It’s nearly here! The Man Booker Prize shortlist is set to be revealed tomorrow, and all of us who follow book prizes are buzzing with guesses and opinions.
By the time the shortlist is announced, I will have read three novels in their entirety – Warlight, From a Low and Quiet Sea and Normal People. I’ve read part of In Our Mad and Furious City, The Long Take, The Mars Room, and Milkman. I’ve also flipped through Sabrina and read a few bits of it. So I can’t tell you from personal experience which I think deserve to be on the shortlist. But I can tell you where I think the ones I’ve read will end up, and I can share the impressions I’ve been getting of the other books based on reviews other readers have shared. So without further ado, here are my Man Booker shortlist guesses!
Books I think will be on the shortlist (in order from most to least certain):
I’m currently reading Sally Rooney’s Normal People, and of the books I’ve read or tried to read, it is the one I’ve found the most compelling. It’s easy to get into, it has great character development, enough plot movement to draw me in, and is also beautifully written. I’ve heard only positive reviews of it, and I’ve also heard it’s one of the books that has the best odds (though I have no idea who calculates the odds or where they can be found). On a personal note, I’d love to see this one at least make the shortlist, if not win the whole prize. I don’t know if it’s “literary” enough to win – it doesn’t do as much with language as some of the others, nor is it a unique take on the form. But I am loving it and it feels like a breath of fresh air to me. It’s the book I think will appeal to the widest range of readers, which I think should be something that should matter. It’s also one that I’m truly glad to have been given a reason to pick up sooner rather than later, and one that will likely make my top books of the year.
The Overstory is most often referred to as “epic” – both in scope and length. It’s also one I’ve heard most readers say they can understand why it is on the list, and that it is accomplished and well structured. It’s not a book that would have appealed to me had it not been on the list, so it’s not one I’ve yet tried to read, but I do think it sounds very Bookerish.
Washington Black only just came out in Canada, but so far seems to be getting great reviews. It sounds like it has good character development, insightful approach to the subject matter and is well-structured and -written. In short, it’s a great book. I don’t have much to say on this one as I’ve only read a few pages of it, but from what I’ve been hearing I really wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue on to the shortlist. If it does, I’ll give it a better try. (Since I started working on this post it has also been longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, increasing my motivation for picking it up!)
Warlight was the first book I read from this list. Fresh off winning the Golden Man Booker Prize earlier this year for his novel The English Patient, I was curious to try an Ondaatje novel, and since I also wanted to read some of the Man Booker nominees this year, this felt like the right place to start. You can check out my full review here, but a short summary is that I felt like the writing was excellent, and I liked what he did with the character development and plot. I also appreciated the thematic threads he weaves throughout the book to create greater continuity. I love books set in London, and this one being set in the years immediately following WWII gave it extra appeal, since that’s one of the few historical periods I enjoy. It wasn’t perfect – it dragged in a few places, and there are elements that will either work or not for different readers. I personally liked the unreliability of the narrator and the unanswered questions left for us to interpret. I got enough closure from the novel that I felt like anything left was by design, and it worked for me. I haven’t read his other work, so I can’t say how it compares, but set against the other books on this list I think it should be a strong contender.
Books I think might be on the Shortlist (in order form most to least likely):
I had very high hopes for From a Low and Quiet Sea. I had heard a lot about Donal Ryan’s work, and even this book had a lot of glowing reviews. I hate to say it, but I was a bit disappointed. I’m working on my full review that will be out later this week, but suffice it to say that while I found it to be beautifully written, it suffered from saying too little in too many words, a poor overall structure, and inconsistent depth of writing. It definitely has elements I enjoyed – Ryan can certainly write, and his ability to draw on what is familiar to him and render it with great attention to detail is top drawer. But as a novel it dragged significantly in places and left me feeling like I didn’t get what I wanted from the book.
