SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
martin_z

The Booker Prize 2014 - Longlist

martin_z
9 years ago

Hi all.

I know, I know, I'm very late this year. But with the shortlist coming out in only two days, I though I ought to at least list the longlist and give a few opinions.

A particularly interesting year this year, as the Booker is now open to all books published in the United Kingdom in English - which means we can now invite the Yanks to the party! >waves to you allSo...

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Viking) by Joshua Ferris (American)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Chatto & Windus) by Richard Flanagan (Australian)

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Serpent's Tail) by Karen Joy Fowler (American)

The Blazing World (Sceptre) by Siri Hustvedt (American)

J (Jonathan Cape) by Howard Jacobson (British)

The Wake (Unbound) by Paul Kingsnorth (British)

The Bone Clocks (Sceptre) by David Mitchell (British)

The Lives of Others (Chatto & Windus) by Neel Mukherjee (British)

Us (Hodder & Stoughton) by David Nicholls (British)

The Dog (Fourth Estate) by Joseph O'Neill (Irish/American)

Orfeo (Atlantic Books) by Richard Powers (American)

How to be Both (Hamish Hamilton) by Ali Smith (British)

History of the Rain (Bloomsbury) by Niall Williams (Irish)

13 on the longlist as usual. One of them still hasn't been published, and won't even be published until after the prize is awarded. But with all due respect to David Nichols, I can't see Us being a possible winner - or even being shortlisted - if it is anything like his previous novel. One Day was a perfectly good novel - but hardly a Booker contender!

So, to the other twelve. I have actually at least attempted to read every one of them this year. Here's my potted summary.

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Viking) by Joshua Ferris (American)

Interesting. It's about a dentist who is having a bit of a existential crisis. My problem was that it couldn't make up its mind whether it was amusing satire or earnest an important. In the end, it was neither. I don't think it'll be shortlisted, but I'm prepared to forgive it - if only for two excellent jokes!

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Chatto & Windus) by Richard Flanagan (Australian)

This will be shortlisted. It just feels like a shortlisted novel. It's about an Australian (Tasmanian, actually) surgeon who suffered as a Japanese prisoner of war in the second world war. I enjoyed it, and as I say, I think it'll be shortlisted. But I wouldn't mind if it wasn't - I don't know, there just seem to have been so many books on this sort of subject, vying with each other to describe in gory detail how appalling it all was.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Serpent's Tail) by Karen Joy Fowler (American)

I don't know about this one. I liked it a lot - without giving too much away, it's about a girl who lost her sister when she was younger. But there's a twist. It might be shortlisted.

The Blazing World (Sceptre) by Siri Hustvedt (American)

I...

Comments (10)

0