The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Booker Prize for Fiction
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2020 Booker Prize Speculation
Lia wrote: "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 t..."Wow - over on Reddit, they're having a very similar conversation. (I think I actually belong to that sub, but I never go to reddit unless I need to ask a question about Spanish or German grammar.)
OK - I'm cross-posting w/ everyone! Sorry. Gumble - can you please take a picture of the vigil keeper? Somehow that just really warms my heart. (It's insane and passionate and pointless - which touches a very special spot in my heart.) I, actually, am now mad at Waterstones and their deals with Booker. That's just ridiculous. It also may backfire. How will anyone find his books? It's like being stuck in the classical bin at a record store if you're a punk band. Just incorrect. And perhaps another reason why the books should just be divided into fiction and non (dunno where autofiction would go) and then alphabetized. Oy vey.
I tried Jack Reacher when a friend gave me the entire series she was getting rid of. I so wanted to like but it wasn’t my trashy novel genre of choice; horror is but thrillers like these aren’t. I managed 100 pages of the first then took the lot to the charity shop.
I like Lucy Ellman so excused some of her controversial comments by thinking of her as a raconteur, is it possible that Lee Child is doing the same or is he really this arrogant? The Waterstones manager really left his job over moving Child’s to Literature? I hate to hear of anyone losing a job and I don’t know that is a hill I would choose to die on, but good for him.
Graham, I hope you’re supporting Paul’s one man protest by bringing him hot toddies and chips. (Do Brits eat chips with hot toddies or is it biscuits?)
Gumble's Yard wrote: "And there is a one man protest vigil outside my local library (albeit I think it might have been Paul in disguise)."It was me. But the protest was against the fact that Surrey libraries seem to be able to get any book you desire whereas London libraries have 5 year waiting lists for any book that is vaguely worth reading. Largely I suspect as all our taxes are sucked out to finance the regions: luckily having elected a former Mayor of London as PM he will ensure London is again given financial priority - at least I think that's what his manifesto said.
Bookshops shelve books according to how they think they'll maximise profits. It really isn't about defining novels for posterity. So if Head Office says put Jack Reacher on the literary fiction shelves then they would have a good reason for doing so, and a sensible manager would go along with it. If you want to promote your own tastes rather than pander to your customers' tastes then there is always the option of opening an independent bookshop. But of you do, I suspect that putting principle before profit would get old quite quickly.
Paul wrote: "Surrey libraries seem to be able to get any book you desire whereas London libraries have 5 year waiting lists for any book that is vaguely worth reading."Where is Surrey anyway? I seem to remember it has something to do with the Boat Race. Isn't that held in London?
There's the Surrey (sarf of the river) Bend and Middlesex (north of the river) Bend which play a key part, but the Surrey bend comes in to play at the Hammersmith Bridge (aim for the 2nd lamppost from the left) which is definitely in London!Nowadays Surrey starts where London (and civilisation) ends and Middlesex doesn't exist at all apart from the world's finest cricket team (well from the late 70s to early 90s with a brief recovery in 2016), a team known to Surrey fans as 'the postcodes' due to its lack of definition otherwise.
"This is a good looking woman. Dark hair. Great eyes. I stared at her and smiled."This is the general quality of the sentences so far in "Killing Field" (Jack Reacher #1, circa 1997, so I'm giving him a small break for being overly sexist on every page,) and I picked a general sentence rather than one which would upset everyone b/c of the subject matter (thus far it's booze and babes all the way.)
I'm only on chapter 2 of, so maybe it will get better. I keep hearing a sort of over-the-top, obnoxious "man show" kind of voice when I read. I'm sure the story will get interesting, then I won't care about the actual writing - or at least I hope so b/c this is painful thus far, but so far all we've done is look at breasts resting on bars and such....
