July 05, 2008
Re-reading the best of the Booker
From The Telegraph:
Maths pedants may disagree, but this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize, which began in 1969. The celebrations continue on Thursday, with the announcement of the Best of the Booker: the novel that in the opinion of the public has been the greatest of all the prize's winners - although in these democratic times, anybody can vote whether they've read the books or not. Less democratically, the shortlist of six was chosen by a panel of three, and duly led to several news stories about startling omissions - from Possession to Life of Pi. Personally, though, I found myself in the pleasingly smug position of having read all but one of them. As a result, I decided not just to fill in the gap, but also to break the habit of a lifetime by spending a recent holiday re-reading the other five. (I appreciate that, according to Vladimir Nabokov, "a good reader… is a re-reader", but there are so many other books out there.) The experience provided plenty of welcome reminders of how good these novels are, as well as plenty of shaming ones of how much you forget about what you've read.
And later:
As things stand, though, it's not easy to see anything beating the far more famous Indian novel on the list - which might be more of an injustice if Midnight's Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie weren't also the best book of the lot. Nearly 30 years - and at least three more classic Rushdies - later, Midnight's Children should, in theory, have lost its power to astonish. In practice, rereading it instantly returned me to that original state of awed disbelief that so much exhilarating stuff can be packed into a single novel. (Rushdie, you feel, could have knocked off the entire plot of Oscar and Lucinda in one chapter here.) At times, the unstoppable commitment to storytelling seems almost pathological. Yet, in the end, the book is so thrilling that wishing Rushdie had trimmed it into something less wild would be as futile as asking a hurricane to tone it down a bit.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 06:27 AM | Permalink
Comments
Midnight's Children is a book entirely composed of good bits.
Posted by: Sagredo | Jul 5, 2008 7:45:02 PM
_Disgrace_ is a horrifying, difficult and brilliant novel, much too tough to get "Best of the Booker." _The Ghost Road_ is the best book of our generation about why the species goes to war, and how it is, exactly, that old men send young men into it. It's perfectly agonizing to read. Nadine Gordimer's best book is not on the short list, and for that sole reason, she shouldn't win. Peter Carey, as wonderful as he is, should not take a prize from the likes of Gordimer and Coetzee. I'll bet _Midnight's Children_ wins, not because Rushdie can touch Coetzee, but because Midnight's Children_ is marvelous, meaningful, easy to like, easy to read, and there are compelling extra-literary reasons for honoring its author, who has risked more for his muse than the others in this company.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 5, 2008 10:07:33 PM
Elatia,
In my view, Disgrace is head and shoulders above the dozen-odd other Booker winners I have read. You've just helped another sale of The Ghost Road.
Midnight's Children wouldn't get my vote because I recall almost nothing from it, other than a sense of "manic characters, frenzied action, and frequent digressions on topics secondary to the story" (quote by James Wood but not on Rushdie). I see this either as a reflection on his novel, or a sign of my failing memory. Yet I remember a lot more of The English Patient, Last Orders, and Remains of the Day (read them all not too far apart in the mid-90s).
As for the extra-literary reasons you cite, I'm reminded of General Clarke's recent comment about McCain: Getting shot down from the sky and getting tortured by the enemy in a prison camp does not qualify one to be president. For his ordeal, Rushdie was awarded fame and money. His more abiding literary contribution is to have almost singlehandedly infused, with this book, a new sense of confidence among South Asian writers to describe their world in their domesticated English idiom. If this consideration improves his odds, what lowers it again is his continued descent into writing that lacks substance - an award might send the wrong message. Anyone keeping score?
Posted by: Namit | Jul 5, 2008 11:35:27 PM
I re-read Midnight's Children last September and like the reviewer here, was astounded to discover how much I had forgotten from my first read in the early '80s.
Another obscure Booker gem is The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell, a winner in the early 1970s. The novel is set in 1857, during the Sepoy Mutiny (soldiers' mutiny) - the first serious but poorly organized uprising against British rule in India. Essentially a story about the Brits, (Indian natives are in the background - shadowy figures, dying, fighting and occasionally striking terror in English hearts) it is a sharp analysis of the mindset of conquerors and occupiers. Each Englishman and woman had a personal vision of what colonialism was all about. A brilliant, humorous and humane story, with the unlikely back drop of a desperate and bloody rebellion, the book goes well beyond the idea and ideals of the Raj. It is more about man's understanding of man, machine, religion, science, politicial power, infectious disease and other age old conundrums.
Posted by: Ruchira | Jul 5, 2008 11:35:35 PM
Namit,
I couldn't agree more. Coetzee should win this one. He's matchless. It's just that I don't think he will win.
I LIKE fiction that is demanding rather than beguiling. To provide a harrowing yet ultimately illuminating experience that reaches into our moral life and forever alters it is precisely what fiction is for, what it does like no other art form. If someone wants to read _The Ghost Road_ because I said to -- great! But reading _Disgrace_ is worse than reading Thomas Bernhard. It's almost too much. It would be very un-English to give the "Best of the Booker" to a book like that. The Booker doesn't always go to very English writers, but my sense is that the "Best of the Booker" will be given for very English reasons.
Also, I did not mean that I thought the fatwa conferred greater literary status on Rushdie. What it did was to re-elevate literature -- through the agency of /any/ work thereof -- to the status of being inimical to a religion or a theocratic regime. Not even Thomas Mann and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn managed to get into that kind of trouble. I think it would be extremely English to factor this in, even though _The Satanic Verses_ is not the book under consideration. It would have been fine with me, btw, if Rushdie had stopped writing some time ago. But I am glad he hasn't stopped because someone crazed and ignorant and devout put a stop to him.
Ruchira,
I haven't read Farrell -- I don't know what to make of his being short-listed. I'll get to it on your say-so.
I think the prize will be given to someone living, someone whose prize-winning book will be re-issued to fanfare with the purpose of stimulating new readers, especially those of secondary school age. Who does this sound like???
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 6, 2008 12:32:45 AM
Another whoop for Coetzee. Also I wish someone would explain the glories of Rushdie to me. Apart from Haroun and the Sea of Stories this Indian's managed to be underwhelmed by everything the man's written.
Posted by: D | Jul 8, 2008 9:11:58 PM
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