Sunday Salon: The Best of the Booker
April 27, 2008 by lizzysiddal
The Booker may be 40 years old but I confess it only entered my consciousness in 1991 - a couple of years after I returned to British shores.
Booker-wise the 1990s started well with A.S.Byatt’s Possession - a book I have read twice and loved both times. Despite my disagreement with the author’s stance on the Orange Prize, Possession appears on my personal Best of Booker shortlist. 1992 saw Sacred Hunger 
share the prize with The (interminably dull) English Patient. You just know when a book grabs me by the horns and refuses to let go. I have to find myself a 1st edition … the 1st edition of Sacred Hunger is the most expensive second-hand volume in my library. After Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (which I didn’t like), Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late (which I refuse to read - too many sweary words), 1995 heralded the brilliance of 
Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road, a stunning ending to the Regeneration trilogy. (Which reminds me I have yet to see the film.) Last Orders was unfinishable, The God of Small Things moved me to tears but I remember nothing of it now, I enjoyed (!) Amsterdam. The decade ended badly though with Disgrace. I thought it was exactly that! Details elude me now but, after many years of others detailing its brilliance, perhaps I ought to give it a second try.
What about the 2000s?
Blind Assassin, a confusing but promising start. The True History of the Kelly Gang remains in the TBR. 2002’s Life of Pi, a refreshingly enjoyable read. (Note to self - reread at earliest opportunity.) 
Lamentably it is also the most recent Booker I have read. Since 2003 there has been no winner of immediate appeal to me. I started listening to an unabridged recording of The Inheritance of Loss a couple of weeks ago. Lots of descriptive phrases but nothing to hold my attention whilst driving. It’s a story that needs to be read in peace and quiet. I shall return to it at a later date.
I have a number of pre-1990’s Bookers in the TBR including The Remains of the Day which I promise myself I shall have read before the official shortlist is announced. It’s a dead cert to appear on the list, isn’t it? Midnight’s Children another, although it will have to win if I’m
to contemplate reading it. The Ground Beneath Her Feet my one, only and last (?) experience with Rushdie. I can’t see the truly unforgettable The Bone People being at all acceptable to modern-day audiences but it may just get the 6th place on my personal list, which currently looks like this:
1) 1990 Possession - A S Byatt
2) 1992 Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth
3) 1995 The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
4) 2002 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
5) Reserved for 1989 The Remains of the Day
6) 1985 The Bone People or one of the following from my TBR (The Siege of Krishnapur / Offshore / Staying On / In A Free State /something by Peter Carey).
Of course, the real shortlist will look nothing like the above. There’s far too much history on it, nothing experimental (unless you count Martel’s piece) but it does show my preference for narratives of the traditional kind. EDIT: I’m forgetting there’s nothing traditional about The Bone People either. Perhaps I’m not quite the fuddy-duddy I imagine myself to be.
Care to share your shortlists? There’s a handy reference of the winners here. Is there any one title I should make a beeline for because my reading will be incomplete should I pass it over?
The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth 
Cleave - Anthology of Scottish Women's Writing
The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackberg 
I haven’t really thought about this, but I do know that I would be very hard put to come up with a short list. I think we do the Booker so badly, especially if you compare it with the Pulitzer. Now there my problem would be how to draw up a short list that didn’t include everything that’s ever won. “The Hours’, ‘Empire Falls’, ‘Giliead’, ‘March’, ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ the list goes on and on.
A pedant writes: re the first para of your post: Disgrace won in 1991!
My own list would include Disgrace, and The Remains of the Day would probably be my top choice. I’d also shortlist Oscar and Lucinda and Moon Tiger - that 1987-89 hat trick was a real run of quality! Not sure how I’d fill in the other places. Rushdie I have enjoyed very much in Shalimar the Clown and The Satanic Verses, but I remember Midnight’s Children as a bit of a slog.
Have you any idea how many times I looked at that first paragraph and thought “there’s something wrong”? I shall edit post-haste!
Lizzy, The only one I’ve read on your shortlist is The Bone People which I loved and thought was masterfully written with original language. I’m doing the Complete Booker challenge so eventually I’ll get to all of these. One book (which I think is similar to The Bone People in style) which I also rated highly is The God of Small Things.
Didn’t Disgrace win in 1999?
I’ve been slowly working my way through the Bookers and reckon I have read 21 of the 41 - over half way through. Personal favourites include ‘The Remains Of The Day’ and ‘Moon Tiger’, which blew me away when I read it recently.
Gave up on Carey’s Ned Kelly, and Golding’s ‘Rites Of Passage’ but I might try again. Next on my list is Penelope Fizgerald’s ‘Offshore’.
Lizzy, agree with you on ‘Sacred Hunger’ - a great read.
Possession is probably my all-time favorite novel; I haven’t read all the Bookers but many of the others are faves as well. Blind Assassin, The Remains of the Day, The English Patient, Life of Pi. I thought The Inheritance of Loss was very good but it is a quiet book, you’re right. The last couple I thought were dogs- The Gathering and The Sea. And I always thought Ian McEwan should have won for Atonement instead of Amsterdam. Oh well!
Well-done PJ! Hopefully I’ve got my facts sorted now!
You’re right of course PJ! That’ll learn me!
Just checking, I see I’ve read 14 of the Booker winners, mostly from the late 80s onwards. I could also count unfinished ones like True History of the Kelly Gang, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Old Devils as I read over half of each, which was enough for me to know I didn’t like them.
I have The Siege of Krishnapur and Staying On on my shelves. Both strike me as somehow related, to do with beginning and the ending of the end of the British Empire, but my prejudice about the latter is that it’s somehow jingoistic simply because it was that old bigot Philip Larkin’s championing of it as Booker Judge which secured its victory. I shall soon find out how wrong I am.
John Berger’s “G” would top it for me. Then “Disgrace” probably.
But, Lizzy, do try to get beyond the swearing — the Kelman is unsettling and very powerful.
Well I am unfazed by swearing, and have How Late It Was, How Late on my shelves to read soon. Must admit Kelman didn’t endear himself to me in the Guardian interview a couple of weekends ago - not that I’m sure he cares, but if he doesn’t like doing publicity interviews then presumably as a former Booker winner he’s got enough clout to tell his publishers he doesn’t want to?
Interesting choice, Mark - G. is often touted as one of the black sheep of the Booker winners, along with the likes of The Bone People. Given however that when I look back, I’ve disliked (or felt ho-hum about) more Booker winners than I’ve loved, perhaps that makes it one I should try. And Geoff Dyer, of whom I’m a fan, is a big admirer of Mr B.
I have a 50 f*-word limit on novels. I once tried Christopher Brookmyre. The book hit the bin after a page and a half. How many pages will the Kelman last, do you think?
Footnote: Only one novel has survived that rule - Brian Moore’s Black Robe but that is in a league of its own.