Novelist Patrick Neate and the Observer's associate editor Robert McCrum debate the merits of the Booker longlist, announced last week
Patrick Neate and Robert McCrum, The Observer, Sunday 1 August 2010
Patrick Neate: Like 99.9% of the population (in fact, probably the whole UK population, less literary editors of broadsheet newspapers), I haven't read most of the Booker longlist, but it looks like a pretty interesting bunch to me. The books on it I have read (Skippy Dies, The Betrayal and The Stars in the Bright Sky), I loved, and there are plenty of other writers (Mitchell, Carey, Levy, Galgut etc) whose previous work has knocked my socks off. Best of all, there are a couple of writers who are new to me – Tom McCarthy, Emma Donoghue. Of course, a few big names (Martin Amis, say, and Ian McEwan)are missing. But the very fact they are "big names" ensures I'm not going to miss them. After all, it's not like their work needs the oxygen of publicity. In fact, it's arguable that's the very last thing it needs.
Robert McCrum: I think it's good to look at the prize – as you've done – from the point of view of what used to be called the common reader (aka the British reading public). For them, the issue is: what's new and interesting? On that basis, this is not a bad list, and will expose readers to some interesting new novels. For me, Booker's problem – not a bad one to have – is its high profile. It is so much the premier prize, it is seen as providing a litmus test for British and Commonwealth literary culture as a whole. As such it gets asked to give an end-of-term report on new books by the likes of William Boyd and Ian McEwan – and, inevitably, Martin Amis.
PN: "Seen as providing a litmus test" by whom? The "common reader" doesn't think, "Gosh! Look at the Booker list: what a bad year for British and Commonwealth literary culture!" Rather, he (or more likely "she") sees a new name or two placed front and centre in the local Waterstones and decides whether or not the titles, covers and blurbs beneath the strap "shortlisted for the Booker" appeal. At a time when the noble art of browsing a bookshop appears to have fallen out of fashion, this is all the more reason to cheer when any longlisting, shortlisting or, indeed, winner comes out of left field.
RMc: Yes, the Waterstones browser will see "shortlisted for the Booker" and be impressed, but he/she will also be aware that there is a group of "names" – senior writers who are still at work – and we, the punters, want Booker to give us a read-out on that.
Last week the critic Gabriel Josipovici dismissed the "big names" of the postwar British literary tradition as "limited, smart alecky, arrogant, and self-satisfied", but I dispute that. Amis, Barnes, McEwan, Naipaul and Rushdie have produced a bibliography of the imagination whose influence has gone round the world. Booker, which is also global, needs to acknowledge that.
Perhaps it is impossible, even meaningless, to compare the latest Rushdie novel with Christos Tsiolkas, but if Booker does not make the attempt to survey the scene, who else has the authority?
PN: You say it is impossible, even meaningless, to compare the latest Rushdie novel with Tsiolkas, but that is what the judges have to do. I'm glad they've gone for Tsiolkas. It's about a barbecue, isn't it? It sounds fun. And it's not Rushdie. Personally, and I say this with all humility and fully acknowledging his status as one of the finest postwar writers, I rather gave up on Rushdie after Fury, and that was a decade ago. Fortunately for Rushdie, I'm probably in a minority. His reputation is secure and his numerous fans will carry on reading his books. But if, say, Rushdie had bumped Tsiolkas (or McCarthy or Donoghue or Murray) from the list, it would have deprived the UK reader the chance to enhance or reject a new reputation. So I say, read the book about the barbie!
Link to The Oberver to read the full piece.
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