21st Century Literature discussion

The 2019 Booker Prize Longlist has been announced.

Link to full list: https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-pr...

Thoughts?

Glad to see a couple of these were already on my list, but what in "I don't know what this is about but I'm so curious that I want to read it nonetheless" is 'Ducks, Newburyport' by Lucy Ellman? Has anyone tackled it?



The Rest of the List

1. The Testaments
2. Ducks, Newburyport
3. My Sister, the Serial Killer
4. Night Boat to Tangier
5. Girl, Woman, Other
6. The Wall
7. The Man Who Saw Everything
8. Lost Children Archive
9. An Orchestra of Minorities
10. Lanny
11. Quichotte
12. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World
13. Frankissstein: A Love Story

I've read 3 and plan to read them all, although it will be a challenge given the number that are not yet published (I did get two not yet published in the US by using Abebooks).

Delighted to see Ducks Newburyport, and really liked both Lanny and Lost Children Archive. No major surprises, except perhaps the omission of Siri Hustvedt

I have ordered all of the remaining ten but will have to wait for some, as Rushdie, Levy and Atwood have not yet been published. The first six are available to collect this evening..

I have read 6 and plan to read the other 7.

Very, very pleased to see Ducks, Newburyport there.

Disappointed at the omission of Siri Hustvedt, but i had 4 books I really wanted to be on the list and 3 of them are, so that’s fairly good (Ducks, The Man Who, and Night Boat).

Ducks, Newburyport is brilliant, and often very funny and perceptive, but I won't pretend it's an easy read and suspect that, like Milkman last year, it will divide opinion. My review

Cindle, I will rename this topic to match previous years, because I would like to keep all of the group's 2019 Booker discussions in one place.

This is the longlist with cover and author links:
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Vintage)
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (Canongate Books)
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic Books)
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (Galley Beggar Press)
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton)
The Wall by John Lanchester (Faber & Faber)
The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton)
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (4th Estate)
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma (Little Brown)
Lanny by Max Porter (Faber & Faber)
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak (Viking)
Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson (Jonathan Cape)

I've only read Lost Children Archive and highly recommend it. I don't think I'll be able to read all of these, but there are a number that I want to tackle, like Atwood and Winterson. Girl, Woman, Other sounds fascinating.

I've read Lost Children Archive and An Orchestra of Minorities. I preferred the latter. I enjoy Obioma's novels, even though he is heavy on tragic events. I really liked his The Fishermen, as well.

Ducks, Lanny, Lost Children..., and Frankisstein all on my TBR list, but I'd self-destruct if I tried to cram longlist reads in before the winner is announced. I did tell myself that if I went to Kramerbooks here in DC yesterday and they happened to have a copy of Ducks, I'd take it as sign from the reading gods and have no choice but to buy it. They did not have a copy. :-(

Thanks for opening this thread, CINDLE. Seems like a deeper longlist than in some more recent years.

Here are the five judges for the 2019 Booker:

"This year’s longlist of 13 books was selected by a panel of five judges: founder and director of Hay Festival Peter Florence (Chair); former fiction publisher and editor Liz Calder; novelist, essayist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo.; writer, broadcaster and former barrister Afua Hirsch; and concert pianist, conductor and composer Joanna MacGregor."

(Please let us know if I have incorrectly assigned any of the Goodreads links for the panel members. The top of the news page below has links to biographical information for each as well.)

Comments from the chair and the literary director are here: https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-pr...

The shortlist is now out:

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Vintage)
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (Galley Beggar Press)
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton)
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma (Little Brown)
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak (Viking)

I am delighted to see recognition for Ducks, Newburyport, if a little disappointed that Lanny and Lost Children Archive missed out.

Cindle,
Did you tackle Ducks yet? If so, thoughts?

Anyone else besides Hugh read Ducks? I ordered a copy from the publisher, which arrived last week, and plan to take it with me to the beach next week!

Lanny is the only one from the longlist I've read thus far and I thought it was fantastic. Sorry to see it didn't make the cut.

