2021 Booker Prize Speculation Showing 1,051-1,100 of 1,196

[Roman Clodia]

Cindy wrote: "I also like her # 9: "something nobody has ever heard of and is on nobody’s list and won’t be published before the shortlist"

Apart from the won't be published bit, I hope there is something unexpected on the list - is it just me or are all the predictions looking... um... predictable?

[But_i_thought_]

Paul wrote: Thanks - I love how Second Place is in 2nd place :-)

That wasn't intentional! 😅

[Roman Clodia]

Sam wrote: "I would like to know whether any of you either read or did not read Lorenzo in Taos"

I didn't (don't think I'd even heard of it before Cusk) and didn't feel that that was a problem in that Second Place was still a 5-star book for me. It's so much in dialogue with Cusk's earlier work and other books that deal with art, gender, time, narrativisation etc. that I didn't feel it as a pressing absence.

[But_i_thought_]

Did anyone notice that the anecdote of a writer stumbling upon a poster advertising an exhibition on a Paris morning, after an almost-affair, is based on a story related in Transit (p 130 to 145)? Only that story explores the paintings of Marsden Hartley, which lead the writer to undergo a "personal revolution". There are various similarities between Marsden Hartley's life and "L"'s in Second Place:

- Descriptions of specific paintings
- Raised by indifferent relatives
- Loneliness and poverty in later years
- Died in his 60s, alone, from heart failure
etc

Did Cusk confirm in interviews that "L" was based on Lovis Corinth?

[Paul]

No I hadn't and that is fascinating!

And yes I am not sure I have heard Cusk mention Covinth in interviews so perhaps we called that wrong.

Although there seem Covinth similarities as well - e.g. the night paintings (https://www.fullmoon.info/en/blog/moo...) and having a stroke (https://eclecticlight.co/2017/01/23/c...), or did Hartley also have those?

So feels a bit of a mixture of the two - and adds to the fact that it is likely wrong to think the only thing going on here is a Lorenzo in Taos rewrite

[Paul]

Here's an extract from that part of Transit:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xdw3d...

[Sam]

Paul wrote: "Sam wrote: "I'm a bit perplexed on how to evaluate Second Place. I find it is getting a lot of respect here, but after I started reading it, I only managed a third before wanting to know if Jeffers..."

You are supporting my point Paul. One wouldn't understand how Cusk is altering the material of Luhan's memoir, unless one read the memoir. If one is privy to allusive source material whether Lorenzo in Taos or Death in Venice, one is reading potentially a different novel than one who is not. My query was prompted by the name Jeffers, since every time I read Jeffers, I was thinking Robinson Jeffers and it was creating setting chaos with my reading. I read the Luhan to clear the Jeffers image. (Though it happened to be the same) Having now read only a few pages of the Luhan creates a much different idea of the novel. At this level of literature, an artist can expect that her sources will be fathomed and scrutinized, so her thoughts really are irrelevant at this stage.

[Paul]

Yes but then I think one also needs to study Covinth and Marsden's paintings for example as well as Mann. This isn't just Lorenzo in Taos. And Cusk's themes aren't really to do with any of those four artists/works.

But this is why it should be on (possibly win) the Booker - it is a very rich novel.

[Sam]

Btw, the question I raised with Cusk was academic, not judgemental. I may have misread Paul's post but I felt he was defending Cusk more than answering my query, and that prompted me to respond defensively since I wasn't attacking Cusk. I see in rereading his post tbat this must be an issue that Paul has read about before since his post has information unrelated to mine.

[Sam]

Paul wrote: "Yes but then I think one also needs to study Covinth and Marsden's paintings for example as well as Mann. This isn't just Lorenzo in Taos. And Cusk's themes aren't really to do with any of those fo..."

Agree 100%.

[Paul]

Yes there was a rather large debate on this on the Newest Literary Fiction group (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)

And to be clear I do think it's an odd part of the book and an odd comment that she wishes she hadn't mentioned it. I barely got past the first few pages before googling "Dear Jeffers" (and I'd not heard of Robinson Jeffers, so it wasn't recognition, just there was clearly something odd going on).

