Man Booker Prize 2017 round-up

The Man Booker Prize winner will be announced on Tuesday, so I'd best write up my usual summary and (always wrong) guesses! This was a strange year. I was really excited by the longlist, and I think that excitement was shared by lots of people. Several of us dove into the list and read one after the other, posted review after review. I didn't like all the books I was reading, but there were quite a few books I really loved that I wouldn't necessarily have picked up on my own, so it felt like a really good longlist.

And then the shortlist was announced, and it felt like all that excitement just drained away. It felt to me like a really blah shortlist. There were several sets of 6 books that could have been drawn from that longlist and would have made an exciting and interesting shortlist, but this particular set wasn't one of them.


Starting with the shortlist, the one book I really loved was Mohsin Hamid's Exit West. It's a short book, but it packs a very powerful punch. It's a very "now" book, in that it looks at a topic that's never far from the headlines these days: that of refugees. The thing is, rather than concentrating on the journey and the difficulties in making a new life, it looks at how leaving their birthplace can change people and make them grow in unexpected directions. I loved it. I even found really effective the fantastical element (which had made me a bit wary) of the mysterious magical doors that appear and allow people to move around the world just by stepping through them. This is the book I hope will win.

My review is here. I rated it an A-.

The only other book on the shortlist that ended up being my thing was a surprise. Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1 has received very mixed reviews, probably tending more towards the negative. People mostly think it too long and a bit old hat in terms of its themes. The experimental elements in the structure (we get 4 different versions of the protagonist's life, as variations in how something works out during his childhood lead to differences in how everything else follows) are not felt by most to add much innovation.

Now, I'm still reading this one, as it really is very long and not particularly gripping, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I like the detail and the low-key, undramatic writing, and I'm liking how the small variations lead to very different consequences. Do I feel it deserves to be on the Man Booker shortlist, or even the longlist? So far, not really. But at least I'm having a pleasant time reading it, and I intend to keep going.


The only other one on the shortlist that I finished was Autumn, by Ali Smith. I'd tried Ali Smith before (when an earlier book was nominated for the Man Booker as well, in fact), and I just didn't get it. I hoped I'd feel differently about this one, but I didn't. There were several different strands. There's the protagonist's grief for her former neighbour, an old man who is about to die, and who was a huge part of her life growing up. There's a lot about a forgotten pop artist called Pauline Boty. And there's also the fact that the present-day story is set in the summer of 2016, and the effect of the EU exit referendum is being felt.

I was interested in each of those strands, but I felt what Smith did with them didn't resonate with me at all. Also, I didn't think they came together at all. To me, they did not make up a satisfying whole.

My review is here. I rated it a C+.

And now for the DNFs. I promise, I really did try with these three books. I kept picking them up again and again, but I had to force myself to do so. After a couple of weeks each of that, I gave up.

George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo was the one I made least progress with. It's a novel made up from fragments and lots of different voices, and I found that literally unreadable. I tried and tried, both in audio and ebook, but to no avail.

I'm all for working hard on a book if there's a pay-off, but the thing is, in the sections I read I didn't feel Saunders was saying anything particularly interesting or insightful.

My review is here.

History of Wolves, by Emily Fridlund wasn't my thing, either. It's a story about a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in the woods with her parents, the last ones left after a commune disbanded. A family with a small child moves to the closest other house, and the girl quickly becomes more and more involved in their lives. The book is being narrated from many years later, so we know from the start that things are going to go badly wrong.

I never got to the point of caring about anyone or anything in this book, possibly because the protagonist and narrator's reactions were flat and dry. And it might be a flaw in me as a reader, but I do need to at least care for a book to work for me. I did read about half of this one, but that was as far as I could push myself.

My review is here.


Finally, Elmet, by Fiona Mozley, which felt to me a bit similar to History of Wolves. The child protagonist lives with his sister and father in rural Yorkshire, away from civilisation after his father decides to withdraw them from school (with good reason, actually).

From what I read, this seemed to be addressing some of the issues with property ownership and capitalism, but when the book turned into that the change felt a bit abrupt. Also, I felt the evil character who seems to symbolise the entire capitalism system was too cartoonish.

I was interested in some of the ambiguity about sexuality and gender roles suggested in Daniel, our narrator, but that didn't seem to ever become anything, as Mozley seemed more interested in the political elements.

I did read most of Elmet, but in the end, I just didn't care enough to push to the finish. It was another DNF.

-o-o-o-

So, half the books in the shortlist were DNFs, one I did manage to finish but was perplexed by, one I'm liking well enough, but hardly blown away by, and the final one was the single one I was genuinely wowed one. I really want Exit West to win, but I fear there's little chance of that. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably Ali Smith's year and Autumn will do it.