The Long Take seems to have taken a lot of readers by surprise. It’s written in poem format, which isn’t something I’m crazy about either. But from the little I’ve read it does have a certain use of language that is unexpected and deliberate. I’ve heard readers who normally don’t read poetry and aren’t into overly impenetrable writing say they actually enjoyed it, and others have been blown away by certain passages. From the section I read it didn’t really appeal to me. I found I couldn’t find the story in the words yet, and without that I was just reading words on a page rather than becoming immersed in and consumed by it. I do think this is at least partly because there’s an adjustment period when you first start reading this book because it is such a departure in form. So I think it would have gotten easier to read had I continued. But there wasn’t enough there for me to feel like I needed to continue. Nonetheless, I have heard such good things about it overall from those who have read it that I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it on the shortlist.
I have read the first few chapters of The Mars Room and it definitely grabs you by the throat. It deals with a woman who has been sentenced to life in prison (and then some), and as we join her she is on a prison transport bus looking out at the world she is leaving behind and trying to adjust to what is now her future. It builds a tangible and suffocating atmosphere, and the imagery she uses, the snippets of life and memory offered up, are poignant and intense. I definitely plan to return to this book, but I am finding myself hesitating over the subject matter. I think Kushner has put a lot of research into the novel, and as such it’s going to be confronting, despairing and dark. Which isn’t a bad thing in a book, but might not be something I have the stamina for at the moment. If it continues as strongly as it starts, I could definitely see it making it to the shortlist.
Milkman is another that I’ve started and found interesting. The two things that really stand out about it are the stream of consciousness narration style and the structure – in that we are looking at the story through the eyes of an unnamed narrator. Both these things fit well with the overall themes of the book. It’s about a close-knit community – not in the positive sense where people look out for one another, but in a more negative sense where everyone is watching their neighbours’ every move and judging any perceived transgression, substantiated or not. It explores how someone who just wants to be left to their own devices can become embroiled in scandal and end up at the center of nasty gossip, and how this can change a life, regardless of truth. It is a debut novel and definitely shows a lot of promise. I’m not sure if it will hold up against more experienced writing, but I can see definite potential.
I am really excited to read In Our Mad and Furious City. It deals with timely subjects and presents a voice often missing from literary work (that of underprivileged youth on a London housing estate). I’ve read a few chapters and though it is written in dialect, it’s not too hard to understand, and lends authenticity to the voices. I’ve heard from others who have finished the book that it’s a strong debut and holds a lot of promise, but that it lacks the polish and overall strong plot you’d get from a more experienced author. I think it’s on the list more for its content than execution, which could work against it as we move towards a culling.
Books I don’t think will make the Shortlist (in order from least to least likely to make it):
Everything Under is one I’m not really sure about. I haven’t read it, and based on reviews it seems like it isn’t quite up to par for the shortlist. However it could be higher up on the list than this – it might be as high up as the middle of the previous section. The main critiques I’ve heard are that it doesn’t do enough to create an original take on the myth it is based on (I’m sorry I don’t know which myth) which makes it a bit predictable to any who are familiar with the original material. I’ve also heard that it takes on too many themes and tries to do too much in too short a novel, leading to a situation where none of them are done as well as they could be.
Now infamous, Sabrina is the first graphic novel ever to make it onto a Man Booker longlist. And I’ve heard good things about it. It’s not an art style I enjoy, but it’s supposed to work well with the story and overall sounds like it is thought-provoking, original and well-executed. But even though it sounds like an excellent graphic novel, it is still a graphic novel. I don’t think that has to be a negative, but in this case I’ve heard that while reviewers have enjoyed it, they mostly seem to think it doesn’t stand up to full length novels as it isn’t able to capture the same depth or detail. It could surprise us, but I feel like it is unlikely to progress any further.
I’m a bit puzzled about The Water Cure. From everything I’ve heard it’s a very standard attempt at a feminist dystopia, but one that doesn’t even seem all that feminist. Many have said they feel like it only made the list because it’s an example of a popular type of book at the moment rather than its own merit. Most reviews I’ve seen aren’t very positive – they say the themes aren’t dealt with all that well, the character development is lacking, and the plot itself isn’t anything original. It’s not one I feel all that interested in reading, so I haven’t even given it a try.
