The Booker Prize 2010

And so the day that the 2010 Booker Prize is announced comes around again. A day spent trying to imagine what the judges might be thinking and impotently campaigning for one’s favourite(s). I have read two of them – Room by Emma Donoghue and In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut – and although they are about as different as two works of fiction can get, I enjoyed each one tremendously and they have a common theme on inter-personal relationships as they develop in unusual situations.

Reading the books, however, has never been a pre-requisite for talking about the Booker Prize, so here are my thoughts on the chances of each title.

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey was met with a lukewarm reception by critics and readers when it was published earlier this year, but Andrew Motion has been effusive in his praise for Carey (“one of the writers I feel most pleased to be alive at the same time as”) and there seems to bit of momentum behind him. Giving the Booker to Carey again would be a big decision for the judges to take, and I suspect some may feel it is not worthy of such praise, but it could be open to a compromise vote.

Room by Emma Donoghue would be a popular choice, and in terms of sales figures it is a clear winner regardless of what happens tonight. It is a powerful and compelling story, and given the preponderance of plot driven novels on the longlist it would seem that readability is something the judges prize highly. However, while I would be very happy to see it win, I suspect its best chance is as a compromise.

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut is a beautiful novel, whose power derives from its atmospheric sparseness and lack of hyperbole. It touched me, perhaps more than any other book I have read this year, leaving a sense of loneliness deep in my marrow. The protagonist’s search for something through travel is a quietly resonant one. In another author’s hands, the mix of first and third person perspectives could grate, but Galgut uses it effectively to convey a sense of transient memory and, perhaps, question the borders between fiction and biography. It is classic Booker territory and would be a safe, literary choice.

Howard Jacobson has described The Finkler Question as his best work yet, and his tale of what modern Jewishness  means comprises his trademark comedic elements. However, it appears to have divided readers and comedy doesn’t have much history of success in winning the Booker. I would be surprised if it picks up the prize tonight.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy is a set in Jamaica during the last turbulent days of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed. A possible dark horse, it has somewhat slipped under the radar but would prove a popular winner.

C by Tom McCarthy is the Bookies favourite. It stands out as stylistically different both from the other shortlisted titles, and the original longlist which makes me think it has at least one judge advocating it strongly, and if this is Andrew Motion (looking at what he has said about each of the books this seems very possible) then I suspect it will win.

The BBC Review Show panel were split between Tom McCarthy’s C, The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson and In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut although I’d be surprised if Jacobson is in with a realistic chance.

The village of Comrie in Perthshire went for Room by Emma Donoghue in a BBC Culture Show special.

My heart says In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut would be a wonderful and deserved winner and my head thinks it is in with a chance. My guess is that it will be a battle between Galgut and McCarthy, but that could also open it up for a compromise vote, from which either Donoghue, Carey or Levy could benefit.

GET OFF THE FENCE!

Oh, okay. C will triumph, but that probably kills its chances! In the 6 years that I have been trying to predict it, I have never once been correct. 

So what will?

You tell me.

Theft: A Love Story - Peter Carey

Read: September 2006

You can see what Peter Carey is trying to say here – the struggle for Australian stars to crack the international scene – but for me he does not quite pull it off. This is the story of Michael Boone, aka Butcher Bones, and his struggle to be taken seriously on the world stage. It is also the story of his ‘broken’ brother Hugh, and his adventure with the world. While this has a good mystery plot set in the corrupt world of international art dealing, it never seems to go further that that. I was hoping for more from my first foray into Peter Carey. Read this, enjoy this, but do not expect it to live long in the memory.

4 out of 10

Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey

Read: May 2008

It is reported that Oscar and Lucinda was awarded the 1988 Booker after the judges deliberated for only thirty minutes. Whether or not that is the case, there is no doubt that Peter Carey’s vast story of undeclared, slow burning love is one of the most popular Booker winners of all time. And you can see why. It is one of those novels that I can imagine every writer wishes they could have written. Just ask Angela Carter who is quoted on the back admitting that it fills her with “wild, savage envy.” And, though not in any way a celebrated author, I am of the same opinion.

Oscar and Lucinda is impressively vast, impeccably pitched, subtle and well written. The story is that of the relationship between a young, awkward, bashful, clergyman, Oscar Hopkins, and an Australian heiress with money and independence and not much else, Lucinda Leplastrier. Despite being born half the world apart; one in a quiet Devon village, the other on a farm in the Australian outback, the two are made for each other. Both are inveterate gamblers, “one obsessive, the other compulsive – incapable of winning at the game of love.” When Oscar decides to seek self mortifying missionary work in Australia his sea journey coincides with Lucinda’s return from a glass factory tour and they discover, hidden in each other, the vice of gambling.

But neither is schooled in the international language of love, they are young and uncertain, unable to express themselves and mired in self doubt. And when their addictions lead them to social ostracism, they each gamble everything on a grandiose monument to their love, and each of their lives is transformed forever.

It is the 1860’s, Australia is being violently colonised. The industrial revolution is in full swing. From sleepy Devon to an Oxford seminary, glass factories to backstreet gambling holes, grand sea journeys to treks through uncharted Aboriginal land, Oscar and Lucinda takes us on a journey of exploration into a newly emerging world, complete with its opportunity and brutality.

Reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro in the understatement of the events, Oscar and Lucinda is a fabulously detailed epic novel. Where most authors would stick with one thematic hook to build the novel around, Carey finds three: religion, glass and gambling. Not a natural combination, but one which works superbly. They each support each other, repeatedly extending the metaphors and ideas of the novel as a whole. For example, the complexity of glass: it is both strong and fragile, transparent and yet distorting, practical and magical. And religion which purports to be unquestionable and yet is mired in uncertainty, fragile belief and discord.

Oscar and Lucinda is a novel of rarely rivalled richness, which feels so close to life you can almost touch it. Populated with rounded, characters and underpinned with enthralling themes, this is a book to completely immerse yourself in.

However, despite all this, Oscar and Lucinda does have its limitations. It is dense and capricious, like a squirming eel it is almost impossible to pin down. Each of the title characters is quiet, emotionally withdrawn and unremarkable – to the point whereby even the most remarkable events seem somehow slightly bland. The book is also populated with many characters who walk in and out, just as you feel that you are getting into the lives and characters of Oscar or Lucinda, along comes another character and the narrative moves away from them again. The intimacy is repeatedly broken, the tension is built up only by the tragedy of their unspoken love. And at times this gets incredibly tiresome.

Furthermore, and this is more of a personal problem, I believe that just as everyone has their own individual writing style, so too do they have their own inner reading cadence, some lyrical phrasings which please them, and others which don’t. For some reason, Salman Rushdie’s prose delights me, whereas the flow of sentences here does not rhythmically work inside my head. I find Peter Carey’s short sentences troublesome, almost caustic, and because of this is could not fall in love with this book.

Nonetheless, Oscar and Lucinda is a veritable feast of thematic exuberance and character fallibility. It is a novel to delight in, one that almost everyone who reads it seems to fall in love with.


7 out of 10