Quichotte is the least deserving (unless the Atwood is worse)...

So who has actually been able to read the Atwood book... just the Booker judges? That seems pretty lame to me.

Marc wrote: "So who has actually been able to read the Atwood book... just the Booker judges? That seems pretty lame to me."

We don't know, because anyone who saw the ARC was under instructions not to review it yet.

I have read Ducks twice. From this you can deduce that I liked it! I quite understand why people who don't like it don't like it, but it is far and away my favourite of those left on the shortlist.

Unlike nearly everyone else, I was pleased to see Lanny dropped. I just don't get the excitement over Porter (but I am glad those who enjoy the books get such pleasure from them).

I agree with Hugh on Quichotte. I have almost finished and I think it's dreadful!

Marc wrote: "Cindle,
Did you tackled Ducks yet? If so, thoughts?

Anyone else besides Hugh read Ducks? I ordered a copy from the publisher, which arrived last week, and plan to take it with me to the beach next..."

i read Ducks. Two months later and I still obsess about it.

Twice, Neil?!! That is saying something. Glad you, Hugh, and Robert all enjoyed it so much. I'm looking forward to it.

From either list, the only ones I'm still likely to read any time soon are Luiselli, Winterson, and Atwood. Seems like that's about par for me: 2 to 4 books that grab me from the Booker longlist with half of those being already on my TBR list and the other half being completely new to me.

The only one I've read is An Orchestra of Minorities. I thought it was a very sad story but also a very good novel. His stories tend toward the tragic. I also enjoyed his The Fishermen.

I've read most of Elif Shafak's novels and found some to be very good and others not so much. But I plan to read this one.

You all have me excited about Ducks, Newburyport. But it's over 1,000 pages long--a bit of a daunting undertaking.

Marc wrote: "Anyone else besides Hugh read Ducks?"

I found a 20 page excerpt. I had to change all the occurrences of "the fact that" with "..." to make reading it tolerable. (Thankfully, it's a one-step replacement for all of them with an electronic copy.) My impression is that the book is not bad, but it's riding on the hype of the gimmick, and the gimmick isn't even that good. (For real examples of endless sentences, try Faulkner's "The Bear". Genius.) I probably won't read more of it.

Hugh wrote: "Quichotte is the least deserving (unless the Atwood is worse)..."

I did not read the excerpt that The New Yorker published, but some comments I read of it suggest to me that you might be right.

Marc wrote: "So who has actually been able to read the Atwood book... just the Booker judges? That seems pretty lame to me."

I don't think it matters. If one of the goals of book prizes is to create hype for books, then the shortlisting will help increase interest when it does come out. Of course, it does not look like this book is lacking in the publicity department. (Atwood just made the cover of Time magazine.)

I still haven't read most of the shortlist but I'm about halfway through Ducks, Newburyport and I have to say it is my favorite book of the year so far. It took about 100 pages but then I just fell in love.

I didn't hate Lanny but I won't cry for it not making the shortlist. I guess I'm in the Neil school of opinions.

An Orchestra of Minorities was tough because the story is just so tragic but it employs an incredible literary convention (the narrating Chi) which felt game changing. It really elevated what might have otherwise been a fine but unexceptional tragedy. I'm looking forward to reading the others (but I've already decided who I'm rooting for).

I keep reading good things about Ducks, Newburyport so will definitely read it, even if it's sooo long!

"For real examples of endless sentences... "
Uh, I don't even know what that means. Or did you mean, for "well executed" examples of endless sentences? Sounds like it's definitely not a book for you David if 20 pgs let you down--you'd be in for a long bit of torture. One person's structural experimentation is another's gimmick, I suppose... Personal judgment suspended until I read the book.

Anybody feel strongly about the potential winner (not necessarily which book you want to win, but which you think will win)?

I think Girl, Woman, Other will win. I would prefer Ducks to win, but I think it is too long and too experimental. I hope I am wrong. GWO is essentially a fictionalised version of a non-fiction book by one of the judges and is very topical.

