The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
Booker Prize for Fiction
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2019 Booker Shortlist Discussion
Interesting that the supportive Irish Times article is by a judge of the forthcoming Costa Novel Prize - whereas (some of) the Man Booker International 2020 and Goldsmiths 2019 judges were those immediately complaining about the decision.Preparing us for something equally different for the Costa? Although I think this is more in favour of letting judges make their own decisions without a social media backlash, particularly (as has been the case this year) about the judges as people as much as about their choice.
Wonder which of the other shortlisted books this bit is about....?!
“needless to say, the ever sensible folk of Twitter were so outraged that one might have thought the judges had not only honoured Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo jointly, but had ordered the other shortlisted authors to exit the Guildhall immediately, make their own way home and never commit pen to paper again”
Gumble's Yard wrote: "Nice to see some common sense and balance in the Irish Timeshttps://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.ir..."
I hope there is more like this. After the criticims of the Nobel and the Booker their seems to be more of a bitter taste than usual or than warranted. We are the few that celebrate and enjoy the books, so I hope as a whole can find the beneficial in the prizes.
Mod
I too believe Evaristo deserved to win alone, but I'm not sure I buy Singh's narrative entirely."
It's another article that sets out a hypothesis about what the judges did, and who backed what (as do some posts here) - but unless they ever explain exactly what did happen, it's impossible to know which commentators were right.
Which hopefully the judges never will, and will instead main their collective endorsement of their collective position.That's a particularly odd article in that it draws it inferences from a comment the head of the judge made saying he refused to force the jury to come up with a single winner (or by inference to overrule them) and spins it as him demanding The Testaments won.
These kinds of articles have a tinge of conspiracy theory to them, and as such, they make me concerned. I'm not overly concerned, and I do think Boyne has a point in his article about everyone going a bit over the top in anger. But I can't help but get more than irritated when I see the piles and piles of "Booker Winner" tables that have zero copies, or two in one case, of Evaristo's book (in the UK - Waterstones seems particularly bad on this.) That's the only reason I care: after reading both books, before the judging happened, it was clear to me which of these two was an obvious winner. The spin on social media, comments sections, the right-wing press, etc is what makes an even hand harder to take.ETA: even the title of Singh's article is irksome to me. She didn't deserve to win b/c she's black. She deserved to win b/c the book was better.
From memory it’s common/normal for the Booker winner to sell out in the immediate period after the win - most stores only hold a handful of copies of books, which is what has happened to Waterstones from my conversations with a few branches on Thursday when I was looking for a copy to ask the author to sign for Paul at the Foyles winner reading (which Margaret Atwood was unable to attend for personal reasons leaving the sole focus on Bernardine Evaristo). Luckily Foyles had taken a delivery that day - 500 copies for one store!
HT is an exception as shops had already done mass orders alongside the launch event - especially Waterstones who hosted and promoted it.
I went to a Booker gala evening on Wednesday run by the Booker foundation and literacy trust with a panel of past judges and past shortlisted authors including Penelope Lively. Part of the ticket prize was advertised as a free copy of the winning book. We were told on the evening that we had to choose one of the two winning books. I turned to my neighbour and said I thought that was a little ironical given the judges did not have to. I particularly enjoyed the comment as my neighbour was Gaby Wood.
Interestingly the books were probably 3 to 1 in favour of GWO.
Ella wrote: "ETA: even the title of Singh's article is irksome to me. She didn't deserve to win b/c she's black. She deserved to win b/c the book was better."It is a rather odd article, purporting to be complaining about Evaristo not winning outright, while feeding the opinions of the detractors who say she only won because she is black.
I can't take seriously an article that compares "Evaristo" with "Margaret."
Some more detail on one of the non-winner shortlisted authors’ publishers and their views on the judging process. It did not seem to be paywalled for me. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/pu...
Mod
Gumble's Yard wrote: "Some more detail on one of the non-winner shortlisted authors’ publishers and their views on the judging process. It did not seem to be paywalled for me. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/pu......"
I sympathise with Galley Beggar's position.
No matter how many explanations they come up with, the truth is that the judges messed this up big time.
Perhaps Afua Hirsch's didn't realise that she unwittingly admitted to the judging panel's incompetency.
