The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Booker Prize for Fiction
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2020 Booker Prize Speculation
Maddie wrote: "No offense... but if I have to read another 'Snap'-like book because of Lee Child... I will riot."I said the same thing.
I can't see why Lee Child wouldn't be a good judge. Most judges are not writers of literary fiction and there's no reason why a writer of genre fiction would not be an avid reader/critic of literary fiction. Lee Child's statement about literary fiction was provocative, sure, but could it also be partly true? A lot of books marketed as literary fiction are mediocre at best. Deliberately impenetrable, obscure, over-written, devoid of plot or point. We may disagree about which books fit this description, but I bet we can all think of some that we would put there. I am sure Lee Child could write something that would at least be as good - if not better - than some of these books. But as he says, why would he bother when he can make more money, entertain more people and probably have more fun writing a thriller. And have literary titans been able to translate to the bestseller market? My guess is he was having a dig at Banville aka Benjamin Black. Maybe there are others. I recall Eoin McNamee writing a couple of thrillers as John Creed and they were quite good, if commercially unsuccessful.
Anyway, the longlist and shortlist will be subsets of the submitted books. Even a talent as great as Lee Child cannot magic a different set of books from which to choose. He may be able to champion one or two from that list that appeal to him, but generally I have heard judges say that longlists sort of pick themselves.
Of course the judges can call in any eligible book they want so it doesn’t need magic - but otherwise I agree
Oh, yes, I remember. Didn’t we hope that she was being facetious? I didn’t like that statement either. The older I get the less book snobbish I get. I understand why so many people are drawn to fantasy and SciFi and other world building stories. Our world is getting scarier by the day and I would love to lose myself in literary fantasy book. I’m reading Doppelgänger, a brilliant, but heavy book, and wishing I had a nice escape, genre book in the que, but I can’t read books written for an 8th grade reading level which is the standard for most popular books I think.
I don’t mean that as an insult, 8th grade reading level just means no complex sentence structures, shorter paragraphs, and very few “big” words.
WndyJW wrote: "Oh, yes, I remember. Didn’t we hope that she was being facetious? I didn’t like that statement either. The older I get the less book snobbish I get. I understand why so many people are drawn to fa..."
I'm lucky that I really do love espionage and mystery books. (Many of which are also "literary.") But when I need a break, there are always a ton of books to pick from that are slightly less taxing and a delight to read. These are my "book candy." (and were the majority of my reading until about 2005)
WndyJW wrote: "Our world is getting scarier by the day and I would love to lose myself in literary fantasy book...wishing I had a nice escape, genre book in the que, but I can’t read books written for an 8th grade reading level which is the standard for most popular books I think."Automatic Eve recently did that for me. A steampunk-ish mystery set in a medieval-ish Japan. It goes light on the steampunk, heavier on the medieval atmospherics.
Also read Neil Gaiman's Stardust for the 21st Century Fiction GR group and it was a charming adult fairy tale. My first fantasy fiction where characters pee and poo :)
Some thriller/espionage books are very well written. I think fantasy books tend not to be, and if a fantasy book did happen to be well written, people would probably say it wasn't really fantasy. But I am sure fans of fantasy will provide plenty of counter-examples to expose my prejudice.
MisterHobgoblin wrote: "Some thriller/espionage books are very well written. I think fantasy books tend not to be, and if a fantasy book did happen to be well written, people would probably say it wasn't really fantasy. B..."Although I am not a fantasy fan, I find the entries in the Gollancz Sci-fi/Fantasy Masterworks series to be quite literary
I agree with you MisterHobgoblin. I like fantasy/SF in theory, was a bit fan of Lord of the Rings and things when I was a child, but it is so difficult to find fantasy that isn't appallingly written. So often I see a new Fantasy/SF book praised highly, try and read a bit and give up in despair.I can't do thrillers because I'm a wimp. Sometimes I'll read classic mysteries for a bit of light fun,
Although it always surprises me that literary fiction is considered "too depressing" by many people, but then thrillers and mysteries are full of the most horrible violence and the bleakest depictions of human nature. What's a bit of infidelity and navel gazing compared to all that rape/murder/dismemberment?