I would be happy if GWO wins, but Ducks would be the braver choice. However I suspect that Atwood is favourite...

If Atwood wins, she must stop dabbling in comic books/graphic novels! Joking. Mostly...

Marc wrote: ""For real examples of endless sentences... "
Uh, I don't even know what that means. Or did you mean, for "well executed" examples of endless sentences? Sounds like it's definitely not a book for yo..."

Marc, I'm pretty sure the book is not for me, yes; what I meant by "real" examples of endless sentences is something composed of one sentence that isn't just a bunch of separate sentences without the periods; this comment I am making now is one such example; you can always replace a period with a semi-colon and turn multiple sentences into a single well-formed sentence; but the result is to have only formally created just one sentence; in reality to a reader, it is a string of sentences; Ellmann doesn't use semi-colons, but her "the fact that" is functionally the same thing; so her "all one sentence" isn't really one sentence in anything like an interesting way; Faulkner, however, does some real work to make endless sentences; by the way, Solar Bones, which I liked a lot, was presented as all one sentence too, but there were a lot of places where it was clear that one sentence ended and another began; McCormack cheats in a lot of places by just leaving out a period and a capital letter; the book is still very good, but the gimmick is not fully executed there either.

Here is a link to a 20 minute radio interview with Margaret Atwood broadcast in Canada yesterday: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thenextchapt...

The way "the fact that" is used in Ducks is a rhythmic thing - the narrative would not be the same if these were all replaced with full stops. What appears at the start to be random is often not so at all - although there is plenty of repetition, the focus changes all the time and the plot creeps up on the reader stealthily.

You really have to read the whole thing to appreciate what Ellmann has achieved, and I know from reading reviews both here and elsewhere that plenty of other readers think this book is an exceptional achievement. Like Milkman last year, it won't appeal to everyone and I am aware that it has vociferous detractors - I just hope it continues to find readers who appreciate its unique qualities. My review

I agree with Hugh. Reading "the fact that" is a very different rhythm to the narrative compared with a full stop. I appreciate what David is saying because it could easily be written as multiple sentences. But the reading experience would be very different - some people don't like the experience as it stands, which is fine by me, but some of us do.

Usually, when an author writes one long sentence, avoids punctuation, etc., they're trying to approximate the way we think, the way we talk, stream-of-conscious, and so on. But each writer takes that on in different ways. And it's not so much that these things (thought/speech) would occur as one sentence so much that they might not have pauses or they jump immediately from tangent to tangent. Thinking here of Bolano, Joyce, Krashnahorkai, and Young. Makes me even more excited to see how Ellmann handles this.

I see Amazon leaked copies of Atwood's book:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/us/margaret-atwood-amazon-handmaids-tale-sequel.html

Hugh wrote: "You really have to read the whole thing to appreciate what Ellmann has achieved."

I don't mind at all a book that has virtues that are not easy to see at first and creep up on you over time as you read the book. Sometimes those can be some of the best reading experiences. But at the very least I expect a book not to annoy me with its gimmick in order to get there. That I had to alter the text to get through 20 pages tells me the barrier to entry is too high for me. And when the book runs 1000 pages, that's asking for a lot to finally get to the point of appreciation. For those who were not annoyed by the gimmick, it could well be worth the effort.

As I always say, there are more books reading that there is time to read them, so if I skip one I might have actually likes, no real harm done.

Marc wrote: "Usually, when an author writes one long sentence, avoids punctuation, etc., they're trying to approximate the way we think, the way we talk, stream-of-conscious, and so on. But each writer takes th..."

Yeah, I agree that thought really does not happen really as one long sentence. In fact, the best replication of thought would involve a lot of fragments or brief flashes of ideas and a fair bit of repetition, too. Something written like that would be more interesting as an indication of thought.

