Booker Prize: Classic or Dud?

Irvine Welsh called it the most original book he'd read in years. Doesn't read so much I guess.

I called myself Kim Clarke
The bass player?

> Got it as a present, am about half way through but haven't touched it for days

i'm still reading The Famished Road.

So anyway here's the clear highlight - at one point the gang go on a cocaine fuelled killing spree and finally their uptight internal monologues loosen up a bit, then they get double crossed and executed, this is one character as he is being buried alive:

Rock! Rock side to side no side only dirt turn over turn over 'bout turn over
sad crouch like baby crouch and so you have air I should have fuck the
woman I live with no not her some other girl the girl two door down some
other girl white girl charlie's angel pussy pink pussy is pink me see me in daddy
secret book under the bed which he take out when be think me sleep and
go off by himself and make man sound jesus me hard could fuck the ground
must fuck the ground fuck fuck fuck want pussy no don't want pussy fuck
fuck fuck bend her over and rub the cunt and hoist up the battyhole and
sink down the cock and it tight feel like piece of liver wrap 'round you
cocky big big like daddy cocky when he fuck me whore mother her back to
him she didn't care who sleep and who wake and when she raise up herself
daddy cocky like flagpole she raise and raise and couldn't come off but she
don't want to come off she slide back down and yelp like puppy pussy cocky
balls balls and me never see me father naked and me never see him fuck me
mother maybe some other man maybe Funnyboy no he is battyman etc etc

I am enjoying this book so far.

Woody Harrelson in with a shot this year

http://blog.katjakuhl.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RobertSeethaler-PhotoKatjaKuhl06.jpg

Whither my img tags

http://blog.katjakuhl.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RobertSeethaler-PhotoKatjaKuhl06.jpg

Double the woody, double the fun.

Who is that?

The Luminaries has yet to show up in any New Zealand op shops, v odd.

Xp one of this lot:

The Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, Chinese dissident Yan Lianke, Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa, Austrian Robert Seethaler and South Korean Han Kang

(the url suggests it's Robert Seethaler)

USA! USA! USA!

http://www.clipartkid.com/images/138/soldier-in-iraq-a-poem-of-life-and-loss-by-jevonte-lockhart-dW4CmJ-clipart.jpg

http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/uncle-sam-top-hat-bc-32426.jpg

A critique of the 'about novel' and its laurels:

https://this-space.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-end-of-literature-part-3.html

Remember when John Carey said the modernists wrote works to exclude the masses and that was only a bad thing? Why is this any less of a travesty?

John Carey is an idiot and that book is trash.

Funnily enough I am reading some of Woolf's diaries and thinking about her snobbery, in that she acknowledges it, it's a trait that she thinks about quite a bit instead of just being this monstrous reflex she displays.

Oh, there are definitely important discussions about modernism and elitism, it's just none of them come from Carey (source: a huge portion of my academic career).

What is happening when book prizes and the coverage of them has much less concern for the books in themselves than for the identity of the authors and their extra-literary agendas?

i am falling asleep reading this is mostly what's happening

"What is happening when book prizes and the coverage of them has much less concern for the books in themselves than for the identity of the authors and their extra-literary agendas?" - we seriously suggesting this was ever not the case?

lol xpost

I stopped reading at "barbarism" on the assumption it was going to be a pile-up of clichéd handwringing.

i mean the Booker has always been for lamebrow shit, just because they've had the temerity to put a more diverse range of writers in the longlist doesn't mean they're squeezing out a load of avant garde novels that would otherwise have placed

Defeatist, but yes, exactly.

Would tend to agree but I have to say I did really love Milkman by Anna Burns. A good winner imo.

Don’t get the sense that tokarczuk or kraznahorkai are pandering to the mass market either but what do I know

i accept that there are noble exceptions i was just making a bad rhetorical point, which is still true in general imo

also the International Prize feels like a different thing

Anyhow, I do think it's fair to argue that easily summarizable novels written by readily assignable authorial identities are likelier to garner the kind of praise that yields household names. Insofar as this has always been the case (including and especially when otherwise claimed), greater nominee diversity is a step forward, but the underlying concern – the triumph of subjects (in every sense of the term) over the work itself – remains. Then again, this myopia is likely embedded into the business of literary awards, and there is no escaping it short of abolishing them altogether (and even then...).