“How do you judge the titanic career, the contribution to culture of Margaret Atwood, against the sheer beauty of Elif Shafak’s Istanbul?” she wrote. As Ron Charles from the Washington Post responded: you don’t. “You had one job”, he tweeted, “and that’s not it.” The rules state that the prize is about individual books, not a career. “How do you pit the phenomenon of Salman Rushdie against the quality and consistency of Bernardine Evaristo, who was in my view hitherto hugely underrated?” Hirsch went on. What did Evaristo’s “consistency” and the feeling that she had been underrated have to do with her current novel?
Mod
Antonomasia wrote: "Hirsch's piece arguably messed it up more. Before it was published, the issue was simply that the judges declined to decide between two books. Hirsch's explanation, though she was probably trying t..."Fair point. That's why I think someone should come up and tell us "what the hell happened."
But they won't, not for a few more years at least.
I also empathize with Galley Beggar but my empathy stems from their being a small press where I can imagine the work and cost could create a greater sense of disappointment. I do not agree that the other shortlisted books were dismissed. Or if one is to take that view, what do we make of shortlisting in general, because if there is a sense that specific books on the shortlist are disposable, does that not automatically suggest that the nonshortlisted books, already bypassed, are of even lesser value? I thought Lanny and Lost Children's Archives to be the equal to any on the list and I anticipate The Man Who Saw Everything to be on par as well. There were many possible winners this year. I will argue that there are pro and con arguments for a number of the longlisted books and to be realistic, other criteria are needed if judges feel deadlocked.And that brings me to body of work. I personally think it is of importance as a secondary consideration and feel it would be difficult to divorce it from the process anyway. I have noted "right author; wrong book," quoted here and elsewhere, often. It is foremost in criteria we use to anticipate future winners. I guarantee someone is already deciding between Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel for next year's prize. (presuming they are both entered.) Now my personal view is that The Testaments should not even have been longlisted but once longlisted, and especially once shortlisted, it had to be given equal consideration based on author as another might be on merit.
The problem with the TLS article is that it starts with a conclusion - Ducks should have won the Booker (it immediately talks about "publishing a book of this size and importance") - and then works backwards to find everything possible it can wrong with the decision-making process to justify that verdict.As a subscriber to the press, I'm afraid they've exhausted my sympathy.
See below for how the article starts.I don't believe it say Ducks should have won, but it does say that the editor thinks it has many merits and so go and read it to find out what those are. Yes he's grumpy. And yes, we're all still talking about this a week later. If there had been one winner we would have moved on by now.
"To be one of the publishers of Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport will always be a source of pride and joy for me. But if I started to tell you about the merits of this novel I would never stop. Copies are out there if you want to find out why I love it so much. Let me instead tell you about a few of the logistical aspects of publishing a book of this size and importance.
Ducks, Newburyport is 1,030 pages long, largely one single unspooling sentence – and I take great satisfaction in the way my co-director at Galley Beggar Press (and wife), Eloise Millar, edited this huge, complicated book and brought it to press. And did it quickly, because we wanted to publish this book, that said so much about the United States of America, on July 4. We worked flat out. Our initial print run was 4,500 copies. Not the same as Margaret Atwood’s Testaments, I know, but a significant risk for a press as small as Galley Beggar. 600 of those copies arrived at our office – which is also our small terraced house in Norwich. We couldn’t move for books. We were exhausted. But we were also elated. It felt like we were about to give the world a tremendous gift."
I didn't read it as the publisher complaining why their candidate didn't win. They believe they wasted time and effort because their book didn't stand a good/equal chance given how the winners seem to have been chosen. I can agree with that but they should also realise that when you compete against literary stars, odds are stacked against you, even if the entries on the shortlist are strictly judged on merit and not by their authors' profiles. They'd lost the argument had they simply complained why the book that was clearly 'the best' - their own submission - didn't win.
It still has a chance with the Goldsmiths Prize.
Several times he refers to it as losing which seems an odd to me. What about all the books which were on the longlist and didn't make the shortlist? We don't refer to them as losers. And I'm afraid that by insinuating Evaristo didn't deserve the prize, I have no sympathy. How much deeper will they dig this hole?
