Hello
Gentle Reader
This
year’s Man Booker Prize winner is, George Saunders, with his novel: “Lincoln in
the Bardo.” The Booker judges praised, Saunders novel as: extraordinary and
unique. Not bad for a writer who up until this point, had only written short
stories. This year’s award once again broke convention and set precedence. For the
second year in a row, an American writer has walked away with the Booker Prize.
Though the win was greeted with cheers and appreciative applause; there are
those who are more apologetic and dissatisfied, with the current direction of
the award; some predicting and proclaiming with apocalyptic vision, the Booker
Prize’s demise—or at the very least, its loss of cultural relevancy and
importance.
In
her opinion piece for “The Guardian,” Lucy Diver, offers commentary on the
Booker Prize moving away from its ability to recognize daring and innovative
literature, as it slowly is consumed in its own self-importance, whereby it recognizes
literature of neocolonial influential powers of the United States, and the
United Kingdom. Ms. Diver, comments on when Eleanor Catton’s massive novel: “The
Luminaries,” won; it showed the power of the Booker Prize, to take risks and
reap reward, with dark horse writers. This same result was once again captured
in two-thousand and fifteen, when Marlon James won for his novel: “A Brief
History of Seven Killings.” Lucy Diver reflects on how the Booker was able to
put New Zealand (if only slightly and for the briefest of moments) on the
literary map, with the outstanding news of Eleanor Catton’s win. Such was the gift the Booker Prize could offer
to writers of the common wealth. From the depths of the submitted publications,
there could always be the dark horse; that writer who was just beginning to
etch out their literary career such as: Eleanor Catton, Tom McCarthy, Marlon
James, Kazuo Ishiguro, Deborah Levy; be it the author won or was just
shortlisted, the recognition, name, association, and media attention could
raise their prospects.
Now,
the award is diluted in its prospects for up and coming writers, as the submission
list is saturated in a surplus of works being force fed to the judges who must
comply a longlist and a shortlist in relatively short time. So is the Booker
Prize in for a disaster riddled future? Is it despair and devastation here and
throughout? My vision maybe grey and always leaning towards the grim
perspective of ‘unfortunate realities,’—it is not burning red with apocalyptic
mania, where all that lies ahead is nothing more than a mushroom cloud of
nihilism; detonated by the swollen egos of the United Kingdom and United States
publishing industries. But it does leave one to wonder where other writers and
countries sit on the list; what about New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, South
Africa, Canada, India and so on and so forth.
I
found this year’s Booker Prize underwhelming over all. Both the longlist and
the shortlist were at the end of the day representative of the literary status
quo, with no real revolutionary changes or judgements being made. However, the
lists on further inspection did show a certain engagement and inclination
towards commentary on current socio-political issues; such as Ali Smith’s “Autumn,”
discussing a post-Brexit world; or the relevant discussion of African-American
history, and slavery as a large part of that historical context, outlined in
George Saunders winning debut novel: “Lincoln in the Bardo.” This being said,
the Booker Prize is a literary award, not a political one. Any socio-political
commentary, engagement, or discussion, is that of the author; whether or not
this assists or hinders the ability to win the award only the judges could say.
Over
all Gentle Reader, I have found the Booker Prize rather dissatisfying and
lacking in relevancy and imagination; becoming both trite and fraught with disappointment,
only to be jolted back to life with an interesting work of fiction, though it
doesn’t win (Tom McCarthy much?). For now though, George Saunders has won the
Booker Prize and all the jovial congratulations to him.
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
To read Lucy Diver's article please see the following link
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