[Sam]

Paul wrote: "Yes there was a rather large debate on this on the Newest Literary Fiction group (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)

And to be clear I do think it's an odd part of th..."

Thanks Paul, I do not belong to that group. You'll have to fill us in if we continue the discussion. Also, I haven't quit the debate. I am just saving my arguments for Flanagan if it gets selected.

[Paul]

Let's hope we don't have to debate the Flanagan

[Sam]

These were my favorites of the early reading. I did not include books I haven't readexcept for Intimacies which is nearly finished and only went 10 deep. Plenty of room for improvement on my list

1.The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
2. No One Is Talking About This
3. This One Sky Day
4.The Yield
5. A Passage North
6. The Other Black Girl
7. The Great Mistake
8. Transcendent Kingdom
9. Klara and the Sun
10.Intimacies

[Paul]

So with 23 hours to go the prize the current M&G leaderboard

18 Assembly;
17 Klara & The Sun;
14 This One Sky Day;
13 The Yield;
12 Transcendent Kingdom;
11 Bewilderment; Detransition, Baby; Lean, Fall, Stand; Open Water;
10 No One is Talking About This;
8 Harlem Shuffle; The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
7 China Room; Second Place; The Promise;

[Paul]

And Listopia:


40 Klara & The Sun
32 Transcendent Kingdom
23 The Yield; The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
19 Second Place
18 Assembly
15 No One is Talking About This;
14 Lean, Fall, Stand; This One Sky Day; Open Water
13 The Committed
12 Unsettled Ground; The Promise

Generally similar lists.

The Committed is the main one getting a lot of Listopia votes but just one vote on the M&G/blogger list. And Bewilderment is doing less well on Listopia.

[David]

I'll chime in with my longlist predictions:

- Assembly, by Natasha Brown
- Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
- little scratch, by Rebecca Watson
- Luckenbooth, by Jenni Fagan
- The Magician, by Colm Toibin
- Open Water, by Caleb Azumah Nelson
- Panenka, by Ronan Hession
- The Promise, by Damon Galgut
- Second Place, by Rachel Cusk
- This One Sky Day / Popisho, by Leone Ross
- Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi
- We Are All Birds of Uganda, by Hafsa Zayyan
- The Yield, by Tara June Winch

[WndyJW]

I’m eager for the Longlist to be announced so I know how many books I need to get. I’ve ordered a few books that I want to read whether or not they are nominated-Fox Fires and China Room, but before I order one more book I want to know what’s in the running.

Then I need to have a Rachel Cusk week. I have yet to read her trilogy.

[WndyJW]

I just read Gumble’s excellent review and The Committed sounds exhausting and not my kind of book. I hope it’s not Longlisted. All the rest in the various lists sound interesting.

[Dylan]

Historically, there are usually a few titles that do not have Canadian or US release dates when the longlist is announced.

Among the top 30 results of the listopia, there are only a few books that do not have Canadian or US release dates - these are Panenka, My Phantoms, and We Are All Birds of Uganda. (Whereas Luckenbooth and Fake Accounts have release dates set for early 2022.)

So I suspect we will see at least one of these titles on the list - or perhaps something within even fewer votes (which I think is likely, considering there are often choices that no one saw coming).

-----

Regardless of your feelings about the book, I think Klara and the Sun would be a most surprising omission. Personally, I quite enjoyed it and think it deserves a longlisting - but I would be saddened to see it make the shortlist (or win) because I think there are (at least) 6 better books than it this year (if not 13).

Obviously, Assembly is getting a lot of attention in this group as well. I think its omission would be quite upsetting - although there is the question of length to consider in that I was unable to find the definition of "long form" that the Booker adheres to. (Though if we are comparing to the standards for the International Booker, it certainly qualifies if The War of the Poor qualified.)

[Nicole D.]

Didn't put Assembly on my list, still thinking I should ....
I would be delighted to see Lockwood on the list.

Really looking forward to Luckenbooth but can't get my hands on it. I'm reading Palmares right now and really enjoying it - nobody is talking about it, so guessing it won't make the list.