If their issue is with an award unexpectedly announcing two joint winners from a shortlist of 6, why didn’t they write similar articles about the Republic of Consciousness Prize earlier this year? Perhaps because their own entry was one of those two winners?I think they will now win the Goldsmiths Prize as the judges will know if they don’t pick Ducks there will be a Twitter and media campaign against them.
Paul wrote: "I think they will now win the Goldsmiths Prize as the judges will know if they don’t pick Ducks there will be a Twitter and media campaign against them."The other small presses can then start one saying how much work they and their authors put into their books.
I hope you're wrong about the Goldsmiths, Paul. Deborah Levy has already "lost" more than Lucy Elman did. (tongue in cheek)
Jibran wrote: "No matter how many explanations they come up with, the truth is that the judges messed this up big time. Perhaps Afua Hirsch's didn't realise that she unwittingly admitted to the judging panel's incompetency."
I agree. If Afua Hirsch's article provides any clues about the deliberation process, then some books were viewed (primarily) through a literary lens, while others were judged in large part on the basis of who wrote them.
Shafak: "sheer beauty of Elif Shafak’s Istanbul" (literary merit?)
Obioma: "haunting Igbo tragedy, told by Chigozie Obioma’s Odyssean narrator" (literary merit?)
Rushdie: "the phenomenon of Salman Rushdie" (author/career?)
Ellman: "Ulysses-like audacity" (literary merit?)
Atwood: "titanic career, the contribution to culture" (author/career?)
Evaristo: "quality and consistency of Bernardine Evaristo, who was in my view hitherto hugely underrated" (author/career and literary merit?)
Interestingly, Caroline Tew of The Harvard Crimson comes to the same conclusion in What it Means to Tie: The Booker Prize Names Two Winners, however, she doesn't view this dual standard as a negative.
"There are a lot of reasons why a book or an author could or should win such a high profile prize. It could be a way to pay dues to an author that is a cultural force or a mainstay in literature (like Salman Rushdie). It could be for a completely new and innovative concept, format or storyline (like Lucy Ellman’s “Ducks, Newburyport” which spans nearly a thousand pages in only one sentence). But it also could simply be for a damn good book. There are so many reasons to give a book an award, and that’s okay.
However, she is less sympathetic about the judges' inability to agree on a winner:
Basically, the jury had to choose between a decent sequel to a book they had previously failed to award that has sold over 180,000 copies by a well-known and loved author, and a lesser-known but deeply touching novel that clearly had an impact on the jury as readers (falling into the “damn good book” category). In a way, it is like judging apples and oranges, but in the end it’s the jury’s responsibility to decide whether in the year 2019 it is more important to choose the apple or the orange.
Personally, I am more bothered by the inconsistent standard than the fact that two books won the prize. My guess is that if judges played by the same rule book, the likelihood of a split outcome would be much smaller.
First sales figures:New sales figures from Nielsen BookScan show that, in the five days following its win last Monday, Girl, Woman, Other sold 5,980 copies, a stratospheric 1,340% boost in sales week on week. In its previous five months on sale, the polyphonic novel, mostly narrated by black women, had sold 4,391 copies.
This puts Evaristo in seventh place in this week’s hardback fiction chart, behind Atwood’s already-bestselling follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testaments sits in third place after selling 13,400 copies following the prize win, adding to its lifetime sales of 191,108.
Waterstones fiction buyer Bea Carvalho said that there had been “sales uplift for both titles” following the controversial joint Booker win, but it was Girl, Woman, Other that has seen the greatest spike. “We have also enjoyed an uplift for some of Evaristo’s backlist, and look forward to building on this further,” she said.
more here - which does suggest (as has been discussed below) that there has been a problem with availability of GWO: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Stock reached most Waterstones branches by the weekend, Carvalho said, adding that sales of Evaristo’s book exceeded those of The Testaments on Saturday across the chain.
So far so good...
The irony alternately cracks me up and induces resignation that posters must explicitly state "tongue in cheek" to an audience of avid readers, including of international literature, which informs their cultural/societal differences in humor, and, who therefore, should be consummate connoisseurs of facetiousness, sarcasm, humor.... able to use context, read between the lines, whatever. If ever a lay literary group existed that should be able...
