Booker Shortlist Announced: Big Names Gone
Showing an inclination for big, fat sagas and a lack of interest in the biggest names and the bookies' favorites from their longlist, the Booker judges announced their shortlist of six this morning:
- Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
- Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
- Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies
- Linda Grant, The Clothes on Their Backs
- Philip Hensher, The Northern Clemency (UK edition; not out in the US until February, although I wouldn't be surprised to see it get moved up now)
- Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
Not on the list: Salman Rushdie, Joseph O'Neill, for his acclaimed (in America, at least) Netherland, and Michelle de Kretser's touted Lost Dog. Such were the expectations that the chair of the judges could make a headline by saying something that one would think would be self-evident, that Rushdie's Enchantress of Florence was "not good enough" to make the list (sorry, Daphne!).
So what is on the list? Maybe not big names, but big books: Ghosh, Hensher, and Toltz each top 500 pages. There's been a lot of advance word on Sea of Poppies, and I've already expressed my interest in A Fraction of the Whole, but the one that appeals to me most is The Northern Clemency. There's only one customer review for it so far on our UK site (by Nina, from "England"), but it really made me want read the book (I think "Nina" and I like the same things):
I finished The Northern Clemency 4 weeks ago and have been letting it sink in. It is a wonderfully resonant novel, and the people and places still live within my head. It is, for want of a better word, a 'family saga', following the lives of two Sheffield families from the 1970s to today but it is also much more than that. It creates an entire world with a 'cast of dozens', with some marvellous cameo chapters devoted to secondary figures who make the world come alive. It is terribly emotionally involving; it made me weep twice, and this is _because_ of its sparse language that allows the reader to fill in the gaps. The book threw me in and tumbled me about, lulled me into complacency and then hurled something unexpected at me.
I loved the way we weave in and out of different people's consciousnesses, and i never quite knew where I was going to end up.
The prose in this novel is to die for. Some favourite images include the phrase ' She looked at him, sharpening a pencil in her head' and, 'He danced, moving from one foot to the other and making vague clay-shaping motions with his hands.' I hope this gives you a tiny idea of the wonderfully assured mastery of this author. I knew I was in good hands from page 1, and I wasn't let down.
I loved the build-up and the way people get mentioned on p.2 and then disappear from view until they unexpectedly reappear on p.64 in new, delightful combinations. I was entranced by the insight that suspense and surprise needn't come from the story itself but can come entirely from the plot, that is, from the way the story is presented. Unexpected revelations sneak up on you and give you delicious shivers of recognition.
I absolutely loved it. I only wish there were additional amazon stars to mete out because this deserves 7 of them. It is truly outstanding.
"Sharpening a pencil in her head"! That's enough to draw me in. There's also a well-timed interview with Hensher live on the Guardian book pages this week.
The winner's announced on October 14. --Tom
Stephanie Patterson on September 11, 2008 at 03:54 AM
I have to say that I find that the Booker Prize winner is almost always the most turgid piece of prose written in English in a given year. The low point for me was "The Bone People" by Keri Hulme. Several years ago I read "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith and "Night Shift" by Sarah Waters. I loved them both. The prize went to "The Inheiritance of Loss" by Kirin Desai. I (who almost always read every thing to the bitter end) abandoned it after about 50 pages
So I have a new strategy now-I wait to see who wins and then I read the other nominees