I'm sorry to report that the quality of the sentence by sentence writing does not improve - it's staccato all throughout. Once the momentum of the plot gets the pages turning I hope you can ignore the writing and simply 'enjoy' the story (though if I recall there are a few too many conveniences to necessarily be realistic or believable, but I don't think Child ever claimed his books are realistic or believable).Reacher is definitely a "manly man" and as it's a first-person narrative it's obvious where his (and I think probably Child's) attention is drawn.
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If you can read that entire book you’re a stronger woman than I, Ella. I can read a page turner if the writing is serviceable, much like Margaret Atwood’s writing in the few books I’ve read, but I can not read even a page turner if the writing is bad.
Every time we discuss Lee Child I like him less.
I'm not sure that likeable judges are necessarily better ones. In much the same way that likeable writers do not necessarily write better novels.
The objection is not to the literary quality quality of Lee Child's own books, he might justifiably feel that clipped sentences and references to tits on bars suit his chosen genre, nor is it that he comes across as an arrogant sod / sob. It is whether someone who has been dismissive of literary fiction is a suitable judge of it.Paul put this well earlier in the thread:
Paul wrote: "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."
Thank you Ella.
Yes, that was the point in the review where you were supposed to start laughing, although the point in the book is when the idea of a serum to cure brain damage (from injury or stroke, not chemical imbalance or slow deterioration) is first mooted.
I feel like I’ve been spammed every time GR shows me an airport thriller. You can imagine how annoyed I feel when r/literature and Mooksies are both talking about Lee Child ... not just about the Booker penal thing, but also his transfer of his (probably ghost-written) franchise to his brother while imitating the linguistic tics of his characters. This comes across to me as Lee Child using literary fiction communities as part of a self (or brand) promoting viral campaign. I see that he’s extremely good at self-promotion and escalating publicity (nobody needs to fear spelling his name wrong.) I suspect that’s a key factor in his success as a book salesman.
Lia wrote: "This comes across to me as Lee Child using literary fiction communities as part of a self (or brand) promoting viral campaign. I see that he’s extremely good at self-promotion and escalating publicity (nobody needs to fear spelling his name wrong.) I suspect that’s a key factor in his success as a book salesman."You won't get an argument from me.
Honestly, I'm confused - if it's such a special talent to write these books, how come so many of the "successful" thriller writers have handed off actual writing duties to others? I think Nelson DeMille got old and/or died, so OK, but James Patterson has been letting other people write under his name for quite a while and this seems to be happening more and more.
If Child is such a talent, how can his brother simply step in to write these books? That makes no sense. I'm pretty sure my artist sister would never allow me to take over her studio or successful lines. I sure wouldn't send either of my sisters in to do my job. It makes no sense to me, and I don't understand why everyone in this genre seems so OK with the whole thing.
(PS: On the book front, the writing is bad throughout, but I will admit that if I manage to suspend disbelief, the story is interesting/compelling and sort of addictive. I didn't want to stop reading last night. BUT, this morning, when I sat down with my coffee, I couldn't remember what I was currently reading beyond The Odyssey - where I'm stopped for the moment - it took me a few minutes to remember the book I couldn't stop reading last night. I honestly had forgotten it completely for a few minutes. Usually, when I'm engrossed in a book, I grab it off the bed or floor or sometimes night stand before I even walk into the kitchen, but it just had completely left my brain until I didn't have a book to read w/ my coffee...)
Lia wrote: "nobody needs to fear spelling his name wrong"Leigh Childe
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Whenever I see discussions like this I find myself wishing there were literature academics happy to be roped in to put the more recent side of the genre v literary debate. It often feels like it's on social media, among avid readers who studied other subject areas, that this divide is carried on most overtly (the press just does it by choosing what to cover); whilst contemporary academia often has a more egalitarian take. I've found a strong (but not absolute) correlation among people I know where those who studied an arts subject at a prestigious university are relaxed about genre v literary - and among them are the most frequent denigrators of the elevated position of literary fiction, especially the sort of indifferent quality which is nevertheless often held to be better than genre.
There is no real definition of 'literary' and 'genre'. They are just classifications used to group similar items together for the ease of being located by potential customers. I guess that's why academics are quite relaxed about it all.
