Reading the Booker Prize

Notes on the Process 3.

2010-02-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

Vernon God Little was such an awful reading experience that I decided to take a break from the Bookers for a while to read some other stuff, including Roberto Bolaño's staggering 2666, a novel so good that it made Vernon God Little seem even worse, if that's possible, than it appeared at first. Anyway, here are a few thoughts on the project so far.

1. It's going pretty well! Apart from the above mentioned travesty (how the jaysus did it win??!?) all the books I've read have been great.

2. Now that I'm back from Fiji, and my options for books to read are comparatively boundless, I think I'll have to really commit to reading a certain number of Booker winners a year, or else I'll just keep reading other things and never catch up!

3. Really, how did it win??!

Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre (2003)

2009-12-26T00:17:00.001-08:00

As lazy, as trite, as smugly self-satisfied a satire as it is possible to imagine, Vernon God Little is, in my opinion, a painfully bad book. The plot is boring, the characters are cartoonish, the imagery is infantile, the prose is abysmal, and the main theme, the media’s voyeuristic obsession with violence and tragedy as entertainment, is so hackneyed as to be almost meaningless. A middle-class fantasy of white-trash clichés, this is easily one of the worst books I have ever read. And I’ve read Rule of the Bone.

I usually don't like to summarise the plot in my reviews, but I have to here, because its banality is a key problem. A teenager, unable to convince the police in his small Texas town that he wasn’t involved in a school massacre, flees to Mexico where he is betrayed before being whisked back home for trial, conviction and sentencing. That’s it. Nothing else really happens, so the plot isn’t exactly complex or interesting in and of itself. The writing can be summed up in a single word: ass. The word “ass” appears, in some form, on almost every page. To call the book scatological is to understate its author’s obsession with asses and shit, which is handy enough, because the book itself is utter shit. Saying "ass" every page is not daring, it’s not "using the vernacular," it’s just repetitive and contrived, like the rest of the prose.

As for the characters, rarely have I read a book where the author has such clear contempt for his or her own characters. Never have I encountered such a collection of gross stereotypes, lazily deployed to such cynical effect. Practically everyone, bar Vernon, is greedy, treacherous, and shallow. There isn’t a single adult Texan who isn’t morbidly obese and dripping with barbeque sauce. Similarly, there isn’t a single adult Mexican who doesn’t have greasy hair and gold teeth. There’s even a “wise old Black convict,” just to complete the pantheon of American stereotypes. And this is my main problem with the book: it is not, at all, about challenging our preconceptions, presenting us with difficult themes or ambiguous characters, or saying something new about the problems of contemporary society. It is only about making bland, conventional points about “the media” and “consumerism” while confirming easy stereotypes and playing to the lowest common denominators. As such, it’s a masterpiece of pandering. An odious book, I’m well rid of it.

Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie (1981)

2009-12-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

This is definitely, without a doubt, the best of the Booker prize winners that I’ve read so far. I loved it! An amazing novel, which is somehow both the story of one individual and the history of an entire country, Midnight’s Children is a really fun read, completely bananas and fantastic and tragic and just brilliant.

Saleem Sinai is writing his life story, and it just so happens to be one of the most extraordinary stories every committed to paper. Born on the stroke of midnight on the day India became an independent nation, Saleem’s life has been, he tells us, inextricably linked to that of his country. Present at, or possibly responsible for, the pivotal moments in India’s history, Saleem tells us of his journey from middle-class snot-nosed kid to outcast teenage slum-dweller to soldier to magician’s assistant to enemy of the state to pickle maker, and explains how his own experiences are linked to those of the treacherous politicians, murderous generals and martyred poets who have shaped the history of India.

A dazzling combination of history and myth, Midnight’s Children is a magical-realist retelling of the story of the modern Indian nation-state seen through the eyes of a boy who is both completely unique and an exemplar of his time and place. Saleem’s story really is, as he says, an amazing “chutnification” of history. The writing too is amazing. Rushdie has a real gift with words; his sentences are complex and ornate but compelling and never obfuscating, and the way he makes them twist and turn back on themselves, making clear what was foreshadowed, is really fun to read. This is definitely a book I will read again and again. There’s so much in it to admire and enjoy, it’s a real pleasure.

The Gathering, by Anne Enright (2007)

2009-10-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

It was hard for me to read this book with any sense of distance. So much of The Gathering resonates strikingly with my memories of my large extended family that, in the end, I found the book to be both perfectly truthful and a little bit irritating.