I never made it through Ducks, Newburyport (not because of lack of enjoyment, but because of lack of attention span) ... am listening to it now, the audio is genius. Some books are just made for audio. And though I didn't love Popisho, the author narrated and she was incredible.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I think we are all largely picking the same books - mainly as we have been debating them for months.

What we can’t know at this stage is what kind of a jury we have this year - we have seen all sorts of variants

2017 - basically pick the best known and most widely liked books. If we had a jury like that we would I think see a lot of overlap with the forum/listopia choices. From memory that year it was something like the top 10 were in the listopia top 20. Of course we then had the almost contrary shortlist choice - as if the judges were upset their longlisting was seen as a little “safe” and so picked their only two surprise choices (two not that well liked debut novels) for the shortlist, discarding all the heavy hitters which then won pretty well every other prize.

2018 - completely change the idea of what is perceived as a Booker book : graphic novel, genre fiction etc. Although then with an experimental winner that pretty well no one has read pre Booker

2019 - bias towards heavy hitters - I think with that jury we would definitely see the two Nobel winners not just on the longlist but also the shortlist

2020 - strong emphasis on debut fiction (some not that well known) and on sequels

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Oh and on Cusk and Lovis Corinth you really need to read this also to appreciate a lot of the ideas of the novel

https://vanderleeuwlezing.nl/sites/de...

[Paul]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Oh and on Cusk and Lovis Corinth you really need to read this also to appreciate a lot of the ideas of the novel

https://vanderleeuwlezing.nl/sites/de......"

Although seems Marsden is equally key - the Paris story is, as was pointed out by But_I_Thought_, a rewrite of parts of Transit where Marsden was the painter.

[Sam]

It is probably a good time to restate the rules on spoilers for new members or those of us that have forgotten. I will leave that to one of you who remembers clearly.

Thanks GY for the Cusk lecture.


It seems most other published books are ignored forgotten once The longlist comes out unless they are a particular member favorite or a candidate for another prize longlist. I am hoping we don't completely forget these books this year.

[Paul]

Another from @stephenjdilley on Twitter

Sorrow and Bliss
The Great Mistake
Transcendent Kingdom
Assembly
Open Water
Klara and the Sun
Mr Wilder and Me
No One Is Talking About This
Detransition, Baby
The Prophets
Palmares
Fake Accounts
The Yield

[Cindy]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Cindy wrote: "I also like her # 9: "something nobody has ever heard of and is on nobody’s list and won’t be published before the shortlist"

Apart from the won't be published bit, I hope there is s..."

I agree with you on this, which is why I am hesitant to make predictions. GY's recent post talked through the likelihood of this judging panel picking "safe" or "predictable" titles for the longlist, and it seems as if we are all assuming that they will do that. I was overall quite let down by last year's longlist (although not by the eventual winner), and I'm hoping the same thing does not happen this year.

[Paula]

I made a predictions post for my instagram and 13 didn't work for the photo collage so I ended up with 16, it was too difficult to narrow it down anyway. My original list included Cusk, Ishiguro and Rooney but they've been mentioned so often that I decided to include some lesser known titles instead:

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
Assembly by Natasha Brown
China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
The Fugitives by Jamal Mahjoub
Matrix by Lauren Groff
The Performance by Claire Thomas
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Little Scratch by Rebecca Watson
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

[Robert]

Cindy wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "Cindy wrote: "I also like her # 9: "something nobody has ever heard of and is on nobody’s list and won’t be published before the shortlist"

Apart from the won't be published b..."

Every few years there's a list which can be considered a 'dud' The Booker always surprises but I think that this year's longlist will not be a repeat - for starters I doubt if there will be skim reading, as what happened last year (Sissay admitted it)

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

And from the German Booktuber Rainerreads

I have added author where they are books that have I think not been already widely predicted and discussed here. The first two of those (and Open Water and Assembly so four of his list) are from the Guardians annual debut authors to watch feature so I am wondering if he has been biased by that listing the winner last year.