I just didn't want anyone to think that I agreed that they had lost. The quotes should have been enough, but I wanted to be doubly sure. :)
Oh, Ang. In no way was I commenting on your doing it, but on the unnecessary necessity of doing it here, sometimes.
I think a number of us have fallen foul of making remarks here in jest which were then taken seriously and caused unwitting offense.And in some cases remarks which were meant seriously or as censure and which were taken to be in jest!
A post I made in May on this group (bold added now)I should have done the National Lottery on the same day as I was clearly in crystal ball mode
"The Testaments will clearly be the most watched literary book of the year (unless another literary book is being launched with a midnight event and interview shown in 1000 cinemas around the world?). It’s choice or non choice will surely dominate the longlist, shortlist and prize award but it is currently scheduled not be launched until a week after the shortlist announcement (and I can’t see the date being bought forward given tickets already sold)."
Not so much crystal ball as 6 months late, as apparently the award had already been decided in December, or so I read in the TLS and Telegraph.
Hope this is appropriate to mention here:At Scope's Disability Gamechangers Evening fundraising auction website there is a complete set of the Booker shortlisted books, each kindly signed by their author at the shortlist readings. Bid here if interested:
https://www.disabilitygamechangerseve...
Last evening, author Bernardine Evaristo tweeted the following:"Pls. RT. The @BBC described me yesterday as 'another author' apropos @TheBookerPrizes 2019. How quickly & casually they have removed my name from history - the first black woman to win it. This is what we've always been up against."
https://twitter.com/BernardineEvari/s...
Her tweet is in reply to a viewer who shared a short clip of Evaristo being referred to as "another author" rather than by her name during a newscast by the BBC.
For all those who applaud and continue to coddle the Booker Organization and its judges for assigning two winners, this is what happens when such shameful decisions are made. I previously opined that the judges' ill-advised decision essentially relegated Bernardine Evaristo to second place, and placed an asterisk next to her name - and here, front and center, is prime example among many others, that prove it.
Bernardine Evaristo, who deserved the 2019 Booker Prize singularly, is being erased because five judges could not do the ONE job they were assigned to do.
C I N D L E wrote: "Bernardine Evaristo, who deserved the 2019 Booker Prize singularly, is being erased because five judges could not do the ONE job they were assigned to do."And I maintain that the only reason she even has the asterisked prize is because the five judges did the job they were assigned to do by unanimously rebelling against the Booker Organization's instruction that Margaret Atwood had to win the prize.
Evaristo herself continues to publicly support the dual award. Her issue in the tweet is with the BBC and their institutionalised erasure of black culture - it doesn't criticise the judges and her views on cultural erasure are strongly aligned with (at least some of) the judges.They had more than one job. They were appointed a year ago and then spent six months reading 151 books which they whittled down after much debate to a longlist of 13. Then then reread and re-debated those to a shortlist of 6. And then re-re-read and re-re-debated those again. If at the end of that process they chose to honour 2 of the 151 then congratulations to them. And as seen it has since inspired others.
MisterHobgoblin I have a lot sympathy with your view although I suspect the Atwood has to win pressure in the jury also came internally. Indeed the only comment I eavesdropped in the immediate aftermath from one on the judges (who I suspect was an Atwood fan) as to the Foundation's preference seemed to hint in the opposite direction.
Paul wrote: "Indeed the only comment I eavesdropped in the immediate aftermath from one on the judges (who I suspect was an Atwood fan) as to the Foundation's preference seemed to hint in the opposite direction."That is interesting and certainly undermines my own pet theory.
Well I am frankly reading an awful lot into an eavesdropped conversation. It was one of this year's judges talking to someone who had been asked to be a judge next year (will be interesting to see if they end up on the panel) and saying the Foundation wanted to get more diverse voices on the shortlist, then as 'as you have just seen' sort of comment.
Paul wrote: "They had more than one job. They were appointed a year ago and then spent six months reading 151 books which they whittled down after much debate to a longlist of 13. Then then reread and re-debated those to a shortlist of 6. And then re-re-read and re-re-debated those again. If at the end of that process they chose to honour 2 of the 151 then congratulations to them. And as seen it has since inspired others."In my point of view, the judges were selected to choose the best fiction for 2019, with rules that were repeated to them that there must be only one winner. This singularly was their objective and they failed. They did not uphold their assigned objective. When anyone is chosen for a job, that is not the time for theatrics or shirking of rules, as demonstrated by the 2019 judges. Additionally, the judges could have read 500 books, it matters not: they knew what being a judge entailed and they signed up for the job anyway, so I have zero sympathy for them reading 151 books in a six months period.
