The Booker Prize 2024, Longlist

Hello Gentle Reader,

This years Booker Prize has announced their longlist. The judges have gone so far to praise their inductions, with the judging chair stressing that the longlisted novels are not about pressing issues and concerns of today, but are (and I quote):

“They are works of fiction that inhabit ideas by making us care deeply about people and their predicaments, their singularity in a world that can be indifferent or hostile.”

Perhaps I’m just in a foul mood, but to me, that sounded an awful lot like a marketing campaigns mission statement, attempting to gloss over the glaringly obvious concern and choices that went into compiling the longlist as one being concerned making a heavy handed statement on the immediate issues and concerns of today, all the while attempting to deny that the novels are in fact about the issues and concerns of today, be they are political, social, or ideological in nature. Much like many of the meetings I attended today, I was left at the end saying: what are you talking about?

The novels included on this year’s longlist are not necessarily all that interesting, as compared to some which have been interestingly omitted. This year’s longlist in no particular order:

            Tommy Orange – United States of America – “Wandering Stars,”
            Anne Michaels – Canada – “Held,”
            Colin Barrett – Ireland – “Wild Horses,”  
            Rachel Kushner – United States of America – “Creation Lake,”
            Richard Powers – United States of America – “Playground,”
            Sarah Perry – United Kingdom – “Enlightenment,”
            Samantha Harvey – United Kingdom – “Orbital,”
            Claire Messud – Canada – “This Strange Eventful History,”
            Percival Everett – United States of America – “James,”
            Yael van der Wouden – The Netherlands – “The Safekeep,”
            Hisham Matar – United States of America/United Kingdom – “My Friends,”
            Charlotte Wood – Australia – “Stone Yard Devotional,”
            Rita Bullwinkel – United States of America – “Headshot,”

Again, to reiterate: perhaps I am in a foul mood, but I found the longlist left a sense of ‘wanting,’ on my end. The list itself is almost glaringly dominated by American writers.

Richard Powers returns to contended for the Booker Prize, after his previous novel “Bewilderment,” was shortlisted in 2021. Returning with his new novel “Playground,” Powers has crafted another novel of dystopian parabolic ideas, writing about the beauty of nature and the desolation of the environment, with a shifting concern to the rise of Artificial Intelligence, Richard Powers as crafted a panoramic portrait of the reality of today. Percival Everett in “James,” uses Mark Twain’s classic novel: “Huckleberry Finn,” and the character Jim as a springboard to trace the racially violent history of United States of America, and the traumatic fissures it has sowed within the African-American identity. In “Wandering Stars,” by Tommy Orange, generational trauma ripples throughout the ages, from the brutality of the American Indian Boarding School, run by an evangelical sadist whose purpose in not only spreading Christian messaging, but also to eradicate Native American culture, language, and traditions, which reverberates to contemporary United States of America, rife with poverty, gun violence, and prescriptive drug addiction. Again, however, none of these novels are a testament to the issues of today, be it climate catastrophe and calamity; or racial injustices and the traumatic history of the United States; or the disparity of wealth, rampant poverty, and ever-present violence of daily life.

Sarah Perry and Anne Michaels strike me as this year’s dark horses. Anne Michael’s is a poet in addition to being a prose writer, and her work maintains a sense of the cerebral. “Held,” showcases Michael’s enjoyment of loose narrative structure and her mastery of language. Sarah Perry’s novel “Enlightenment,” is one that shines in its own eccentricity and delights in both its earthly pleasures and otherworldly intrusions. Harkening back to what has been described as old-fashioned narrative reminiscent of the high postmodernist pastiche of the late Dame A.S. Byatt, transporting the Victorian and Edwardian into the contemporary consciousness.

Its curious, however, to note that neither Rachel Cusk or Sally Rooney made this year’s longlist. Cusk’s most recent disembodiment experiment of the novel “Parade,” was recently released; and Sally Rooney’s newly anticipated novel “Intermezzo,” would have made the deadline for nomination for the prize. I found their exclusion interesting and perhaps telling. Rachel Cusk for example, has always struck me as very privileged middle-class writer, whose cipher oriented novels are not so much an exercise in usurping the novels conventional elements, as they are discombobulating diatribes of no consequence. She can craft an eloquent sentence, but the praised innovation is lost on me. As for Sally Rooney, the oracle of the millennials, perhaps she’s an acquired generational taste.

Its an interesting shortlist, one certainly not concerned with the issues of today, but instead empathetically impactful narratives. Congratulations to the longlisted writers.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

 
M. Mary