"I see Amazon leaked copies of Atwood's book:"

Yes, but the purpose of the embargo is not damaged by a small spill of copies. It will still be the case that readers only know what information a few reviews talk about before the book comes out. I don't know how often there are embargoes like this on books, but the only other one I can think of was the final Harry Potter book, which had a similar small leak due to advance shipping. But these are both massive ships. A pinhole leak here or these seems inevitable and not likely to let in too much water.

Cop out. Margaret Atwood. Ooh, we love you. Even though this novel is a poor sequel. I feel so, so sorry for Bernardine Evaristo, having to share the prize with a lesser novel just cos of who MA is. Shameful decision. Boo hiss
#nevereverwillIreadMargaretAtwoodagain.

I agree Alan. Atwood has written many better books and I won't stop reading her, but there is no literary reason to reward The Testaments. Evaristo deserves her win (as Ellmann would have done too)

Having not read any of the nominees (although currently on pg 600 of Ducks), I had no opinion on who deserved to win, but the whole co-winners situation always rubs me the wrong way. I didn't like it with the Republic of Consciousness Prize and I don't like it here. Yes, literary and art competitions are subjective and political and always will be, but why have a competition if you're not going to pick a single winner. I don't really believe that in all those other years one book stood out so far above the rest that a co-winner was not also deserving.

Alan, are you no longer reading Atwood because The Testaments was that bad?

Alan wrote: "Cop out. Margaret Atwood. Ooh, we love you. Even though this novel is a poor sequel. I feel so, so sorry for Bernardine Evaristo, having to share the prize with a lesser novel just cos of who MA is..."

Maybe you are privy to information no one else is, but it seems a bit much to make assumptions about the basis on which the selection was made, as if it is impossible to believe that the judges actually just considered what books they thought were the best and this is the result they came to.

But if you think that prize decisions are made based on things other than merit often enough to just assume that this is what happened here, why would you care about any prizes at all?

Having reread The Handmaid's Tale immediately before reading The Testaments just made it obvious how inferior the sequel is - large parts of it just read like a formulaic thriller with no suspense because we know the outcome already. The joint win also insults the other four writers on the shortlist, and was against the rules of the prize!

Marc wrote: "... but why have a competition if you're not going to pick a single winner."

The idea that there must be one and only one winner in a competition is one that makes sense in politics and sports, but I don't see why it's a big deal in the arts. For example, the Academy Awards allows ties if that's how the voting goes. The most recent one was in 2012. They are rare, but only because there are so many voters it's statistically unlikely. But in the event of a tie they just give two awards. Why not?

In the case of a small panel of judges and with an odd number of them, it would seem that you might be less likely to get a tie. But if you have two that slightly prefer one book, two that slightly prefer another book, and the fifth judge most preferred a third book, it looks like a good case for a tie scenario. I don't see what is lost by declaring joint winners.

It also seems funny to me when so many people (and there seems to be an endless number of them) want to second guess the results regardless of outcome and to attribute all sorts of motives for the selection of a winner other than it being the one the judges thought was best that many people already demonstrate that they don't really care much for the decision of the judges. If someone thinks the judges are badly motivated and make the wrong choice for the wrong reasons, that's all the more reason not to care if they pick one, two, or five co-winners.

Personally, I don't care much about book prizes. I don't doubt the sincerity of the decision of the judges, but I can't take a decision that is made by only five people (people whose literary tastes in general I know next to nothing about as well) as being all that significant. I find it hard to understand why so many people do seem to care so much about the outcome. I use the short lists (and sometimes the long lists) as recommendations for what books I should find out more about to decide if I want to read them, but nothing more than that. I already knew I wasn't going to read Ducks, Newburyport and that I will read An Orchestra of Minorities before the winners were announced. I was on the fence about the two winners before the results were announced and am still on the fence. For me, one, two, or five co-winners changes nothing. But for the two authors who won I am sure that being a joint winner is better than making the panel pick one and them not being a winner at all.

Hugh wrote: "Having reread The Handmaid's Tale immediately before reading The Testaments just made it obvious how inferior the sequel is - large parts of it just read like a formulaic thriller with no suspense ..."