After the death of her brother Liam, Veronica Hegarty tries to make sense of the ruin of his life, and her own, by remembering her and Liam's childhood, visiting the places of their shared past, and reimagining her Grandmother's life. So much of the book hit the mark perfectly, and how could I not love a book that uses Dublin words like “bockety” and “baggsed?”

However, as the only voice in the book, I eventually grew a bit weary of Veronica. It’s just that there's something relentless about her unhappiness, which started to grate after a while. Also, Veronica’s prose, while brilliant, seemed at times too mannered, too writerly, in a way that contrasted sharply with the terse, short snatches of dialogue. The barrenness of the dialogue really throws the fecundity of the prose into relief, and maybe this is Enright making an argument about the disjuncture between the imperfect, improvised nature of speech and the studied, perfectability of the written word, but after a while it began to make the characters sound monosyllabic and disengaged, and the prose musings of Veronica too studied.

But, a good book, well written, full of powerful, corporeal images of the interconnectedness of sex and death, eros and thanatos, that deals honestly and painfully with the wreckage of family secrets, and a particular moment in Irish history as the country transitioned from a barely repressed Church state into, well, something else. But, having grown up around people a lot like Veronica and her family, maybe my patience for them was always going to wear a bit thin? Hardly Enright's fault.

Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald (1979)

2009-10-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

I was really ready to not like it, but I have to admit, Offshore really surprised me. Initially it seemed a little boring, but by the end I was completely won over by the beauty of the prose, the characters and the images. It was easily the most enjoyable read of the Booker winners so far, and is right up there with Banville's The Sea as the most purely novelistic. It was just, I don't know, lovely.

A motley crew of characters live on house boats and barges along the Thames. I won't summarize the plot, because there isn't one, as such. Instead, the book is about the various minor dramas that make up the interconnected lives of the river dwellers, focusing especially on Nenna and her two precocious daughters. The tide ebbs and flows, the boats fall and rise. The characters inhabit an in-between world, not quite at sea and not quite on land, a liminal space that seems inexplicable to everyone else.

The physical position of the boats mirrors the liminality of the characters, each of whom seems caught between different moments or ways of being: Nenna between independence (symbolized by her bright, carefree girls?) and dependence (on a husband who has left them rather than live on a barge); Richard between duty and happiness; Maurice between legality and illegality. The tide seems to push and pull the characters as it does their boats, with Fitzgerald giving us a visual and emotional representation of the ebbs and flows of their lives. All the way through the book runs a longing, embodied in the very boats themselves, old and broken though they may be, to cast off and head for the sea, mythical place of freedom.

It may lack the plot and "seriousness" of a book like Coetzee's Disgrace, but Offshore is so funny, charming, evocative, and beautifully written that I defy anyone not to like it. It's a perfect study in miniature, everything is where it should be.

The Sea, The Sea, by Iris Murdoch (1978)

2009-09-30T05:22:00.001-07:00

There’s no way to get around it, this book is odd. I think that’s part of the reason why it's taken me so long to write this review, because The Sea, The Sea is just so strange. Even its strangeness is strange, because for the most part it's fleeting. In the main, the book is a relatively straightforward story about ego and obsession. But every once in a while it takes a turn for the supernatural, and the disjuncture between the mundane details of Charles Arrowby’s life of self-imposed exile in his ramshackle seaside house and the bizarre incidents that beset him, involving ghosts, monsters and Buddhist esoterica, is sharp and, well, strange.

Arrowby is a renowned playwright recently retired to the coast, and the book is, ostensibly, the result of his attempts to write his memoirs. The first-person narrative begins with teasing hints about the salacious details he might reveal about the private lives of various stars of stage and screen, before increasingly becoming a record of the events happening to him in the present: his swimming habits in the treacherous sea, the spurned women who show up at his door unannounced, the visits of his old theatre friends and of James, his mysterious half-brother, and, crucially, the unexpected presence of one particular woman, from his youth, with whom he becomes dangerously and tragically obsessed. It is the aftermath of Arrowby’s attempt to rescue this woman (shades of Orpheus?) from her life of normality that finally forces him to reflect upon his own monstrous, self-regarding ego and the illusions upon which it is built.

There are non-human characters, too. The sea is a looming presence against which the actions, and the lives, of the human characters seem petty and insignificant. The house is a haunted repository of someone else’s memories, where every creaking step and groaning timber speaks of previous lives. There is also magic, and death. It’s a dense, complex, impressive piece of art, this book.