Assembly
The Other Black Girl
Klara and The Sun
How Beautiful We Were (his favourite)
First Woman
Open Water
The Island of Missing Trees
Sorrowland
Moth by Melody Rakak
Dead Souls by Sam Rivière
Bestiary by K Ming Chang
Matrix by Lauren Goff
The Thirty Names of Night by Zain Joukhader

[WndyJW]

Nicole, I’m not sure if you’re in the states, but Blackwells has Luckenbooth for $20 with free shipping to US. Thank the goddesses of books for Blackwells! New books so author and publisher profit, great prices and free shipping to US.

[Paul]

Would love to see Dead Souls on the list. I left it off mine only as I thought it may be a bit beyond the Booker.

[Tommi]

Here’s my very predictable (2017 style) list to add to the many other similar ones. As always, I rather hope to be surprised by titles I might not even recognise. But it’s still fun creating these lists to see how many (few) I manage to guess...

* Assembly by Natasha Brown
* Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
* Chronicles from the Land of the Happies People on Earth by Wole Soyinka
* Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
* Double Blind by Edward St Aubyn
* Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
* Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
* The High House by Jessie Greengrass
* The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
* The Yield by Tara June Winch
* This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
* Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
* We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan

I will be travelling Tue–Wed so I will probably not join the immediate discussion over here.

[Sam]

Paul wrote: "Would love to see Dead Souls on the list"

Dead Souls was one I was thinking of when I mentioned other good books besides prize winners. I have not gotten to it yet.

[Paul]

Gumble will boycott if it does appear as it disses Diss.

[Paul]

When I saw the threads set up for the longlist discussion and dynamic rankings, I wondered if the Guardian had struck again and released the list!

[Jo]

And here is my list, ranked. I had two lists going. What I would select and what I think the judges would choose. This is a combination of both.

1. Bewilderment
2. Assembly
3. Cloud Cuckoo Land
4. Klara and the Sun
5. The Book of Form and Emptiness
6. Sterling Karat Gold
7. The Promise
8. Panenka
9. Lean Fall Stand
10. Razorblade Tears
11.This One Sky Day
12. Second Place
13. Moth

And a few extra:
14. Beautiful World, Where Are You
15. The Prophets
16. Sorrowland
17. We Are All Birds of Uganda
18. Sorrow and Bliss
19. Leave the World Behind

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

One of Paul’s amusing predictions was that there would be a number of books which after the event would seem “obvious “based on some kind of tenuous/convoluted Ted Rodgers style link to the judges.

So I thought I would try a pre the event link to the judges based I think on books we have largely discussed as having some kind of link.

I know the Chair has written a kind of Conrad biography and is also one about the few brave American colonists who actually stayed loyal to their home country but I could not see a link there to any books so I concentrated for her more on colonial themes. Lean Fall Stand is due to the tragic loss suffered by Natasha McElhone and I picked the only book on acting/theatre I could think of. Lonely Man as Horatia Harrod is rather obsessed with Putin and I also picked her colleague’s book. I think Obiama will focus on Africa. Rowan Williams I went for the book he just blurbed and two others on religion.

My bonus choice is Panenka as a number for f the panel are football fans.

The Lonely Man
The Performance
Chronicles from The Land of the Happiest People on Earth
Lean Fall Stand
How Beautiful We Were
Transcendent Kingdom
Tomb Guardians
Little Scratch
The First Woman
How Beautiful We Were
The Prophets
We Are All Birds of Uganda
A Burning

[Nicole D.]

WndyJW wrote: "Nicole, I’m not sure if you’re in the states, but Blackwells has Luckenbooth for $20 with free shipping to US. Thank the goddesses of books for Blackwells! New books so author and publisher profit,..."

thanks! (I am in the states)

[Roman Clodia]

My excitement is rather crushed by the fact that I think I've read the 10 or so books that are consistently appearing on the prediction lists and don't really fancy the others - so I'm still hoping for some unexpected gems that have me rushing out to the bookstore!

[Jo]

Roman Clodia wrote: "My excitement is rather crushed by the fact that I think I've read the 10 or so books that are consistently appearing on the prediction lists and don't really fancy the others - so I'm still hoping..."

Also hoping for some unexpected choices. Not long now...

[Paul]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "One of Paul’s amusing predictions was that there would be a number of books which after the event would seem “obvious “based on some kind of tenuous/convoluted Ted Rodgers style link to the judges...."