That is true and there are bad examples in both, but Lee Child is drawing a distinction between them, meaning we have to discuss them in those terms.
Last year I came across the distinction of literary vs general fiction, which was a new one to me. Now I just lump most non-genre books that I feel are mediocre into the General Fiction category.I would be happy to see more genre fiction included in the literary lineup, and even nominated for the Booker, which, let's face it, doesn't always nominate stellar books anyway. I do also think that a lot of genre writers need to improve the quality of their prose for that to happen, however.
Antonomasia wrote: "Whenever I see discussions like this I find myself wishing there were literature academics happy to be roped in to put the more recent side of the genre v literary debate..."Not recent, but our conversation reminded me of this article:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/37415/pdf
Consequences of Canon - The Institutionalization Of Enmity Between Contemporary And Classical Music
When concerts of "classical music"—only recently so named—arose in the nineteenth century, they brought with them a culture of intense enmity between new and old music. Ask any composer in the avant-garde today what symphony orchestras have done for him or her, and you will unleash a barrage of resentment against such institutions. Then ask a subscriber to orchestra concerts how much new music should be performed, and you will get the contrary reaction: an accusation that composers do not care about the public, that they write only for each other. We take these expressions of enmity for granted now; they seem natural, inherent to the musical landscape. The dense polemical meanings of the term "modern music" define an area of high art where proponents and opponents have little common ground and where conflict has become institutionalized. When agreement periodically occurs—there is a popular taste for various works by Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Henryk Gorecki, and John Adams—the agreement is quickly disclaimed by an avant-garde anxious to recategorize modern pieces in concert repertory as "merely popular." Myself, I love much music by avant-garde composers but despair of their polemics; I therefore wish to help make possible a language, built on historical foundations, by which to understand the stalemate between the contemporary and the classical.
To comprehend how the stalemate happened, we must investigate the [End Page 78] process through which classics replaced contemporary music, first in concert programs and then in opera, and next investigate how that change spawned a separate world of new music largely isolated from public life. This cultural framework, in both its polemical and institutional aspects, was in place by around 1910. By that time, classical-music repertories dominated the great majority of the most important concert series, from those of symphony orchestras and chamber-music groups to those of solo recitals. The public had become instinctively skeptical of anything new, and living composers had begun to build their own concert world. Composers' anger at their limited access to key concert repertories led them to define new music as a moral cause for high art; the composers developed concerts dedicated to the performance of serious contemporary music—concerts run by themselves, by musicians, by their patrons and friends, and usually attended by few others.
Musical modernism, in other words, did not create the problem. It was not that composers alienated the public by writing music beyond what most people would like or could understand. Rather, by 1910 concert life had shifted its focus so much from contemporary to classical repertory that new works now took up a problematic, often marginal place within musical life...
I wonder if the canon formation of literature (i.e. the TS Eliot circle and H. Bloom circle etc) have had similar polarizing effects on the reading public.
Personally, I’m not coming at this from a literary merits angle; it’s not that there’s something inherently unworthy about a theme or genre in literature; I’m only annoyed because unwanted promotions (including airport thrillers) constantly get through my filters.There are functions on GR that I don’t use, because as soon as I enable them, my page is filled with spam.
There are book groups I don’t subscribe to on reddit, because they tend to have the kind of conversations I’m tired of, that includes the genre vs lit polemics. ( r/books vs r/bookscirclejerk vs r/badliterature vs r/truelit etc, the war on shaming YA lit is intense, and I’m too traumatized to talk about 4chan.) People routinely get more involved in mocking what other people say about books than discussing books or literary events.
Generally my arrangement works for me, but Lee Child’s viral campaign somehow managed to bypass my filters on both sites, hence my reaction.
I do read and enjoy books that I self-consciously label as “fluff”, I expect to be judged for it and I list them on my profile anyway. My point is not that Lee Child is beneath me, my point is only that I’m struggling to control my information silo. There are many kinds of themes and books I’m not interested in wading through, as it is, I can’t even seem to filter out what appears to be gay-erotica books being promoted to me on GR (at least their covers suggest that’s what they are.)
