Enthusiasm towards cinema often saw me on the road to the Oscars, and film awards in India, well prepared. Oftentimes, I'd have watched most movies nominated for the Oscars in several categories. Guessing the winner was always fun in a social setting. See, cinema doesn't take as much effort as reading. So, everybody finds it easier to keep up, thereby making it more fun to predict the winners as a group. The Booker Prize being literary, poses more social challenges. People being unable to "find time" to read transmutes into individual rumination over Longlists and Shortlists. Fortunately, with Revathi managing to keep pace, to some extent, this road is hasn't been as lonely.
Man Booker and I go back, not way back, but back. From 2010, I eventually read the entire Shortlist, and one from the Longlist. In 2009, I was AWOL, but I will read the winner and the Byatt soon. 2008 had Aravind Adiga, in addition to which I read Ghosh and Hanif, and have a personal copy of the Barry one at home. The years before these are a blur with books here and there: Indra Sinha, Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, J.G. Farrell, and V.S. Naipail. This prize, and its archive, have given Revathi and me a lot to talk about.
Shadowing this award has been a wish for the last two years. Last year, the availability of novels in the US became my biggest obstacle. This year, I have read the entire Shortlist, one from the Longlist, and, will read at least two more from the Longlist at some point of time. Revathi has read three from the Shortlist. With no one, other than my wife, into whose gullet I can force my expositions, I have turned to my blog. My views on the Shortlist, arranged in sequential order of reading, and a look into possible winners, follow.
Jamrach's Menagerie was my first novel from the Longlist. Even now, as I look at the illustration the novel opens with, I can recall the book in near entirety. I love this book. Revathi loves this book. Wait, ..... A.S. Byatt loves this book. Jay Parini loves this book. Even fellow Longlisted author, D.J. Taylor, likes this book. Praises on the cover, the blurb, and on the first few pages, raised expectations sky-high. Despite this, the book exceeded expectations. The Victorian setting at the start didn't suck me in, but from the time Jaffy boarded that ship I was tuned in. I hunted a whale, outsmarted a dragon [sic], then, three waterspouts sunk my ship, ....... I could just go on. Those 100 pages, as a critic put it, "there is a 100 page section where you can't breathe", are unforgettable. Then the surprisingly emotional third act, sealed the deal for me. So often I have come across a story where I just hate the third act; just waiting for it to finish. Here, and am not lying, when my book finished on the last line of page 295, I turned to rue the blank page that followed. Now, I own a copy of Moby Dick that I must read, I purchased Treasure Island and read it, borrowed, read and loved The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There have been many putting this book down saying it is too similar to works from the past. To them I ask, how many novels make you want to look back at literature? I annunciate that this one does. Even Life of Pi can be more appreciated now. Carol Birch has produced a book that can win the Booker this year. If she does, there will not a happier fan than me.
I followed the adventure on the high seas with The Sisters Brothers. Revathi, having already read this, didn't fall in love with the book. Last week, Salman Rushdie tweeted it among his two "best (recent) reads". As for me, there are sections of the book I enjoyed - the visit to the dentist, the innovation of the toothbrush, the re-imagining of the toothbrush as romantic device, the horse - Tub, the duel, the narrator, anesthesia and more - but, I am reserved about calling this a winner. I liked Patrick deWitt's second novel enough to grab his first novel, at 10% of its cover price when Borders shut down. In fact, the premise of his first novel intrigues me more than this book's did. I will be faintly surprised if this won, but it can win.
The meaning of Snowdrops, in Russia, came into my vocabulary after the deWitt. I liked the confessional epistlesque style of this book. How do we judge the narrator here? Is he truthful? Is he hiding behind his words? These were constantly running through my mind as I turned the pages. The unreliable narrator was brought to focus, if am right, by Gunter Grass in his The Tin Drum. Whilst I gathered evidence to judge the narrator, I enjoyed the year described in Moscow - the weather, the women, the businessmen, Kremlin, real-estate fraud, Snowdrops. It reminded me of The White Tiger where an inside view of India was presented, here it's the outsider's perspective. With its visuals, scope for debates on the narrator's character, this is a very good first work by Andrew Miller. However, being too limited in scope by the confines and vices of fiction, I don't expect this to win.