Notes on the Process 2.

2009-09-30T01:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in months, and the next winner of the Man Booker Prize will be announced in a week, thereby adding one more title to my list. Personally, I'm hoping Hilary Mantel wins for Wolf Hall, a novel about Cromwell's machinations in the court of Henry the VIII, because it looks great and because I don't think I can handle reading three JM Coetzee novels in short order. Anyway, to business.

1. Don't wait for feckin' months after reading a book before writing a review of it!

2. Don't be intimidated by reviewing a difficult, complex book. No one is reading this blog anyway.

3. Read more.

In a Free State, by V. S. Naipaul (1971)

2009-04-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Nominally a novel, but actually more like a collection of short stories, In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul is thus a little difficult to review. Should I focus on the novella, from which the book gets its title, or should I deal equally with all five narratives, and attempt to draw out the shared themes that give the book its coherence? I’ll try to do a little of both, the latter first.

In a Free State is, essentially, about experiences of being out of place. In this sense, it reminded me of Mary Douglas’ conception of matter out of place from her essay “Purity and Danger.” The stories are all about people who find themselves in places where they feel, or are made to feel, that they don’t belong; the stories are about boundaries, purity, pollution, incommensurability and just plain strangeness. The presence of an English tramp on a Greek ferry causes uproar, an Indian servant tries to come to terms with his new life in Washington D.C., a South Asian West Indian immigrant in London reflects on the ruins of his life, two white Britons in Uganda drive from the capital to their compound in the south as post-independence upheaval around them throws their presence in the country into relief, and finally, an Asian businessman travelling through Milan and Cairo reflects on cruelty and empire. I liked some of the stories a lot more than others. Some made for uncomfortable reading.

However, the main story, In a Free State, is brilliant. The contrast between the self-deluding Bobby, who claims to have some sort of authentic connection with “Africa,” and the cynical, weary Linda is very effective. At one point Bobby says that “Africa saved his life,” while Linda gives the impression that Africa ruined hers. But, though Linda is open about her prejudices, we’re meant, I think, to respect her more than Bobby, who is possessed of the same prejudices but who hides them under a thin layer of patronizing tolerance.

In the end, then, I couldn’t really say I that enjoyed the book. It was brilliantly written, provocative, but depressing, and I’m not sure that I agree with the central theme, which seemed to be the impossibility of being, in the full sense of the world, in a new place. That’s entirely too close to a Herderian argument about the inextricable connection of culture, place, and identity for my liking.

Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee (1999)

2009-03-19T16:19:00.001-07:00

This is tricky. On the one hand, I thought Disgrace was great, but on the other, I’m not sure I understood it. Half way through the book and there I was, firmly convinced I was reading a novel about power and powerlessness, gender and race, but by the end I was thoroughly confused and not at all sure about what I’d just read.

I suppose that's an endorsement. I feel that good books, like good paintings or good pieces of music, are supposed to be complex, they’re supposed be a bit opaque and demanding, to work on multiple levels, engaging us in different ways at different moments. At some point, however, I felt like Coetzee lost me, or rather I lost him.

His prose is excellent; sharp, clear and short sentences that convey complex themes and emotions simply. The story, about a college lecturer, David Lurie, who retreats to his daughter’s farm after resigning in disgrace following an affair with one of his students, is somehow both straight-forward and deeply strange. A terrible incident involving his daughter forces him to reflect, though never explicitly, upon his own actions, and throws into relief the gendered power relations which structured and facilitated his affair with his student. His glib rationalizations, following the affair, about the rights of Eros seem particularly distasteful when viewed retrospectively through the lens of his daughter’s ordeal, and we are asked to think about the differences and similarities between Lurie’s affair and what his daughter went through.

However, I couldn’t really get a handle on the changes that subsequently came over Lurie. I couldn’t quite reconcile it with his character. I just didn’t get it, basically. I didn’t understand the particular form of these changes, why he started to care more for the dogs at the animal shelter, for example. But, I'm sure the fault is mine. This is a book that I probably need to read again, carefully, to really pick up on all of its nuances and meanings.

The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga (2008)

2009-02-28T00:49:00.000-08:00

This book was rubbish. Just kidding, it was great! An account of the life of a self-made Indian entrepreneur and murderer, Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger is both funny and furiously angry.