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I definitely get tired of publicity about some new books, to the extent I'm sick of some of them before I've even seriously considered reading them. It takes a long time to wear off once it's got to that point. It's maybe just starting to wear off for John Darnielle's Wolf in White Van (2014), but not nearly enough yet for it to seem actively appealing.
I would guess that the 'gay erotica' is MM Romance, which is a major romance subgenre - maybe became so in the 2010s? - and very popular among romance readers on social media.
Do you use an adblocker with element blocking? If useless recommendation fields are part of the problem that should help.
Antonomasia wrote: "Isn't any author appearing in the media several times in quick succession, or promoting a new book, in effect conducting a viral campaign? It's one's level of interest in their work that makes it a..."It is, I subscribe to r/lit and and Mookse in order not to read about debates surrounding the publicity of writers like Dan Brown and Lee Child, and particularly on reddit: to avoid the genre vs lit debates which tend to pop up in the more popular subs. Seeing his name for weeks on my wall on both sites tells me my filters aren’t working, or Lee Child breached my silo.
Sorry about the politically incorrect label, MM romance is not something I have discussed so I’m not familiar with the lingos, I just noticed the upper right hand side of my ”discussion” page (“books being discussed”) regularly gets completely filled with pastel-colored covers with Pairs of (mostly) nude and muscular and well-oiled men. I never zoomed in to see their titles. I tried to delete books that have homoerotic elements (Baldwin, Thomas Mann etc) from my profile but they’re still there, I removed myself from some of the largest discussion groups and they’re still there.
I do use Adblocks, but I suspect those elements aren’t affected. I just have to crack their algorithm.
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e.g. Last year I hid all the reading challenge boxes until mid December (on the home page, my own profile and others' profiles). Occasionally it causes glitches where the element has more than one function, but that can usually be sorted. There were several different sizes of element with which the reading challenge could be blocked; one selection also hid comment boxes for status updates, so I had to adjust that by changing to a different element around the reading challenges. But it was still possible to hide them. This will make more sense if you have looked at one of these element selection pages.
Thanks! That’s really good to know, especially the ability to maybe block the reading challenges/games/bingos. Hopefully I can find ways to block the spams constantly being posted in the book discussion threads as well.
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e.g. this thread will boost, among other titles,
Stardust (other topics)
Pure (other topics)
The Underground Railroad (other topics)
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (other topics)
Automatic Eve (other topics)
(Those mentioned in the "books mentioned in this topic" list at the top right hand side of the page.)
Antonomasia wrote: "The "books being discussed" panel is site-wide and it can include any books mentioned (with booklinks) in threads where there have been recent posts. It isn't related to what you've shelved, or lim..."It’s just like me to obsess over Camus and absurdism for years, only to be crushed to learn that no matter what I do, what choices I make, the website doesn’t care. =_=
Where can I read more about this, so I won’t have to keep hallucinating about having control over what shows up on my page?
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But the discussed books can be worked out by clicking through on one of the book covers, and then again on "Topics that Mention this Book" - there will always be something there that's recent from another group, so it can be deduced this is how it works.
As for the recommendation algorithms, they just aren't very good, and are known for producing strange results. A friend got this amusing review out of a persistent recommendation she'd been getting for years. If the recommendations are annoying you it is probably better to ignore or hide them than inconvenience yourself by removing books you've read.
I couldn’t agree more that the recommendations are inscrutable head scratchers. Which is weird because some recommendations in other apps, like amazon for example, are generally worth a look. If GR were to eliminate this feature, I certainly wouldn’t miss it. Is it a sop to throw at GR authors? Or what??
Goodreads recommends Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard,
Mephisto by Klaus Mann,
Es geht uns gut by Arno Geiger,
My Friends by Emmanuel Bove
and several by Peter Handke.
Amazon recommends
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas,
Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman
and drain unblocker.