And finally, we have the only genre fiction on the list, the thriller Snap. I’m so confused about this book. I’ve only heard one positive review of it, but even that one said it doesn’t belong on this list. It seems to be a middling thriller, one that isn’t particularly well plotted, that doesn’t stand out in terms of what it does with characters, that doesn’t do a good job of dropping breadcrumbs, and that is serviceably well written at best. No one thinks it belongs on the list, and some even think its presence is suspect since one of this year’s judges is blurbed on the cover. I’m going to leave it at that, because I think there has already been plenty of negativity about this particular book, and I’m starting to feel a little sorry for it.
There are a few things I wanted to chat about to do with this year’s Man Booker Prize. There has been a lot of discussion, particularly about the type of books on the list, and I have some thoughts.
One criticism of this year’s list is, of course, the inclusion of a graphic novel and genre fiction (in this case a thriller). There are those who feel like neither belongs on the list, regardless of the merits of an individual work. I don’t agree. I think each book should be judged independently, and if a work of genre fiction or a graphic novel stand up to the literary fiction of the year, then it absolutely belongs on the list. I do think, however, that the occurrence of that will be rare. There’s a reason we don’t often see literary fiction, genre fiction and graphic novels competing on the same playing field, and it’s because it doesn’t seem like an even one. But I think that if publishers want to put their books up against literary fiction knowing it’s likely at a disadvantage, and if judges feel like a particular genre fiction or graphic novel book can hold its own, then there’s no reason to exclude it.
That said, I don’t think the selections on this longlist this year seem to fit that criteria. Sabrina is well-regarded, and reviewers seem to be enjoying it, but most are saying it lacks the depth and range of a conventional novel, and doesn’t stand up to direct comparison. Some like the artwork, but just from paging through the book without reading the text, I find it monotonous and a bit bland. Which is fine and I think fits the story, but it won’t add to the overall impact of the book for me. And Snap isn’t getting good reviews as a thriller, let alone as a thriller going up against what is supposed to be the best full-length fiction work produced in the past year. I do think there are literary thrillers that could. One that comes to mind immediately is Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel. It’s got elements of a psychological thriller, but it is also amazingly well-written, as well as being readable and deeply emotional. I wouldn’t have any issue with a book that wonderful being on this list, because though it does have a thriller element, there is no doubt as to its literary merit. Snap, however, doesn’t sound like it holds up to the kind of scrutiny it’s receiving, and at the end of the day I think it’s doing it more harm than good. Instead of being reviewed as a thriller, it’s being reviewed as the only thriller to make the Man Booker list, which is a whole different scale, and one which has left it open to a lot of negative feedback and feelings of disappointment among Man Booker readers.
I get the feeling, from looking at this year’s Longlist, that the judges wanted to make a statement about what literature is and can be. And while I don’t disagree with the idea that we should open our minds to new formats and ideas, I don’t think the specific books they selected to make that point are capable of doing so. Instead, we have all the expected debates about whether other genres should be allowed into a prize that has historically been dominated by literary fiction, but we also have a lot of criticism and suspicion being piled onto the specific books that have brought that debate up in the first place. In the end, particularly in the case of Snap, it seems like the intended opening of minds has backfired, and it has instead served to reaffirm the opinion of those who do not think genre fiction has a place in the Man Booker Prize.
The Man Booker Prize positions itself as being the literary prize of the year, and the books nominated for it have generally been considered to be the best on offer in the time range that is eligible. I don’t think this year’s longlist represents that accurately, and I think there is a lot of disappointment from people who have come to expect the Man Booker to be representative of the best and the brightest. Based on the reading I’ve done so far (which admittedly is not very much, and I loved Warlight and am really enjoying Normal People – but I’ve picked up and put down a few others because they just failed to draw me in) I’ve felt deflated. What started as an exciting foray into wonderful new books has ended up with some puzzling selections, some obviously flawed work, and only a couple that I think really stand up to the books I’ve seen nominated in other years.
I’d love to hear from you guys. Do you feel similarly about this year’s longlist? Or do you feel like it’s a refreshing departure? Do you agree that, while this year’s specific selections may not be up to much, genre fiction and graphic novels could have a place on future lists? Or do you think it should be limited to full-length literary fiction? Are there any other discussion points I’ve missed? If you’ve written a post discussing this year’s list, feel free to link it below so we can all check it out!