Yes some good picks there and accusations of hindsight countered.

I'm still sure we had a 'oh of course that judge's sister-in-laws next door neighbour has a dog called Burnt Sugar' moment last year, but I may have imagined it!

[Paul]

I will cease tallying predictions around 8pm UK time (3 hours from now) and declare a forum/blogger longlist, if anyone wants to get in any last minute wishes/predictions, or indeed see any elsewhere.

[WndyJW]

Jo listed books I haven’t heard of: The Book of Form and Emptiness, Razorblade Tears. I hope, like RC, that there are books new to me.

[Emmeline]

Sam wrote: "I'm a bit perplexed on how to evaluate Second Place. I find it is getting a lot of respect here, but after I started reading it, I only managed a third before wanting to know if Jeffers was based o..."

I'm in the camp that felt it derailed the narrative a bit. I had not read Lorenzo in Taos and have only taken a cursory look at it to date, but Second Place randomly caught me in the middle of reading Lawrence. And I felt I took issue with her depiction of Lawrence (I did not realize it was perhaps a depiction of someone else).

Also, I adore Cusk and adore Lawrence and have always been under the impression that Cusk adores Lawrence too, so I found myself reading what was happening in conflicting ways, as she certainly doesn't seem overly positive about the L character.

And I found that the more I looked into Dodge Luhan and the other characters who have been transported into Cusk's book, the less I understood. I particularly didn't understand why, of all people, Frieda Lawrence had been cut from the narrative. I'm interested to read Luhan's book though.

[Jo]

WndyJW wrote: "Jo listed books I haven’t heard of: The Book of Form and Emptiness, Razorblade Tears. I hope, like RC, that there are books new to me."

I have just finished Razorblade Tears and really liked it. Reminded me of An American Marriage. Explores race, class and homosexuality and societal attitudes. Thought provoking read and well written.

[Paul]

I think she cut Frieda Lawrence in part as it wasn't about DH Lawrence. Although she then added back Dorothy Brett instead (of who Dodge Luhan was not a fan).

[Tommi]

I read Second Place without giving the Lorenzo intertext any weight. I like Lawrence but did not feel like I was supposed to know anything about him or Luhan, especially as this information appears only at the end of the book.

It took me a while to actually like the novel: admittedly I felt irritated for the most part, but ended up loving it by the end. Part of the irritation stemmed from the way Cusk’s writing is so very recognisable: the narrator here talks almost exactly like in the Outline trilogy (just add more exclamation marks), i.e. through a lot of abstract nouns and a lot of “in other words”.

I have just finished Assembly and I guess I’m not quite as excited about it as some people here. It’s definitely Booker worthy and I loved many things in it, but as a whole it appeared to me more as therapeutic autofiction plus social critique in the form of a novella or short story rather than a full-fledged novel. Am I becoming the opposite of Paul in terms of preferred page count? I don’t know, but I thought that We Are All Birds of Uganda touched on many similar issues but in a more developed way. Be as it may, it’s still a very strong read (and a strong four stars).

[Paul]

Perhaps we should divide up the Booker list between us Tommi - you read all the ones over 200 pages and I'll read all the ones under 200!

Actually I have just finished the book that I added to the last place on my wishlist: In The End, It Was All About Love

Couple of interesting things in that book:

Firstly the author is a writer after my own heart. It's another 150 page type book, and he has said "I’m obsessed with saying the most I possibly can in the least possible words." Words every author should heed!

Secondly, I recall on The Prophets we discussed that the author deliberately made little concession to a wider audience - "In my mind, the audience was totally Black and mostly queer and likely in America, if not American themselves"

Okwonga has taken the opposite approach. His narrator is black and bisexual but he writes the book in the 2nd person, and e.g. he only mentions his sexuality until later in the novel:

My idea was to start off with very universal experiences, like arriving in Berlin – anyone can do that, white, straight, whatever – and you’re reading it, you’re into it, so by the time something happens that is not specific to your experience, you’re already emotionally invested. I wanted to put the reader in a place where they would actually walk a mile in my shoes.

[Hugh, Active moderator]

I will be very surprised if the list includes more than 4 books that I have read - it could easily be none this year.