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1kidzdoc
The shortlist was announced earlier this morning:
Joshua Ferris, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Howard Jacobson, J
Neel Mukherjee, The Lives of Others
Ali Smith, How to Be Both
I've read the Ferris, Flanagan and Fowler, and I'll start the Mukherjee today.
Your thoughts?
Joshua Ferris, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Howard Jacobson, J
Neel Mukherjee, The Lives of Others
Ali Smith, How to Be Both
I've read the Ferris, Flanagan and Fowler, and I'll start the Mukherjee today.
Your thoughts?
2Deern
Aaaargh - as I already said on your thread... :(
These are my comments from my thread in the 75 group:
Now, this really IS ridiculous:
- To Rise again at a decent hour
- We are all completely beside ourselves
were the 2 US candidates I liked least. Darryl quite hated them. Fluff without sense and half-fluff with some sense but neglected side-stories and -characters.
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North
which I disliked but knew it would be selected (the only non-British/Irish/US candidate + WWII + love drama)
- J
- The Lives of Others
- How to be Both
Not unexpected and okay for me. The Jacobsen book is uncriticizable anyway and might manipulate its way to victory, I liked the Ali Smith, and the Mukherjee is my favorite.
As I feared, History of the Rain "died in beauty" as the widely beloved Transatlantic did last year.
I can't believe they selected both the Ferris and the Fowler over Hustvedt and Powers. Both aren't great books, the Ferris is actually close to bad imo. I guess they are cannon fodder to make the final decision easier and to explain why no US author will win, at least that's what I hope.
Now I really, really hope it will either be Mukherjee or Smith - or I'll give up on that prize after just two years of closely following it.
Edit:
I haven't finished The Bone Clocks yet, but understand it hasn't been selected.
a) imo it's less great than Cloud Atlas although it really tries hard, too obviously so
b) in part 4 Mitchell quite insults the Booker Prize, so this was to be expected.
The Wake probably hasn't even been read by all judges. And The Dog was as unlikely as the Ferris and the Fowler - and therefore could have made it, yes. The same goes for the Nicholls which I haven't read yet (to be published here in late October).
As I read all the shortlisted books, my guess for the winner would be Ali Smith.
Just because we had long epic story by author from down under last year (so Mukherjee and Flanigan would be out), not enough time has gone by since Jacobsen's last BP and shortly after the double Mantle they'd probably avoid another double. And then they'd select someone from the UK to prove that the inclusion of the US doesn't change a thing. It will be an US author's turn next year earliest, I believe. This might be one of the reasons why those two lightweights (compared to most of the rest of the candidates) have been SLed.
"How To Be Both" is British, different/ original, doesn't criticize current politics, is liberal in an area that's accepted and still feels somewhat fresh and modern (gender) and the author has been shortlisted three times now if the Guardian comments tell the truth. The judges could all feel good about it.
Mukherjee would be the more traditional choice. I'd be happy enough with both.
But the jury might also surprise us and give the award to the dentist novel, just for fun. :)
These are my comments from my thread in the 75 group:
Now, this really IS ridiculous:
- To Rise again at a decent hour
- We are all completely beside ourselves
were the 2 US candidates I liked least. Darryl quite hated them. Fluff without sense and half-fluff with some sense but neglected side-stories and -characters.
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North
which I disliked but knew it would be selected (the only non-British/Irish/US candidate + WWII + love drama)
- J
- The Lives of Others
- How to be Both
Not unexpected and okay for me. The Jacobsen book is uncriticizable anyway and might manipulate its way to victory, I liked the Ali Smith, and the Mukherjee is my favorite.
As I feared, History of the Rain "died in beauty" as the widely beloved Transatlantic did last year.
I can't believe they selected both the Ferris and the Fowler over Hustvedt and Powers. Both aren't great books, the Ferris is actually close to bad imo. I guess they are cannon fodder to make the final decision easier and to explain why no US author will win, at least that's what I hope.
Now I really, really hope it will either be Mukherjee or Smith - or I'll give up on that prize after just two years of closely following it.
Edit:
I haven't finished The Bone Clocks yet, but understand it hasn't been selected.
a) imo it's less great than Cloud Atlas although it really tries hard, too obviously so
b) in part 4 Mitchell quite insults the Booker Prize, so this was to be expected.
The Wake probably hasn't even been read by all judges. And The Dog was as unlikely as the Ferris and the Fowler - and therefore could have made it, yes. The same goes for the Nicholls which I haven't read yet (to be published here in late October).
As I read all the shortlisted books, my guess for the winner would be Ali Smith.
Just because we had long epic story by author from down under last year (so Mukherjee and Flanigan would be out), not enough time has gone by since Jacobsen's last BP and shortly after the double Mantle they'd probably avoid another double. And then they'd select someone from the UK to prove that the inclusion of the US doesn't change a thing. It will be an US author's turn next year earliest, I believe. This might be one of the reasons why those two lightweights (compared to most of the rest of the candidates) have been SLed.
"How To Be Both" is British, different/ original, doesn't criticize current politics, is liberal in an area that's accepted and still feels somewhat fresh and modern (gender) and the author has been shortlisted three times now if the Guardian comments tell the truth. The judges could all feel good about it.