I am just now finishing reading The Handmaid's Tale for the first time and am unsure if I will read The Testaments, but it will be interesting if I do to see how they stand in comparison.

I have no idea why the other four authors should feel insulted. Should the authors who made the long list, but were not then picked for the short list feel insulted that they were identified as at best, seventh best book? Does that mean that any time someone does a "Top Ten" list, the people 3rd and lower should feel insulted because at least two others are identified as better than their work? An author who feels insulted because two books were named co-winners would seem petty to me. It's as though they feel they either have a right to win or at least a right to not be told they were no better than third best.

As someone who has read all six books on the shortlist, The Testaments is the least interesting book of the six by a distance. I am a fan of Atwood but this book is a long way short of her best work - in fact all of the other full length novels I have read impressed me more. Ellmann in particular was hard done by - Ducks, Newburyport may not be for everyone but it is memorable and original.

I can see why they chose The Testaments for commercial reasons, because it has a brand recognition beyond most readers of literary fiction.

Like you, David, I don't have much stake in prizes beyond them putting books on my radar that weren't before. In this case, I had planned to read Ducks when I first heard it announced by Galley Beggar>. I'll probably read Evaristo because her work also sounds interesting to me. There's quite a few older Atwoods I'm interested in before I get to her latest.

It just feels like excitement, publicity, and award money get watered down by having multiple winners. And it feels indecisive to me--we couldn't choose one, so instead of making the hard choice, we chose two! That's just my personal opinion--I know there are plenty who are fine with it or even embrace the decision. I'd much rather Evaristo get shared credit than have lost. Atwood's book sounds pretty underwhelming based on the reaction of my GR friends who've read it.

Marc wrote: "And it feels indecisive to me--we couldn't choose one, so instead of making the hard choice, we chose two!"

I thought about this again and filtered it through awards that I do care about to see how I would feel if there were joint winners picked. My conclusion was if it happened occasionally, but not frequently, I wouldn't mind. But if was happening all the time, then it would be more annoying. I think this is the third time in 50 years for the Booker, so I'm ok with that.

Atwood's book sounds pretty underwhelming based on the reaction of my GR friends who've read it.

FWIW, of the short listed books Girl, Woman, Other has the highest score on GoodReads with 4.35 and The Testaments is second with 4.27. Then again, An Orchestra of Minorities has the lowest GR score of the short listed books and it's the one I am most interested to read. So it goes.

David wrote: "Then again, An Orchestra of Minorities has the lowest GR score of the short listed books and it's the one I am most interested to read. So it goes.."

I've read An Orchestra of Minorities and thought it was a great novel. I've read Obioma's The Fishermen and thought that was very good, too. His novels tend to be pretty bleak, though.

I have no desire to read The Testaments and tepid desire to read Girl, Woman, Other.

I don't think you can go by ratings on Goodreads. I know I can't--maybe because my taste in books leans toward being a little off kilter.

I read a novel a couple of months ago that had very high ratings on Goodreads. People were raving about it. I was somewhere around #35 on the wait list in the library. I had to wait several weeks before I could get my hands on it. And when I finally got it and read it, it turned out to be a piece of junk.

Marc wrote: "Having not read any of the nominees (although currently on pg 600 of Ducks), I had no opinion on who deserved to win, but the whole co-winners situation always rubs me the wrong way. I didn't like ..."

If I were going to stop reading Margaret Atwood, it would be because of The Heart Goes Last. Ugh.

After this discussion, and a recent interview with the writer on The Guardian's Books Podcast, I'm definitely adding Ducks to the reading list. I love this group.

The Testaments will be read by a very different readership than most Booker nominees, simply because of the reputation of The Handmaid's Tale and the power of television. So the GR average rating is not necessarily a good measure, though it does demonstrate that some readers liked it. I like to think that the Mookse group is more discerning, and Atwood came last of the six shortlisted books in the rankings there, which Evaristo topped.

Hugh wrote: "I like to think that the Mookse group is more discerning."

Lol

I like to think the Booker judges are most discerning.