The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Rank your books below.

1. Murder Most Serene
2. The Physics of Sorrow
3. Signs Preceding the End of the World
4. Nowhere to Be Found
5. The Things We Don't Do

6. Arvida
7.
8.
9.
10.

(right now I cannot put 25 spots here; as much as I like the large longlist it is too overwhelming to think about completing it right now)

1= Sphinx
= Tram 83
3=The Meursault Investigation
= Nowhere to Be Found
= The Physics of Sorrow (read half)
6= A General Theory of Oblivion
= Signs Preceding the End of the World


20. The Things We Don't Do
22. The Story of My Teeth

[Agreed that 25 is a bit much to space out, nor will I read 20, but I really didn't get on with a couple of these, so numbering them near the bottom of the list.]

1 Mersault Investigation
2 Story of the Lost Child
3 I Refuse
4 Physics of Sorrow
5 Nowhere to be Found
6 Signs Preceding the End of the World
----------
7 A General Theory of Oblivion
8 Tram 83
-----------
9 Complete Stories
10 Four Books
11 The Things We Don't Do
12 Sphinx
13 Moods

I haven't attempted to assign to slots 1-25 but the dashes represent a division into Yes / Maybe / No as to whether they should make the shortlist.

Shall we have another thread for the shortlist. For me that's

1 Story of the Lost Child
2 Physics of Sorrow
3 Signs Preceding the End of the World
----------
4 A General Theory of Oblivion
----------
5 Complete Stories
6 Moods

with usual Yes / Maybe / Definitely Not as winners.

That's me done, at least in time for the announcement,

I'm good keeping the rankings here for now, since it's not too cumbersome to see what folks would vote for.

Ranking, in order, of where I think the longlist falls...

Shortlist
The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera
War, So Much War by Mercè Rodoreda
Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila
The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya
The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hilbig
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan

Longlist
The Four Books by Yan Lianke
Murder Most Serene by Gabrielle Wittkop
French Perfume by Amir Tag Elsir
A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov

Shouldn't be longlist
Sphinx by Anne Garréta
Berlin by Aleš Šteger
Nowhere to Be Found by Bae Suah
The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel
I Refuse by Per Petterson
Moods by Yoel Hoffmann
Arvida by Samuel Archibald
The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli
The Things We Don't Do by Andrés Neuman
One Out of Two by Daniel Sada

1. The Physics of Sorrow
2. The Sleep of the Righteous
3. Signs Preceding the End of the World
4. Moods
5. The Body Where I Was Born
6. Tram 83
7. Sphinx
8. One Out of Two
9. The Story of My Teeth

My first 3 I thought were absolutely shortlist worthy, regardless of competition. The last 3, I wasn't psyched about. The middle 3 I all enjoyed quite a bit and are in that longlist/shortlist middle ground.

I was going to have a go at a consensus ranking a la Colette from the old forum (has she come over?).

But not very meaningful as many of the shortlisted books are only ranked by one person above. Would be good if anyone else wants to join in.

To extent that there is a view the winners would be either:

- Signs Preceeding the End of the World rated highly by 4 people, although it's no one's favourite.
- Physics of Sorrow, two people's 1st choice from the shortlist

And the turkey is, by a significant margin, Story of My Teeth, which no one likes.

Got another almost consensus stinker for you)...

The Things We Don't Do by Andrés Neuman

I liked Story of my Teeth!

But I can agree on Andrés Neuman.

poingu wrote: "I liked Story of my Teeth!

But I can agree on Andrés Neuman."

Add in your rankings of those you've read and Luiselli may yet be saved from ignominy of a distant last place!

I just added Signs... in my number three spot. Not a contender to win tomorrow, but hey.

Paul wrote: "Add in your rankings of those you've read and Luiselli may yet be saved from ignominy of a distant last place! "

I feel unworthy though, because I've only read 4 or 5. Maybe it really would be the worst of this list of books.

poingu wrote: "Paul wrote: "Add in your rankings of those you've read and Luiselli may yet be saved from ignominy of a distant last place! "

I feel unworthy though, because I've only read 4 or 5. Maybe it really..."

More the merrier though - at least gives me a chance of some sort of ranking system.

Paul wrote: "More the merrier though - at least gives me a chance of some sort of ranking system. "

ok these are the ones I've read from the long list and how I'd rate them against one another:

1. The Sleep of the Righteous
2. The Body Where I Was Born
3. Signs Preceding the End of the World
4. A General Theory of Oblivion
5. The Story of My Teeth
6. One Out of Two
7. The Meursault Investigation
8. Tram 83
9. I Refuse (dnf)

I read more than I thought. I liked the first 8.

The ranking system that was used on the old site depended on most people ranking most of the books, or, failing that, assigning books to the rank they expected they'd achieved if they had read them all.

That doesn't really work this time since, Lascosas excepted, most of us have only read a minority of the shortlist and most have ranked those they read sequentially.

There's another approach which I used to use myself on the old site, which is to count pairwise comparisons. Each book gets 1 point when it is ranked above another book by a reviewer, and -1 when ranked below.

Basically gives the same answer as the previous method when everyone ranks every book but copes better when people have expressed no opinion. Also assigns more weight to those who have more books to compare.

So e.g. my rankings of the shortlist become:
Lost Child 5
Physics of Sorrow 3
....
Moods -5

It does mean that e.g. Signs Preceding loses points from Trevor's review as he ranked it below average (3 out of 4) of the shortlist.

NB I've taken liberty of assigning Story of the Lost Child last place from Lascosas - if you loathed 1-3 you're going to hate book 3. And seems sensible to do that to balance my view - as only other one who included it in rankings - that it was top.

Here endeth the maths lesson.

Which gives the following rankings for the official shortlist:

1st Signs Preceding the End of the World 10
2nd Physics of Sorrow 9
Jt 3rd Complete Stories, Murder Most Serene 6
5th War So Much War 5
6th General Theory of Oblivion 0
7th Story of the Lost Child -4 (*)
8th Arvida - 8
9th Moods - 9
10th Story of my Teeth -15

* due to me ranking it last for Lascosas. Without that would have been joint 3rd.

poor story of my teeth, i didn't save it.

Has anyone else read Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue yet? I kept thinking "hmm, this novel reads a lot like the story of my teeth. I did like it much better so don't not read it because of not liking teeth. Then I learned Enrigue is married to Luiselli and imagined them swapping manuscripts over the breakfast table every morning.

poingu wrote: "poor story of my teeth, i didn't save it.

Has anyone else read Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue yet? I kept thinking "hmm, this novel reads a lot like the story of my..."

Actually you made it worse since under my scoring system it came 3rd out of the 3 shortlist books you rated and so scores -2.

Sudden Death was very high up my to-read list but now you've put me right off it.

Paul wrote: "Sudden Death was very high up my to-read list but now you've put me right off it. "

Well the experience of reading Luiselli also reminded me -very- strongly of my experience reading Zeno's Conscience. I don't know if my impressions are very usual, in other words.

I loved Sudden Death - can't say I noticed similarities - and would have because I knew of their relationship & had already read Luiselli - but I listened to Story of My Teeth on audio, and with that I tend to get an impression of a book as a whole rather than take in details.

Our dynamic rankings successfully called the winner.

For some reason when I ranked Signs... above I forgot it was on the shortlist, which is why I said it wasn't a contender to win. Whoops! Glad I was incorrect!

I'll keep updating my rankings as I get through the books -- just added Nowhere to Be Found.