Non-literary, or genre fiction I find often more difficult to read than literary fiction. For example, in almost all of the novels on any given Booker longlist, I can imagine the author has pored over every word, clause and sentence, polishing the prose; whereas in most genre fiction it's simply been written. The result is a kind of bagginess, and a feeling of having to wade through it. Not always though: years ago I read The Da Vinci Code (becaue it seemed everyone else had) and was amazed by the paradox of clumsy prose and an almost shameful urge to keep turning the pages and find out what happened next. That was unusual. And I didn't feel an urge to read any more Dan Brown.
I read a lot of literary fiction and a good bit of fantasy. The fantasy does provide that escape I need sometimes from how heavy and depressing contemporary literary fiction can be. I do think the fantasy books I read are more literary than most, although everyone will have their own opinions and tastes. I've really enjoyed the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Another one that comes to mind is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Lately I've been reading the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson, an author who churns out two books per year, many of which are targeted at a younger audience. However, he typically spends 4 years between Stormlight books and, while they are more traditional fantasy, they really are epic and quite well-written, in my opinion.
I tend to read multiple books at once and have fallen into a pattern of reading 3 types at all times: one literary fiction, one non-fiction and one fantasy. I think this gives me a good balance of everything I enjoy about reading.
Emily wrote: "Although it always surprises me that literary fiction is considered "too depressing" by many people, but then thrillers and mysteries are full of the most horrible violence and the bleakest depictions of human nature. What's a bit of infidelity and navel gazing compared to all that rape/murder/dismemberment?"Literary Fiction tends to feature issues that will be immediately more relatable - particularly the introspection and self-examination - and I think that many readers do not enjoy this experience because they are forced to face themselves. They find this experience "too depressing" and instead prefer to seek escapism (as is found most often in genre fiction).
There is a voyeuristic pleasure in reading about horrible things happening to others (as you mention three prime examples) and knowing that you are safe and have control over the situation (that is, you can simply stop reading at any point).
Personally, I enjoy both Literary Fiction and Genre Fiction and furthermore, I do not think they are mutually exclusive. I recognize that there are both good and bad books belonging to either classification and that they serve different purposes. I tend to alternate my reading between the two and also note that when I read too much of either type I begin to feel burnt out (Literary) or bored (Genre).
Jumping back to the discussion of Lee Child - I've only read his debut, The Killing Floor. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it (it seems I gave it 4- when I read it back in 2015 - but my tastes have changed quite a lot in the interim so I imagine I would like it less if I were to reread it now) and the biggest thing I remember about reading it was that it was a fun and engaging read that kept me turning pages. Maybe it's time to read it again and see how I feel now...
Right, I think I need to read something by Lee Child. Should I just start w/ the first of the Jack Reacher series, or can I go in later? Anyone have any thoughts? I feel like I shouldn't be basing all my opinions on provocative statements he's made. I should at least read one of his books.
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I for one think it is quite right to have someone like him as a Booker judge; the media conversation, and even more so the social media conversation (Twitter most of all), about literary fiction, is insular and often talks as if literary fiction *is* literature and as if none of the rest of it exists or matters.
The music and film pages of the typical broadsheet newspaper are not dominated by classical concert music, or by arthouse film, to the extent that books pages are dominated by literary fiction. (Though the situation with books pages does resemble that with theatre and dance pages, which I think says something about literature becoming a more marginal form like those.)
Arts academia broadly respects genre fiction now, but outside that there often seems to be resentment about the way one side gets the cultural prestige and the other the money and the large audience.
Ella wrote: "Should I just start w/ the first of the Jack Reacher series, or can I go in later?"My understanding is that you start with any book. These types of books (ones that feature a recurring main character and cast of secondary characters) tend to catch readers up on important information so that new readers are not lost. [The effect is that any book makes for a good starting point but it can be tiresome if you read them back-to-back because you don't need the added exposition because you already know what's going on and who the characters are.]