Mukherjee would be the more traditional choice. I'd be happy enough with both.
But the jury might also surprise us and give the award to the dentist novel, just for fun. :)
3kidzdoc
The best thing I can say about this shortlist is that I'll easily finish it by the time of the prize ceremony on October 14th. I've read the Ferris (execrable, one of my least favorite books of the year), the Flanagan (very good) and the Fowler (ugh). I started reading the Mukherjee yesterday, but I only got through the first few pages.
When I saw the shortlist, particularly the inclusion of the Fowler and the Ferris, and the exclusion of David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks (which everyone assumed would make the shortlist) and Niall Williams' History of the Rain, my first reaction was "WTF???" The longlist was strange, but the shortlist is straight up bizarre. This year's judges, IMO, aren't as out of touch as the ones were in 2011 (the group led by Dame Stella Rimington), but they are far worse than any of the others from the past eight years. Then again, the 2011 judges did give the prize to Sense of an Ending, which I loved.
ETA: Here are some comments about the shortlist from the Mookse and the Gripes Forum, which consists mainly of the contributors on the discussion thread of the prize's web site until the administrators pulled the plug on online discussions two years ago:
When I saw the shortlist, particularly the inclusion of the Fowler and the Ferris, and the exclusion of David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks (which everyone assumed would make the shortlist) and Niall Williams' History of the Rain, my first reaction was "WTF???" The longlist was strange, but the shortlist is straight up bizarre. This year's judges, IMO, aren't as out of touch as the ones were in 2011 (the group led by Dame Stella Rimington), but they are far worse than any of the others from the past eight years. Then again, the 2011 judges did give the prize to Sense of an Ending, which I loved.
ETA: Here are some comments about the shortlist from the Mookse and the Gripes Forum, which consists mainly of the contributors on the discussion thread of the prize's web site until the administrators pulled the plug on online discussions two years ago:
"Has the forum ever been so at odds with the Shortlist??"
"But Fowler, Ferris and Jacobson on the shortlist... come on..."
"not even Stella Rimington did this badly. Absolutely clueless nonsense by any standards, I'm sorry. Fowler AND Ferris are better than...well, any of the others? Really? They should all be sacked and replaced swiftly."
"What an odd list. What on earth is their reasoning?"
"If they give it Ferris or Fowler it will be up there for worst ever winner. Surely neither will survive a third reading?!"
"Which means Karen Joy Fowler is going to win. I'm even putting a £5er on it ASAP. These people are idiots and it will happen."
"I am as flabbergasted as everyone else by this bizarre shortlist, for my money the worst in Booker history. Dame Stella's strange group at least had enough wisdom to finally award the prize to Sense of an Ending, a very worthy winner -- there is nothing approach that on this list."
"I give up. I'm not bothering with the Booker again now until next year. I daren't try and find out who's chairing the next one. Boris Johnson? Sir Alex Ferguson? Jilly Cooper? This is what you get for appointing Grayling. Does he know what constitutes a decent novel? Based on the shortlist, and longlist: no. Lame."
"Ferris and Fowler are dire. The former is actually quite promising in the first 80 pages or so, but then you have 250 pages more of increasingly bizarre and unfocused ramblings on religion, which seemed to be scrabbling for profundity but fell woefully short, and endless repetition of the main character's neuroses. The Fowler is just a bit of fluff, really. That sounds terribly dismissive of me, but it's just a vaguely entertaining story with no features that particularly recommend it."
4Deern
I finished The Bone Clocks this morning which means I read 12 out of 13 now, and I wondered why it was such a favorite everywhere. Had it been published at all before last Tuesday, so had anyone out there read it? On the other hand, if it didn't have that awful part 6, it could easily have been SLed along with Ferris and Fowler.
I had the impression reading the Guardian comments that most readers could live with Fowler's book as the "easy" one on the SL. But both F&F?? Even "The Dog" had more depth than that dentist novel.
I had the impression reading the Guardian comments that most readers could live with Fowler's book as the "easy" one on the SL. But both F&F?? Even "The Dog" had more depth than that dentist novel.
5Deern
As I am just reading David Nicholls' "Us" and read the not-listed "lost For Words" (Edward St Aubyn's take on the BP) I am wondering if the presentation of a book for a prize is mainly the publisher's decision or if the author has to agree? Generally, being listed should raise sales, but if an author is already highly popular and his works are not exactly known as "high literature", couldn't being listed have the opposite effect?
In the St Aubyn book at least one of the candidates wasn't asked and wasn't happy about being selected.
Edit: sorry, this has nothing to do with the SL, but of the general Booker threads this is the most actual one, so...
In the St Aubyn book at least one of the candidates wasn't asked and wasn't happy about being selected.
Edit: sorry, this has nothing to do with the SL, but of the general Booker threads this is the most actual one, so...
6danieljayfriedman
Likely varies from publisher to publisher, and from editor to editor.
7Simone2
I can’t understand History of the Rain didn’t make the shortlist and the middle-of-the-road To Rise Again at a Decent Hour did…
8RidgewayGirl
I am in complete agreement with you, Simone2. That was my first thought on looking over the shortlist.