Born into poverty in a village in rural India, to a dying mother and a rickshaw pulling father, Balram Halwai tells us his story in the form of an extended letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao about the reality behind “modern Indian entrepreneurship.” Taken out of school by his grasping family and forced to work as a cleaner in the village tea shop, Balram is determined to get out of the Darkness (the countryside) and into the Light (the city). But when he does, as the driver of the son of a local landlord, he discovers that the crushing weight of inequality weighs upon him there too, just as it did in the village. As a servant, even to such a relatively enlightened master as Mr. Ashok, Balram is trapped in a cage of expectation, exploitation and humiliation, and it takes an act of ruthless violence to set him "free."

This is an absolutely unromantic portrayal of modern India. Balram’s story is one of shocking inequality and corruption. Through his eyes we see an India of binary opposites: of Darkness and Light, of flashy shopping malls and disgusting slums, of outsourcing call centers and back street brothels, of rich and poor, of masters and servants, described with often brutal frankness. Even so, I particularly liked the way Balram’s expressions of anger were often related almost as afterthoughts, as if they surprised even him, as if he himself was too inured to his position to be able to articulate or reflect upon his anger explicitly.

That the book is somehow scathing and funny at the same time is down to the unique voice given to Balram by Adiga. This is a book about injustice, but it isn't a book only about injustice, it's also about a great character, a funny and charming narrator, and the book is great precisely because he is.

Notes on the Process 1.

2009-02-27T22:41:00.000-08:00

I just finished the second book on my list of Man Booker prize winners, Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, and I have a few thoughts about the process of reading these books and writing these reviews.

1. I'm going to try to read the books without having read their blurbs. This was difficult for The White Tiger, because there were blurbs plastered on every available inch of the book's cover. But I think it's necessary, because I find myself so easily influenced by them. Yes, I am mentally weak!

2. The fact that every book has won the Man Booker prize obviously means I have certain expectations for each. I'm anticipating an exceptionally boring blog where every post begins "this book is amazing."

3. Trying to keep the reviews between 250 and 300 words is difficult. On the one hand, I hate reading reviews that go on for ever, but on the other, a short review seems to encourage, in me at least, hyperbole. I want to convey a lot with a little, without using too many superlatives, but I also don't want to just summarize the book.

The Sea, by John Banville (2005)

2009-01-27T22:49:00.001-08:00

An amazing book, probably one of the most affecting, beautiful and unsettling I have ever read, The Sea is an intense meditation on grief and memory. Banville's prose is brilliant, challenging and poetic, and even though it’s highly polished there's also rawness to it. His characters are memorable, and Banville has the ability to conjure them for us, fully realized, out of the smallest details and phrases.

Retreating, following the death of his wife, to the seaside town where he spent his childhood summers, Max Morden reminisces about his wife, and in particular about the fateful summer when, as a boy, he met the Grace family. Banville presents us with Morden’s interwoven thoughts, memories, and fears in startling and at times uncomfortable detail. Morden is not an easy character to like, but somehow I was drawn into his compelling world of rememberance and grief. I was particularly struck by how Morden’s memories of his childhood were both childlike and knowing, in the sense that while they were the products of an adult author writing the memories of his adult narrator, they also conveyed that oddly-directed clarity that, for me at least, characterizes certain childhood memories of my own.

Everything about this book, from Morden’s memories of the seductive and strange Grace family, to his anger and guilt over his wife’s death, to the descriptions of his fellow lodgers at the seaside guest-house, are absolutely crystalline. This is the first novel I have read in a long time where I really got the sense that every single word was carefully chosen. An excellent book.

The Books

2009-01-27T20:33:00.001-08:00

The Idea

2009-01-27T19:28:00.001-08:00

The Man Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in the literary world. "Any full-length novel, written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland and published this year, is eligible for the prize. The novel must be an original work in English (not a translation) and must not be self-published.

The judging panel changes each year. Every effort is made to achieve a balance between the judges of gender, articulacy and role, so that the panel includes a literary critic, an academic, a literary editor, a novelist and a major figure. A judge is rarely enrolled a second time."

The prize has been awarded every year since 1969. There were joint winners twice, in 1974 and 1992, meaning that 42 novels, and counting, have been awarded the prize.

I thought it would be fun to read all the Man Booker Prize winning novels. So, I'm going to give it a bash, and post small reviews (around 300 words) of each book here. Hmm, this is probably going to take a while...