Booker Prize Longlist 2016
martin_z
8 years ago
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bookmom41
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The Booker Prize Shortlist is now out !
Comments (24)Jan - I have some sympathy with you about McEwan, I have to admit. But aren't all writers a bit formulaic? However, I can't let your assertion about "the ever increasing paucity of the Booker selections" go unchallenged. This year has not been a bad selection by any means; last year was a bit disappointing (all statements IMHO, of course!) - but the year before was quite marvellous. John Banville won with The Sea, The Sea and Julian Barnes, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith and Sebastian Barry were all shortlisted - and McEwan actually missed the shortlist that year with Saturday - a book that plenty of people reckoned was good enough to win. There were five quite marvellous novels out of the six on the shortlist. The year before that, Cloud Atlas was on the shortlist - that book in itself is one I would set against your statement about the paucity of modern literature. People forget that in the "good old days" there was also a hell of a lot of trash too. Perhaps your idea of waiting a few years and see which ones survive is a good one. Me, I think the Booker shortlist is normally a fairly good pointer to at least some of the future classics....See MoreThe Booker Prize 2014 - Longlist
Comments (10)As I say, I'm disappointed that David Mitchell didn't make it. However, when I look at it dispassionately, I'm probably not surprised. It's six interconnecting stories, over the course of one woman's lifetime. However, there is a "fantasy" element about the stories; and in particular, the fifth story is exclusively about this fantasy element. It's not too much of a stretch to say that the fifth story is a battle between good and evil. It's perhaps a little too off-the-wall for a Booker short-list. I enjoyed it a lot, but it's certainly not as good, in my opinion, as Cloud Atlas. There's a nice bit of self-referentialism (is that a word?) in The Bone Clocks. An author tells his agent that he is planning a book which is going to be "a bit fantasy"; his agent says to him that a book can't be a bit fantasy, any more than a woman can be a bit pregnant....See MoreBooker Prize Shortlist 2016
Comments (14)Martin, I was thinking about your comment that the success of all four men who knew each other in college was too much a coincidence. Actually, it can happen, and I know someone to whom it did. My husband, while not famous, had a very successful career as a cutting edge engineer and was involved in the fundamental development of wireless networking A friend of his from the rooming house they shared became a famous Hollywood director. Another friend from that same rooming house became a well known New York photographer. Yet another, not as close a friend, is now a world famous composer. You would probably recognize at least two of the names, and perhaps all three if you know the New York art world. The difference from the novel is that all four went their separate ways many years ago and did not maintain the friendship once they left their university. I myself have never met any of the other three men. I even forget the photographer's name myself because it did not mean anything to me, but I do remember the stories. I think this does happen at certain universities. It certainly did not happen at mine, at least not to me, but a high school friend of mine who went to my husband's university long after he was there is also acquainted with a number of highly successful people in her field....See MoreBooker Price Longlist 2016
Comments (10)Right. Finished All That Man Is. It is very good...but is it a novel? It's nine short stories about men; the men are all different sorts of people, from many different parts of the world (mainly European). The main theme is that is all the stories, the man seems to go on some sort of journey. The first is about a teenager (or two) and the last is about an old man; the rest are various ages in between, getting older and older. All the stories are interesting, and there are other common themes...but I'm still not convinced that it is really a novel. One criticism is that the last one is about an old man, trying to come to terms with the fact that he is an old man. But he's actually only seventy-three - to me, it reads more like someone in his eighties. Perhaps I'm more aware of that, as I'm now over sixty - I certainly hope I'm not as doddery as he is when I'm seventy-three! David Szalay was born in 1974, so is forty-three - I'd have hoped he's be a bit more optimistic about aging... I'll read some reviews and see what others have to say. But I liked it, and if it is short-listed, I'll look forward to re-reading it. Now onto My Name is Lucy Barton, as Sheri is so positive about Elizabeth Strout. I've read nothing by her....See Morevee_new
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