-o-o-o-

So that was a bit of a depressing tour through the shortlist. Fortunately, things will get a lot more positive as I discuss the other books on the longlist, several of which I think are much better than the titles that made it. Do settle in, as I actually read or attempted all but one of the books on the longlist (probably the most I've ever got to -the only one I didn't read was Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness). This time I will start with my least liked, so that I can finish on a high note :)


Days Without End, by Sebastian Barry was my single DNF. I was really excited about this story of a two men who adopt a young girl and form a family, all set around the time of the US Civil War. And I did enjoy those bits, it's just that there was a lot more of killing and senseless violence, as the two men are soldiers.

The Civil War sections were bad enough, but I actually found the sections before, when they're basically killing Native Americans all over the place for no good reason, much worse. It wasn't so much the violence but the way in which it was described, in a dreamy, matter-of-fact sort of way. It jarred me in a bad way, and at the same time, kept me from engaging in the story.

My review is here.

I'd never read Zadie Smith before, although she's been on my list to try for quite a while. Swing Time wasn't really the best place to start. Smith had two main strands going through the book, and I felt she concentrated mostly on the wrong one.

I really wanted more about the unnamed narrator's relationship with her childhood friend, particularly to see more exploration of that as she grew up. Instead, I got more than I wanted of the narrator being a sort of fixer for a huge pop star who has decided to do charity work in Africa. It's satire, but not very good satire, as it says nothing very new and mocking these people is basically shooting fish in a barrel.

My review is here. I rated it a C+.


The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead was one book that was already on my TBR, as I'd heard so much about it. It's a bit like Exit West in that the author takes something real and adds just a touch of the fantastical in order to focus and amplify what he wants to explore. In this case, we get an Underground Railroad that is a real railroad, with tracks and train stops and everything. And it allows Whitehead to explore the many different manifestations racism can have, as his heroine, escaped slave Cora, travels from one Southern state to another and experiences their different approaches to dealing with their black populations. It goes from the brutality of a state determined to get rid of blacks altogether, to the benevolent (but almost as pernicious) 'scientific' racism of another.

It's insightful and quite powerful. The only misstep, I thought, was in the figure of the slave-catcher, a man with almost supernatural powers to find Cora, whom he's become sort of obsessed with. I find that trope pretty tiresome, and the character felt cartoonish and strained credulity. This contrasted badly with the painful reality of the rest of the book and was also completely unnecessary.

No review yet. I rated it a B+.

Solar Bones, by Mike McCormack is just as experimental in style as the Saunders, but my experience of reading it was completely different. The book is narrated in a single sentence by an Irish man called Marcus, as he stands in his kitchen and contemplates his life. I kind of dreaded reading this one, as I'm quite wary about this sort of thing. Too often it feels like a gimmick, almost like an author trying to make things challenging for the reader for no good reason.

Well, that was not the case for Solar Bones at all. First of all, it wasn't really challenging. All the hard work was basically done by the author, who somehow managed to make his single sentence narration feel natural and just right, not even particularly difficult. And although I did wonder at the beginning, I was gradually convinced that this was the right way to tell this story. The device of the single sentence, with the way it reflects the state of the mind it's supposed to come from, added quite a bit to the narrative.

And I should add, this book was not just about the writing. I particularly loved reading about Marcus's relationship with his children, a baffled love which felt so like my father that it made me tear up at points.

No review yet. I rated it an A-.

And now we come to my two favourites. I loved Reservoir 13, by Jon McGregor. It's an exploration of the life of a village in rural Derbyshire, as the effects of the disappearance of a young girl who was staying there on holiday with her parents ripple through the years. It's not a plot-driven book at all, but it's not a character exploration either. We get small vignettes of a large cast of characters, the many people who live in the village, but it's not in depth. We get almost as much about how the village itself and the nature in and around it lives and grows. You might think this would feel a bit distant, but it doesn't. It's undramatic, but profoundly affecting.

It's also beautifully written, almost like poetry in prose, and quite hypnotic. This one really, really should have been on the shortlist, and I think it would  have been a worthy winner, even.

My review is here. I rated it an A-.

And still, I think I might have loved Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire even more than Reservoir 13. It's a retelling of the Antigone story, but it feels completely non-derivative. Shamsie really makes the story her own. Any connections to the original only add richness, rather than feel like shortcuts.

Shamsie also makes it feel completely 'now', without it having that awkward 'ripped from the headlines' feel to it. It's the story of two British-Pakistani families and what happens when a young man decides to join IS, setting everyone on course for disaster.

With fascinating, flawed characters who feel completely real, and very interesting things to say about what it's like to be Muslim in Britain today, this book punched me straight in the gut. I couldn't stop thinking about it or talking about it. It's my favourite of the Booker dozen.

My review is here. I rated it an A.

-o-o-o-

So:

I hope Exit West will win

I think Autumn will win

I think Reservoir 13 should have won

But I loved Home Fire most of all. It may not be as innovative or structurally adventurous as Reservoir 13 (which is why I think the latter is more of a 'Booker winner'), but it's brilliant, and finding books like this is the reason why I do this every year.