Staying in the spirit of Stephen Kelman's writing - Asweh, Pigeon English is the funniest book I ever read. Okay, if not the funniest, it's at least one of the funnier books I have read. The joys in the forefront are plenty, and, the portentous backdrop brings a twinge of fear to every smile. Although hackneyed, I like this kind of writing device wherein the reader is aware of the threat that looms whilst the protagonist is mirthful. Of the three from the shortlist Revathi has read, this is her favorite. The present day social relevance gives this book an edge over the likes of Jamrach's Menagerie. This, to me, is reminiscent of the The White Tiger being preferred by the judges over, like say, Sea of Poppies, which was I feel due to Adiga's choice of a socially relevant theme over some Ghosh's brilliant writing. I love this novel, and can see this winning on Tuesday.
I'd finished only these four books after the declaration of the Longlist. At this stage, I liked all four enough to see them progress to the Shortlist. Could the four I have read from thirteen all proceed to a Shortlist of six? Despite the mathematical odds, all four books are now in the Shortlist. Next, I read D.J. Taylor's Derby Day. Despite liking it, I felt it justified that book remained in the Longlist.
Opportunity to finish the shortlist arrived with Half Blood Blues. Esi Edugyan, I love you. Since am learning to play the trumpet, I accidentally switched on TCM to watch Young Man with a Trumpet, and now this novel comes along. First up, I have to mention that I didn't enjoy the first few pages. Then, so many things drew me in - the male narrator's voice by a female writer, the life of Blacks during the Second World War, a cameo by Louis Armstrong, love, friendship, the few paragraphs that describe the feeling of jazz. Despite its cinematic disfigurement of chronology to withold key plot points , and the fictional vice of life-altering-betrayal, I love this novel. Currently, a close friend and I have hit some speed bumps, so this book, Edugyan's interview on the Booker site, and Shehan Karunatilaka's Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, all tell me that real friendship forgives the greatest of character follies. Then, there is the trite, but possibly true, remark by Louis Armstrong suggesting excelling in music is just one facet of life, people skills are just as important. Oh, am now getting pansy. Let me stop with: I love this novel, it will probably be made in a much-loved Hollywood Oscar contender, Esi Edugyan has potential for great writing, and I wouldn't mind her winning. Unfortunately, I think it probably won't.
As I reached The Sense of an Ending, I couldn't help but feel an ironic sense of a finality, to this Shortlist, to a summer of intense reading stretching a bit into fall, to a feeling this maybe the first and last time I get through a Shortlist, etc. Everyone says it will be Julian Barnes' year. He says he'd like to win, although in the past, I believe, he has spoken against this prize. Now, I must admit to not reading this with the best of my powers of concentration. So, had to read up on the Booker forums to understand it better. There I noticed others too were grappling with the story, some had read it twice. Me, I was just as confused as the narrator was right through the book. In the last three pages, I lost faith in the narrator to even unravel the mystery. Finally, reading online I think I have understood the mystery. My opinion, there's so much happening in a mere 150 pages - characterization, mystery, love, friendship, education, and all with new interpretations and feelings. I respect the work, I admire it. I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do a good book. Perhaps the writing was too abstruse for me, maybe this is my reason for feeling that this book is light years ahead of the other five on the Shortlist, and my literary capacity at present. Final word, this is most likely going to win. Julian Barnes has been flirting with the prize for long, and when you do that, you increase your chances of winning, much like Scorsese winning an Oscar for The Departed.
Which would I like to see win? Jamrach's Menagerie gets my vote.
Which will win? Word of mouth, bookies, stature - all point to The Sense of an Ending.