I joined Goodreads for the book recommendations. And having added some books and reviews the very first book it recommended was Agota Kristof’s The Notebook, a book of which I hadn’t previously heard at all, and which turned out to wonderful and absolutely to my taste.
So I joined the site fully adding all my books and ratings - and since then all the recommendations have been fairly useless.
Fortunately this forum makes up for it both in the discussion generally and the recommendations.
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I was today recommended a book on fasting. How many people really want to go hungry.
Is there a sure way to tell whether an upcoming US release will also be published in the UK? Specifically these 2:Adam Levin - Bubblegum
William T. Vollmann - The Lucky Star
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These two are knotty because Viking and Doubleday both have US and UK arms. However Levin had a smaller publisher for the instructions here than in the US. Neither is as well known over here as in the US except among readers active on social media.
Editions on UK Amazon with different cover designs are a decent clue - once the US cover designs are being displayed
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On Amazon UK, the publisher of Bubblegum is listed as "Penguin Random House USA". Leaving me none the wiser? Unless the Amazon UK listing is enough in itself?
Hugh wrote: "Neither are showing on Waterstones, and Amazon UK is only offering expensive imports, so I doubt that there are plans to publish either here. I have never read any Vollmann, and the lack of reasona..."Thanks!
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Similarly for Bubblegum the only edition is also PRH USA (which makes it much less confusing than trying to disentangle *which* Doubleday. The Instructions was published here by Canongate (smaller publisher) so maybe this will get picked up here.
Large publishers tend to get their books on Amazon months ahead of release, but some smaller ones really lag.
The Saunders blurb (for some reason) got me hoping but I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up (in fact NEVER a good idea where the booker prize is concerned). But I'm planning on reading both in any case - hopefully. Thanks!
Chair of Booker Prize Foundation steps down:https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-pr...
Over the fixing the prize for Atwood scandal? the joint winner debacle? in protest at Lee Child's appointment?
Apparently none of these - the role she took on in January 2019 as Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute is increasingly consuming her time.
Do any of us feel genre or best sellers are “beneath” us? I would be surprised if that were true. I think it’s more a matter of what we enjoy reading. I just can’t see how someone who seems to have no respect for the art of the literary novel can fairly judge it. I think it would be great if they chose a classicist, a journalist, a poet, a lyricist, a mystery or romance writer, writers of other forms who respect all other forms of writing as judges, but a thriller writer who declares his lack of respect for the form seems a bad fit to me. Isn’t he likely to choose the least literary novel or the novel that made the most money?
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To take an example today, because it's in the GR promotional blog, American Dirt; I can imagine all of the other panellists taking seriously the issue that this is getting massively hyped in a way that almost no Mexican authors do, in general or when writing about immigration (with the possible exception of Valeria Luiselli), and the reported inaccuracies in the text related to the author's lack of personal experience in the culture. Whereas LC might say something along the lines of 'it's a cracking story and that's all that counts' and refuse to budge.
I think some of us are suspicious of over-hyped bestsellers, I know I am, but most people here seem to read and enjoy a range of books. The more literary novels are more likely to be ambiguous, require thinking about afterwards and lead to divided opinions, so are the most interesting to talk about.
I’m reminded again of the quote about art vs entertainment, the latter reinforcing our world view, the former challenging it.
Yes, I think a translation of something said by a Japanese writer, although I haven't checked that yet.
Although Child is being singled.out for possible conflicts with other panelists, there are some other strong opinionated personalities taking part. This may be a year when each member foists their own particular choices upon the group and the idea of a consensual "best," longlist is ignored. Of couse this is all very speculative at present and I have yet to see any evidence that there will be a problem.
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The Mookse and the Gripes
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I am surprised though at the “no one else is upset” observation. My local Waterstones manager has apparently resigned at being asked by Head Office to move the Jack Reacher books to their literary section as part of their secret deal with the Booker (you may remember their co-ordinated promotion of The Testaments last year). And there is a one man protest vigil outside my local library (albeit I think it might have been Paul in disguise).