However, if you start with a later entry you might find reference to events that took place in earlier books that "spoil" the contents of those earlier books. [For example, when reading the tenth book a character might be dead and then when you go back to book one and they're alive...well, you know they're going to die at some point in between, and so the impact of their death might be lessened by the forewarning.] I don't think this is much of a problem generally.
Mod
I usually like to read a series in order, but there are a LOT of Jack Reacher books. I thought about going outside of that character, but I associate Lee Child w/ the Reacher books, so I'll just grab one of those from the library and hope for the best. Maybe I'll love it, then I'll go back and start from the beginning. (It's always bothered me that I read Murder on the Orient Express long before any of the other Poirot series, but what can you do?)
Dylan wrote: "There is a voyeuristic pleasure in reading about horrible things happening to others (as you mention three prime examples) and knowing that you are safe and have control over the situation (that is, you can simply stop reading at any point)."That's an interesting (somewhat relieving? Maybe?) perspective. I personally find that reading about horrible things puts them foremost in my mind, and makes me paranoid that they might happen to me/people I care about.
This may be why I also avoid "Alzheimer's literary fiction."
Emily wrote: "That's an interesting (somewhat relieving? Maybe?) perspective. I personally find that reading about horrible things puts them foremost in my mind, and makes me paranoid that they might happen to me/people I care about."You're right that reading about horrible things forces the reader to think about them. But I think that having these thoughts and processing these ideas serves an important function. It forces or allows you to process these thoughts without experiencing the associated trauma firsthand.
I think my interpretation stems from a variety of readings I did for a class on Horror Movies - particularly with reference to why audiences enjoy horror movies (there is a lot of really interesting critical writing regarding the philosophy of horror movies - the one that stands out in my memory is The Philosophy of Horror by Noel Carroll). Strangely, I had no interest in horror movies when I took this course to fulfill my breadth requirements but afterword found that I really enjoyed horror movies once I better understood their function and could understand why the characters always split up (never split up; do not go into the basement).
The closest I get to “guilty pleasure” or fantasy are magical realism. After reading Doppelgänger I needed a light read (even though I will read everything Daša Drndić writes) so I’m reading The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. Modern Iranian history told through, “ a story about the unbreakable connection between the living and the dead,” with a fair amount of magic realism.
I have not read any of Lee Child's own books, but this endorsement:‘Intelligent, suspenseful, provocative, and intensely disturbing – everything a great novel should be’ LEE CHILD
of a novel I thought a lazily-plotted, third-rate rip off of "The Handmaid's Tale" did not inspire much confidence that I would enjoy reading his other favourite fiction.
A lazily-plotted, third-rate rip off of "The Handmaid's Tale" won the Booker last year!!!
Gumble's Yard wrote: "A lazily-plotted, third-rate rip off of "The Handmaid's Tale" won the Booker last year!!!"Well done, sir.
Gumble's Yard wrote: "A lazily-plotted, third-rate rip off of "The Handmaid's Tale" won the Booker last year!!!"If I was feeling pedantic I would point out that that one is a cash-in rather than a rip off, since she wrote her own fan-fiction, but I agree that it winning was not a great Booker result. (view spoiler); do not read it.
Val wrote: "Gumble's Yard wrote: "A lazily-plotted, third-rate rip off of "The Handmaid's Tale" won the Booker last year!!!"If I was feeling pedantic I would point out that that one is a cash-in rather than a..."
Even Ron Charles - one of the "easiest" reviewers on earth (Washington Post) pretty much panned that one. And the description is basically a description of The Handmaid's Tale. How do things like this get published? Ron Charles points out that it's basically a more-dystopian Trump novel, so I guess that makes it all OK. Glad I've been warned off, though the description probably would've done so anyway. I guess it won't win the Booker (or I hope it won't) so I don't have to read it, but thanks for the warning. I keep getting sucked into these sorts of books...
Ella wrote: "I keep getting sucked into these sorts of books."So do I, obviously. This one really is the pits.
I hid the details of the book because I think it might make a lucrative film and I wouldn't want to begrudge a new author that chance. She might be able to write something worth reading with a bit of time and money.
