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bookgazing) wrote2009-10-07 10:37 am
bookgazing) wrote2009-10-07 10:37 am
The Booker Announcement and other Bookerish content
Wolf Hall won the Man Booker Prize 2009. Hurray! Reasons to be cheerful.
As I was reading bits and bats from the Booker website yesterday I came across the perspective of a former Booker judge Alex Clark. She judged the 2008 prize and makes it sound like an ordeal no one should miss out on. One bit I especially liked:
‘And I begin to wish death and destruction on 'pseudo-novels', the books that look like novels and consist of many novel-like attributes - plots, characters and imagery, for example - but somehow seem to lack the strange alchemy of style and subject matter, the dizzying experience of being introduced to another subjectivity, that true works of literary fiction must have.’
And another I didn’t:
‘Never read blogs. We are a sub-standard panel of self-serving nitwits who have chosen a dud novel from a duff shortlist from a poor long list in a dying medium, say the bloggers, whose convictions are so strong that they find it unnecessary to sign their contributions with their real names.’
Sigh, I’m sure she doesn’t mean to show hatred for all bloggers in one short paragraph, unless I’ve missed it and the ‘proper literary people’ have decided we’re trying to steal their jobs again.
Then after the official announcement the BBC decided it needed to hammer home the point that Booker sales do not compare with the sales of popular fiction, like Dan Brown. Personally I don’t understand why almost a million people would buy his new book when Maureen Johnson is reading it for all of us, save the trees, read her readers guide.
They also drafted in Robert Harris as this year’s expert on snobbery and the Booker, which is sad because I like the idea of Robert Harris’ books, some of them are on my shelves waiting to be read and now I think they may wait a little longer. It seems like Harris is one of those authors who both literary snobs and people who think setting your books in ancient Rome makes them impenetrable, get their backs up over, being one of those wonderful authors who know how to plot a book and how to write sentences that don’t inspire very funny real time reads at blogs, but is quite happy operating within some general literary conventions. This is all hearsay by the way, as I haven’t read his books (who needs to read ‘How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read’ ?;)
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of this argument over whether popular fiction can be literary and whether the popular authors get an unfair deal from prize judges. What I want to see discussed is what content (the subject and the word choice and the structure and anything else you can think of that might be found in a book) makes a book a work of great literature, not how many sales makes your book in/eligible to be great literature, or if a certain genre should be awarded critical regard.
Can popular fiction also be literary fiction? Yes, remember Charles Dickens, remember Wilkie Collins, surely we’re not saying that spirit in popular fiction is dead. Is the book industry the only place that venerates the underground, the things that do not sell commercially, above commercial successes? No, music fans love to find that band that no one’s heard of and scorn the bands that sell well. If you’re a big selling author, but you can’t pick up the prizes should you start associating literary fiction with snobbery? No, count your money, thank your fans and try to make the world a better place. If you believe in literary fiction must you look down your nose at popular writers? Nu-uh, not necessary. Although I’m still not prepared to try Dan Brown I like writers, such as Jodi Piccoult and Ian Rankin, while also getting a kick out of Lorrie Moore and Margaret Atwood. There are wonderful authors with neither the money, or the acclaim just trying to break into the world all you guys inhabit, count yourselves lucky.
As I was reading bits and bats from the Booker website yesterday I came across the perspective of a former Booker judge Alex Clark. She judged the 2008 prize and makes it sound like an ordeal no one should miss out on. One bit I especially liked:
‘And I begin to wish death and destruction on 'pseudo-novels', the books that look like novels and consist of many novel-like attributes - plots, characters and imagery, for example - but somehow seem to lack the strange alchemy of style and subject matter, the dizzying experience of being introduced to another subjectivity, that true works of literary fiction must have.’
And another I didn’t:
‘Never read blogs. We are a sub-standard panel of self-serving nitwits who have chosen a dud novel from a duff shortlist from a poor long list in a dying medium, say the bloggers, whose convictions are so strong that they find it unnecessary to sign their contributions with their real names.’
Sigh, I’m sure she doesn’t mean to show hatred for all bloggers in one short paragraph, unless I’ve missed it and the ‘proper literary people’ have decided we’re trying to steal their jobs again.
Then after the official announcement the BBC decided it needed to hammer home the point that Booker sales do not compare with the sales of popular fiction, like Dan Brown. Personally I don’t understand why almost a million people would buy his new book when Maureen Johnson is reading it for all of us, save the trees, read her readers guide.
They also drafted in Robert Harris as this year’s expert on snobbery and the Booker, which is sad because I like the idea of Robert Harris’ books, some of them are on my shelves waiting to be read and now I think they may wait a little longer. It seems like Harris is one of those authors who both literary snobs and people who think setting your books in ancient Rome makes them impenetrable, get their backs up over, being one of those wonderful authors who know how to plot a book and how to write sentences that don’t inspire very funny real time reads at blogs, but is quite happy operating within some general literary conventions. This is all hearsay by the way, as I haven’t read his books (who needs to read ‘How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read’ ?;)
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of this argument over whether popular fiction can be literary and whether the popular authors get an unfair deal from prize judges. What I want to see discussed is what content (the subject and the word choice and the structure and anything else you can think of that might be found in a book) makes a book a work of great literature, not how many sales makes your book in/eligible to be great literature, or if a certain genre should be awarded critical regard.
Can popular fiction also be literary fiction? Yes, remember Charles Dickens, remember Wilkie Collins, surely we’re not saying that spirit in popular fiction is dead. Is the book industry the only place that venerates the underground, the things that do not sell commercially, above commercial successes? No, music fans love to find that band that no one’s heard of and scorn the bands that sell well. If you’re a big selling author, but you can’t pick up the prizes should you start associating literary fiction with snobbery? No, count your money, thank your fans and try to make the world a better place. If you believe in literary fiction must you look down your nose at popular writers? Nu-uh, not necessary. Although I’m still not prepared to try Dan Brown I like writers, such as Jodi Piccoult and Ian Rankin, while also getting a kick out of Lorrie Moore and Margaret Atwood. There are wonderful authors with neither the money, or the acclaim just trying to break into the world all you guys inhabit, count yourselves lucky.