall on a Booker Prize
list, long or short. Very, very easy.
And be warned: there could be monsters. 600, 700, 800
page monsters. Death and Mr Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis (816pp), for
example. "As a former Man Booker judge," Lucasta Miller said in her
review, "I will eat my hat if it doesn’t make this year’s list."
And we all know how well pledging to eat a hat turns out. Though it might be
easier to eat a hat than to try and digest some of the great (i.e. fat)
American novels that may have dropped into the judges laps. The Familiar,
Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z. Danielewski (880pp) and The
Dying Grass by William Vollmann (1376pp)
might be big outsiders, but A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (720 pp) and City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
(944 pp) have both received massive praise and, if submitted, could be hard to
ignore. As will Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh and Arcadia by
Iain Pears, which both top 600 pages. Thank goodness A Suitable Girl still
isn't due until next year. (It's always next year).
Talking of girls, erm, I mean women, Nicola
Griffith recently complained that most prize-winning fiction is written by
men, about men. Well this year's judges ought to be able to find a few novels
that pass the old Bechdel Test as there are a lot of strong female contenders around - including previous winners
Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker and Anne Enright, as well as newly eligible
Americans Toni Morrison, Anne Tyler and - oh, have you heard? - Harper Lee has a
new book out. Bookmakers William
Hill are offering odds of 33-1 against Go Set A Watchman winning -
but, as with The Goldfinch last year, I think it unlikely to have been entered.
Why use one of your limited number of submissions on a book everyone is going
to read anyway? Expect some 'Harper Lee
Snubbed' headlines after the longlist announcement.
Of course, trying to guess which books will have been
submitted is surrenderously daunting - especially as the number of books
publishers can enter is so complicated under the new rules. (I suspect the
formula Z(u,w)=Z0(w)[1-exp{-b(w)u}] may be involved somewhere.) All the more reason why the list of titles entered
for the prize should not be kept secret. Otherwise how can we - and by 'we' I
mean Nicola Griffith, because I'm a bloke so I can't be bothered - how can we
know whether it is the fault of the judges, or whether publishers are just not
submitting many books by, or about, women?
Anyway I'm sure you must be dying to know what would I like to see on the longlist next week - if only to point out that
most of them are books by men, about men.
There is The Field of the Cloth of Gold by Magnus
Mills for starters. He is a unique literary talent who should be more
widely-read and prized. And I agree with Jackie at FarmLaneBooks
about I Am Radar by Reif Larsen, although I haven't read it yet. (It
seems that the library copy I ordered is not being bought after all - something
a longlisting would change, and a 40% budget cut
would completely knacker.) I'm also looking forward to tackling Quicksand - Steve Toltz's first novel since being
shortlisted for A Fraction of the Whole in 2008.
I have just read The
Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan, and
it would be not be out of place on the longlist, and I only recently finished
Jonathan Buckley's last novel Nostalgia, in all its vivid historical
detail, after reading it on-and-off for you-would-not-believe how long. Just
you try and stop me from diving into The River is the River.
Also high on my already-far-too-big-for-one-lifetime-to-be-read-list are: Acts of the Assassins by Richard Beard, Glass by Alex Christofi, Don't Let Him Know by Sandip Roy and The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota.
Some books almost deserve longlisting for their titles alone: Patrick de Witt's new novel “Undermajordomo Minor“, for example (his first since being shortlisted for The Sisters Brothers in 2011). Then there's "GrandmotherDivided by Monkey Equals Outer Space" by Nora Chassler; and Nell Leyshon's "Memoirs of a Dipper: in which ... you get to learn shitloads about me and I learn fuck all about you - it's a memoir, it ain't a youmoir".
posted by PJE @ 12:50 PM
3 Comments:
Hi - I am Stephen Jarvis, the author of Death and Mr Pickwick. Thanks for mentioning me in your blog. It's funny - Lucasta's statement that she would eat her hat if the novel didn't make it on the Man Booker list was exactly what my American agent said. The Evening Standard also said that "surely" Death and Mr Pickwick would be nominated, but alas no. It's a disappointment, of course, but life goes on. Do you have any views as to why it was not chosen?
Anyway, you and the readers of your blog might be interested in taking a look at the Death and Mr Pickwick facebook page at: www.facebook.com/deathandmrpickwick I post there every day, and there is a real sense of a 'fan community' starting up on the page.
All the best
Stephen Jarvis
Hi Stephen,
I haven't read Death and Mr Pickwick, so I could only guess why it wasn't chosen. Maybe this year's judges just prefer contemporary fiction, maybe there are other agendas at play.
"It may not have been an explicit goal but the diversity of the longlist was no accident," according to Michael Wood in The Guardian.
Interesting that he doesn't say much, but does describes the judging process as "animated" and "argumentative" and that "the longlist could have been twice as long".
It sounds to me like this jury might be a bit fractious.
Hi Phillip
Many thanks for that. I don't know whether any other authors have told you about the experience of waiting for the longlist announcement, but it certainly put me in a very strange state of mind. The night before, I found myself watching loads of Beatles videos - something I haven't done for years. There is an association between The Beatles and Death and Mr Pickwick - there is a scene in a modern-day section of the novel which takes place on the day of Lennon's association - and undoubtedly that had something to do with the weird craving to watch the band.
Anyway, I do hope you will take a look at Death and Mr Pickwick, even though it didn't make the longlist.
All the best
Stephen
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