We need a laughing emoji on Goodreads.The description of Vox is outrageous! If she can do that I’m going to write a series of books about a sweet, naive, but very smart young woman who can perform magic and falls in love with a billionaire wizard who spends his days protecting their friends at their wizarding college and seeking revenge against the evil being that killed his parents, leaving him with a scar on his..uhm...chin, and spends his night introducing this young woman to the magic of S&M. I’ll make a fortune.
Write it. There's nothing like a truly original idea to guarantee a publishing deal and an endorsement from Richard and Judy.
In the meantime, since I did say which book it was, I have written the review I had been putting off in the hope that the book would vanish from my memory.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
You will no doubt be pleased to hear that it is not eligible for the 2020 Booker.
This comment at the end of your review was interesting:The plot is ludicrous, with members of the blinking resistance showing up all over the place to diffuse any tension and get the main characters out of any holes the author has written them into.
as that sort of thing was exactly the issue I had with the Harlen Coben book I read of which Lee Child is so fond (e.g. the lead character Myron Bolitar has a billionaire as a friend, which comes in rather handy at tricky plot points)
Good job it isn't eligible else I'd say it was nailed on.
Just had a thought this morning that I wonder if Child's inclusion means a book like The Topeka School might have a harder time getting onto a long/shortlist.
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J wrote: "Just had a thought this morning that I wonder if Child's inclusion means a book like The Topeka School might have a harder time getting onto a long/shortlist."One can only hope so. This is exactly the kind of literary novel I hate - which tries too hard to be intellectual while saying pretty much nothing.
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It is a bit WASPY but Lerner gets points for making more of an effort to tie the clearly auto-fictional elements into important current affairs in the US (as well as writing from a couple different POVs than just himself). It's the most 'novel'-like of his novels, I would say. Anyway, I found the intellectual ambition of The Topeka School inspiring and the book was very stylishly written. The sentences and scenes have a magic that makes the fact Lerner was first a poet very obvious.I would also add that a lot of reviews point to the novel being about the US crisis of masculinity, rise of conservatism/fascism, whiteness - but I felt there was also plenty about illness, family dynamics, psychology, memory, language and speech which made it a more than satisfying read.
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Though Ben Lerner probably wouldn’t put it this way, his new novel, The Topeka School, is a story about what happens when a Jewish intellectual gets born in the wrong place. Today, Lerner lives in New York City, where being a Jewish intellectual is, if not exactly common, at least a recognized cultural type.
( from https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts... )
Can add to the 90s thing the growing up in a provincial area that doesn't grok your interests and thinking.
Hoping I will be in a position to read it if it's longlisted in the summer, but not in a great hurry to read it earlier.
MisterHobgoblin wrote: "I can't see why Lee Child wouldn't be a good judge. Most judges are not writers of literary fiction and there's no reason why a writer of genre fiction would not be an avid reader/critic of literar..."This was posted on the Booker website yesterday: https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-pr...
P.S. I conclude that Lee Child is not as avid a follower of the Booker Prize as MisterH.
Child says “Instead of five literary novelists talking about literary novels, we’ve got a classicist [Emily Wilson], a playwright [Lemn Sissay], a publisher [Margaret Busby]. It’s been carefully constructed as a multi-angle scrutiny and I was happy to be chosen, I guess, as the commercial fiction representative, which, I think, is a valid perspective to be looking at.” To which the Booker adds. “Of course the other judge, Sameer Rahim, is a literary novelist – author of Asghar and Zahra – which completes the perspectives.”
Hmmm ... not a very good literary novelist if I take the number and star rating of the reviews of the book on this site.
I think he is more of a journalist than a novelist, so will be looking for novels with contemporary relevance. I have no problem with that. Lee Child's ignorance and MisterH's knowledge shows up in Child's impression that the Booker has usually been judged by literary novelists.