How many of the books have you read? How many has the blogger read?

Brb, will read them all and report.

Then again, this myopia is likely embedded into the business of literary awards

I'd say it's embedded into the very nature of canon building; as soon as you're grasping for some consensus beyond personal taste it becomes about subjects over work. The fact that the blogger thinks this a new development - as opposed to it having been ever thus, but invisibly so - makes me mistrust him.

the triumph of subjects (in every sense of the term) over the work itself

As Matt DC points out, the blogger doesn't seem to have any idea of whether this is actually the case, as they haven't read the books. So it's basically a kneejerk reaction to diversity, which makes me, uh, very suspicious of this person, to be charitable.

How about a knee-jerk reaction to the marketing of diversity? Or is that the same thing?

I skimmed the article, saw the word Knausgaard several times, and closed tab

xp

it always seems to be an excuse to moan about diversity imo

and almost any novel is described in terms of its subject matter at some point, this piece doesn't really have any clue about the "literary" qualities of the books simply because of how they've been described by reviewers or publicists

also content/style dichotomy, yuk

Yeah I was going to point out that the distinction that's being drawn here is inherently bullshit, but if the blogger in question hasn't read any of the books then he can only be reacting to the subjects.

Austen and her new-fangled 'about' fic-lite concerning love and friendship can gtf, oh but for real writing like Defoe

I mean I am sympathetic to the idea that a lot of brilliant books are disbarred from award consideration in favour of simpler ones that hit the zeitgeist a little harder, but that's life yknow

How about a knee-jerk reaction to the marketing of diversity? Or is that the same thing?

No, it's definitely not the same thing, but while that may have been their intention, it's not how the piece reads to me. I'd also say that debating the marketing of diversity can lead you to the same place as just debating diversity itself if you're not careful.

(For clarity, "you" is the general you here, and the "same place" is racism. Obviously.)

debating the marketing of diversity can lead you to the same place as just debating diversity itself if you're not careful

I, for one, believe it's a conversation worth having, even as I agree that Mitchelmore wasn't careful enough in his own blog post, which is ultimately dismissive and superficial. As an aside, I almost never feel like I'm walking on eggshells when discussing this in non-anglophone settings (not always a good thing, mind you).

Lol just had a look at the link just now and Mitchelmore was on twitter vigorously defending Peter Handke's Yoguslav tourism once the allegations came up again when he won the Nobel last year. No wonder he has problems with diversity.

Careful.

I live in a little personal pocket cancel culture, as I have an unwritten list of names I will never read, watch or listen to wherever they appear. Mostly anti-Corbyn writers, slebs, blue ticks and TV presenters. (I've never written 'blue ticks' before 😱) Anyone else do this?

— Steve Mitchelmore (@Twitchelmore) July 9, 2020

https://balkaninsight.com/2015/08/17/uk-labour-frontrunner-queried-on-kosovo-motion-08-17-2015/

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/26919

You linked him pom.

I sure did, but that doesn't mean I'm 100% on board with his argumentation (or lack thereof).

At this stage I might accept the oncoming apocalypse gratefully if it meant that people no longer felt the need to link everything back to Jeremy Corbyn regardless of relevance.

Not saying that you are. But in response to me adding that context about the author you told me to be "careful" and went on to post about Corbyn. Chill out a bit xp

Mitchelmore is a real bore about post-Beckett fiction. Why was he even fucking around with a booker list and boring on about it, the guy can't even be a proper snob about it.

I was merely pointing out that support for Handke's position re: Serbia is not a deal breaker for many here and hence an ineffective line of attack as far as I'm concerned.

xp you should @ him about his subpar snobbery, it might make for more canonical blog posts in the future.