At the end of the process, they were instructed, repeatedly, that they must choose one winner. Again, they failed in this most basic of instructions. As previously discussed ad nauseam in this same thread, we each have stated reasons why and how we think they came to the decision they did.
I say all this to say, as you stand firm in making concessions for the judges and mollifying the wide-reaching impact of the actions of the Booker Organization for 2019's award, I equally stand firm in criticizing and condemning the actions and motives of both the judges and the Booker Organization. We can agree to disagree on all points.
Mod
https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-pr...
“Our job really is to find readers – and by that I mean people on the panel [of judges],” she commented. “Are those readers receptive to what is going on that’s most exciting in writing? Do we need to change the rules if that’s not the case?” The Booker Prize administrators need “just to be a little bit flexible. . .” What this might mean in terms of selecting the next Booker Prize panel – and most of the 2020 judges will already have been signed up – remains to be seen. Asked about this year’s split decision Wood noted, diplomatically, that she personally “wouldn’t have been for it” and for many reasons, not least that “I think it’s really upsetting for the losers; it’s much worse to not win when two people have.”
C I N D L E wrote: "In my point of view, the judges were selected to choose the best fiction for 2019, with rules that were repeated to them that there must be only one winner. This singularly was their objective and they failed. They did not uphold their assigned objective.."Yes fair enough - fully understand where you are coming from. I still regard the double decision as my prize highlight of 2019, and one I hope to see increasingly repeated, but I can fully appreciate the opposite view.
The “Are those readers receptive to what is going on that’s most exciting in writing? Do we need to change the rules if that’s not the case?” The Booker Prize administrators need “just to be a little bit flexible. . .” bit is odd. In part sounds like a desire to get a more diverse group of judges (and again to my earlier point suggests it was the Atwood selection the Foundation found disappointing) - but then the "change the rules" bit??Let's see what jury emerges.
Mod
Two obvious rules to change then - as of now entry quotas are biased to reward authors and publisher who have previously been shortlisted. Perhaps it should be the opposite.As long as it otherwise complies with all the rules of the prize, any work by an author who has previously been shortlisted for the prize may be submitted in addition to, and will not form part of, the publishers’ entry quotas.
...
The number of works a publisher can submit will depend on that publisher’s inclusion in longlists from 2014 to 2018, as follows:
1 submission - publishers with no longlisting
2 submissions - publishers with 1 or 2 longlisting(s)
3 submissions - publishers with 3 or 4 longlistings
4 submissions - publishers with 5 or more longlistings
I see the inclusion of previous shortlists as the opposite, Paul. If the quotas were to include previous shortlistees and winners, publishers would possibly choose them over other less well known authors. The number of submissions change is odd though and I can't say I see the merits of it. It came in recently with very little comment.
Yes fair on previous shortlistees as authorsAlthough the anonymous submissions means I suspect there have been a few past winners whose books weren’t submitted in the past.
There is an intriguing rule disqualifying books where the author insisted contractually that the publisher submit their book. Wonder if that has ever been invoked / was prompted by an actual case.
That is very interesting, and it's one of those things I'd love to know the story behind (it seems like there must be a reason for it, yes?) I suspect the general public will never know, but surely you guys must know someone who might?
The Booker jury may have new rivals for jury of the year. The Saltire Prize for Fiction, in Scotland.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...
One judge walked as the prize was given to a man writing about women ahead of an otherwise all women shortlist including Ducks Newburyport.
She wanted to prize to be awarded jointly to Ducks but was told joint winners weren’t allowed - then other categories of the same prize did select joint winners.
And no one on the jury actually read all the shortlisted books!
- the judge that walked had a conflict on the book that won;
- one book was written in Gaelic which only one judge could read;
and (understandably imho) two of the judges failed to even finish Ducks.
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I too believe Evaristo deserved to win alone, but I'm not sure I buy Singh's narrative entirely.