The Times article from which the Booker website quotes are taken also has him boasting about how much coffee he drinks (30-40 mugs a day), how many books he has sold (which he seems to regard as the only measure of quality), how he himself is good at beating people up etcI also wouldn't mind if he made arguments that say John LeCarre's potrayal of human nature is every bit the equal of Mantel's. But he doesn't. He seems to believe escapist fiction where the impossibly handsome and chisel-jawed protagonist always beats the baddies is what people want (probably true) and so as sales is the only measure of quality (?!) that's what makes a good novel.
I really really hope this is just a public persona that "Lee Child" adopts to align with the type of books he writes and that the prize will be judged by James Grant.
Paul wrote: "The Times article from which the Booker website quotes are taken also has him boasting about how much coffee he drinks (30-40 mugs a day), how many books he has sold (which he seems to regard as th..."I agree. Otherwise, he’s coming across as the love child of Donald Trump and Ernest Hemingway.
Ugh. Being severely over caffeinated might explain his crass commercialism and ridiculous claims of unproven ability made worse by declaring that gifted writers could not water down their talents to write best selling pap, but what explains his ignorance of John Banville, winner of multiple Literary awards, and his alter ego Benjamin Black-genre crime writer?
Yeah, but Benjamin Black kinda proves Lee Child's point - the novels did not sell well (as evidenced by so many UK copies ending up in remainder shops in Australia) and they weren't particularly exciting either.
Paul wrote: "...and so as sales is the only measure of quality (?!) that's what makes a good novel..."In fairness, I think the point he was making is that if you write a fantastic book that nobody reads, then there was little point in writing it. That's a reasonable view. Much as I love some novels that have only sold a few copies, I really do get a sense of guilt at the effort that has gone into the production compared with the relatively minor and fleeting pleasure I and a handful of fellow readers get from the finished product.
The point of the Booker Prize, all those years ago, was to try to generate a readership for six literary titles a year that would otherwise not have sold many copies - so it's an issue that the Booker Prize acknowledges in its very essence.
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Woke up to an exciting headline this morning that Lee Child has decided to step down and hand over duties to his brother Andrew Grant, although with the condition he changes his name to Andrew Child. Unfortunately turns out to be for writing the Jack Reacher novels, not the Booker.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
Incidentally I agree with his assertion that literary fiction writers would struggle to write successful thrillers. They would also struggle to becomes successful stand-up comedians or concert pianists. That’s because they are all very different artforms. It is his implication that the opposite doesn’t apply (ie he could knock out a Booker winner in 5 minutes) and also that the two forms are best compared by sales, I object to. And while he may even be right my objection is conditioned on that person then being asked to judge a literary fiction contest.
Antonomasia wrote: "Incidentally, the only criticism I've actually seen of Lee Child's appointment as a Booker judge has been from members of this group (including when I looked on Twitter, where there was criticism f..."Not sure about “the actual press”, but Reddit ugly-cried about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/c...
I was wondering the same thing as Anto - where is all this criticism of Child being a judge (outside of this group?) I haven't seen any of it, but then I don't read all the UK papers. Nobody seems to care a whole lot one way or the other, but I will bet that if a crappy book wins, he will get most of the blame.I didn't understand that Booker page on Lee Child. It starts off about him, then it veers strongly into "how women are doing in the book world these days." Was that supposed to be his take on things? Why is it on his page? I'm confused, obviously.
On - The Topeka School - I felt like it really was mostly autofiction. But I will also say that it has more obvious plot than most of his novels. I also disagreed that it was all about toxic masculinity. That plays a part, but not a huge part - far more of the book is about families, how parents' behavior toward each other & their son is fraught - especially when two shrinks have a kid (I've always said that psychologists should not be allowed to marry each other and procreate. This book didn't dissuade me from my stance - and I know this is terribly illiberal of me to say.)
Val - your review for Vox is delightfully fun & funny. I realize the book may have been painful to read, but I love reviews that make me laugh!
"because nobody has ever suffered brain damage from the use or abuse of other chemical compounds" is where I started laughing, and the questions you raise are SO basic that I really do wonder what the job of publishers and/or editors is?
Phew - so I am going to pick up my Jack Reacher novel (the first in the series order, if not chronologically - it was the easiest to pick) today. I'm deathly afraid that I'm going to love it and be banished from this group!
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