Sunday September 2, 2007
Sex, infertility, war
By HOWARD DAVIES
The chair of one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards shares exclusively with StarMag his thoughts on choosing this year’s Man Booker long list of titles, which was announced in our Reads pages on Aug 12.
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Sir Howard Davies and his fellow judges had to read 110 novels in just a few months. – Photo courtesy of the Man Booker Prize |
How are the entries chosen? Every (qualified) publisher is entitled to submit two novels published in the year, in addition to the automatic entries of former prizewinners and recently short listed authors. That rule applies both to major publishing houses like Jonathan Cape and to newer small companies like Myrmidon, which published The Gift of Rain by (Malaysia-born author) Tan Twan Eng.
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Both the longest ( Darkmans) and shortest ( On Chesil Beach) novels submitted made it to the long list. |
Winnowing this huge number down to manageable proportions is more of an art than a science. The first formal task for the judges is to produce the long list, which was this year limited to 13 books. Doing that at the beginning of August imposed a tight deadline on our reading, so all five judges rushed to complete the task. My family holiday involved reading the last 25 novels, so my conversation with my wife was limited to monosyllabic grunts. She is either a very understanding woman or has lost all interest in what I have to say.
This year we were faced with, I think, a very high average quality of submissions. There were few books we felt we could dismiss out of hand, and many very good novels have simply not made it through, which is a shame.
Beyond that, we noticed some interesting themes emerging. A lot of novelists are preoccupied with sex (I can just about remember why that might be). And this year there are a surprising number of themes that touch on infertility. Maybe that is an interesting phenomenon particularly in developed countries, where birth rates are low and in some cases the population is declining: not an issue in Malaysia, of course.
There were also 14 novels that were either largely or substantially centred on World War II, from Thomas Keneally’s latest book about Allied raids on the Japanese fleet in Singapore in 1942 (The Widow and Her Hero), to a novel about the after effects of Hiroshima. Of these, two, by Tan Twan Eng and A.N. Wilson, made it through to the long list.
Tan’s strong sense of place and his ability to handle dark themes in the Japanese occupation of Malaya appealed to us. The central character collaborates with the occupiers, but tries also to help the resistance. Wilson’s reflections on the influence of Wagner on Hitler and the origins of Nazism in 19th century philosophy are challenging and well written.
There are two striking features of the titles on the long list this year. First, four of them, including Tan’s, are first novels, which we think is a record.
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The second interesting feature is the geographical diversity of the novel in English that the list reveals. The long list includes one Canadian, a New Zealander, a Pakistani, an Indian based in India and one based in Wales, a Chinese Welshman and, of course, a Malaysian, alongside five British writers and an Irish woman.
So Booker judging these days takes you on a world tour, from Toronto to Penang. In a rainy London summer, that proved to be a wonderful diversion.
But now we get down to the tough business of choosing the short list on Thursday and the winner on Oct 16. I couldn’t begin to speculate on the outcome.
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