Opinion The prize and fall
Has this been the Man Bookers annus horribilis?
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Is 2011 the annus horribilis of the Man Booker Prize? Since its inception in 1969,the award has had its years of crisis. Mistakes of omission (such as Beryl Bainbridge) and commission (such as The God of Small Things) have been made along the way. Indeed,frequent shortlistee Julian Barnes once referred to the selection process as posh bingo. Still,there has been no year quite as bad as this.
First there was the clumsy handling of the Bainbridge affair. The novelist had been shortlisted five times but had never won; a former Booker judge described her,patronisingly and chauvinistically,as eternal Booker bridesmaid. As an afterthought,readers were invited this year to vote for a posthumous award in which the only contender was Beryl Bainbridge herself. The public voted to select the Man Booker Best of Beryl,one out of five of her novels. Her 1998 historical novel Master Georgie won.
The next controversy was the Man Booker International Prize,awarded every two years (the last winner was the superb Alice Munro). First,spy thriller writer John le Carre politely asked to have his name removed from the 13-member shortlist (it wasnt removed). Then,upset over the selection of Philip Roth for this years prize,jury member Carmen Callil,author and founder of Virago Press,withdrew from the jury. She described Roths work as tedious,containing the swish of emperors clothes. Finally,Roth himself chose not to attend the award function,appearing only on video-link and leading to speculations whether he would have done the same for a Nobel.
As for comparisons with the Nobel: in a bizarre comment,the chair of the Booker Prize Foundation,Jonathan Taylor,described the Nobel as whimsical and at best political,claiming that the Man Booker Prize process had greater transparency.
In a selection process where the stakes are high and the conversation involves much bitching,transparency has been a mixed blessing. In its early years,juries included Elizabeth Bowen and George Steiner. This years jury chair,Stella Rimington,is a former head of British intelligence,writes spy thrillers and has been accused of being unqualified to judge literary merit. Admittedly,Booker judges dont have an easy time of it: they have read over a hundred novels,selecting first a longlist and then a shortlist,both of which are subjected to intense public scrutiny and discussion. While no discussion about books can be a bad thing,judges have to face charges of all sorts of bias,including homophobia (this years shortlist leaves out Alan Hollinghurst and Ali Smith).
As for this years shortlist,only one name has ever appeared on a previous shortlist: Barnes,for his novella The Sense of an Ending. Some of the others richly deserve their place on the shortlist. Carol Birchs Jamrachs Menagerie is a superb adventure story set in the 19th century. Patrick deWitts The Sisters Brothers is a wickedly funny road-novel about the destructive power of greed. Esi Edugyans Half-Blood Blues goes back to Nazi Germany to trace the disappearance of a black musician.
Two first-time novelists are on the shortlist: Stephen Kelman with Pigeon English,about a boy from Ghana growing up in England who witnesses a crime; and A.D. Miller with Snowdrops,a novel about corruption and complicity in nineties Russia. About these two weak novels,one irritatingly manipulative and the other filled with stock characters,I have reservations. Their appearance on the shortlist reflects the latest charge against the Prize: that it now values readability over literary merit.
The debate suggests,speciously,that the two cannot go together: that literary merit means unreadability. But look at a book titled Midnights Children,by Salman Rushdie. It won the Booker Prize in 1981,the Booker of Bookers in 1993,and a public vote for the Best of Bookers in 2008. Gloriously combining literary merit with incandescent readability,it appropriated the English language and made it its own.
Rimingtons defence against the charge of valuing readability (whatever that is) is that she would like people to buy these books and read them,not buy them and admire them. The latest chapter in the story is a newly proposed Literature Prize that sets out to rival the Man Bookers reign over the British literary space,claiming that it will be a clear and uncompromising standard of excellence.
At a time when the economic crisis has led to libraries slashing budgets and shutting down,the key word seems to be buy,rather than read or admire,books.
The Man Group,one of the worlds largest hedge funds and sponsors of the Prize since 2002,is not in the best financial health: shares have sunk to their lowest in a decade,and a plan has been announced for one in five jobs to be cut. At such a time,the announcement of yet another prize for literature is welcome. But even more welcome would be the recognition of literature that can offer meaning and hope in difficult times.
The writer is an IAS officer
express@expressindia.com
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