Just like that, it’s nearly November

29-10-2229-10-22 / Lisa Guidarini

When I last posted, I was in the midst of a selective Booker longlist read-a-thon of selected titles. When the shortlist came, I was disappointed my favorite – The Colony by Audrey Magee – was not on it. From there, I didn’t much care who won. I was soured on the whole thing and just hoped they didn’t choose one of the two novels I’d read and disliked – Oh! William by Elizabeth Strout or The Trees by Percival Everett. Ultimately, they didn’t, which pleased me.

Oh! William annoyed the living hell out of me. Though it was a short novel, it took strength getting through it. I’d read and loved Olive Kitteridge, so it follows I’d expected this book to be just as good. Oh! but it was so not. It started well enough but ended a kitschy mess.

The Trees was a better book but had it won it wouldn’t have been for its merit as a written work so much as its civil rights theme. While I support great writing about social issues, and the Emmet Till story deserves to be told over and over lest we forget, it’s not that good. I saw what he was trying to achieve – a lighter take on a dark subject – it just doesn’t work. It’s my first book by Percival Everett, so I don’t know how representative it is. I just don’t quite understand what possessed him. Because of the social justice atrocity at its center, no reviewer called him to task, which is the downside of criticism in 2022. I do not judge Percival Everett, I judge the work he puts out. Critics are muzzled now, afraid to tell the truth about sensitive subject matter. Utimately, if a writer doesn’t succeed, they should not be lauded. I don’t care what their reputation is or what they’re writing about.

The 2022 Booker winner, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sheehan Karunatilaka, didn’t make it to my TBR but it sounds kind of wonderful. I pre-ordered it, since it hasn’t yet been published here in the States. As usual, I have loads of books on the go but I’m hoping to squeeze it in before the end of the year.

Haha, sure. If I don’t take time to sleep, maybe. But it’ll be here, and where there’s presence, there’s hope.

For those who don’t follow me on social media and weren’t inundated with pics, in mid-September I traveled to Ireland for a few days, visiting Kilkenny and Galway. I regret I didn’t have longer, and I regret I listened to those who encouraged me to avoid the dangers of Dublin – which I now believe were overblown. Originally intent on revisiting Scotland, the nightmarish stories of connecting through an overwhelmed Heathrow, coupled with a threatened UK rail strike, prompted my change of plans. I’m hoping for a 2023 return to Scotland in the off-season, when it’s more afforable.

I had a glorious time, regardless, and didn’t even contract Covid – despite all the coughing, hacking people I ran into. Before I left I got the Omicron booster and flu shot, which might have helped on that score. I visited museums, walked around a medieval city center, and found several bookshops. The food was magnificent, the people kind, and the weather shockingly perfect. I encountered no rain! Zero! In Ireland!

Last week the prints I ordered – of the hundreds I took – arrived and I’m getting those framed and on the wall. Ireland really is lovely.

I’ve read loads since my last update, most of which I’ve entered on Goodreads without commenting much. They were good to very good reads, no pun intended. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve finished:

The Colony by Audrey Magee (easy 5 stars)

Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay (4 stars)

The Past is Never by Tiffany Quay Tyson (ugh… my 3 star reads only mean it’s above mainstream fiction by a hair)

The Door by Magda Szabo (another easy 5 stars)

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (4 stars and a massive crush)

The Promise by Damon Galgut (5 stars and a vow to read much more by this stunning South African writer)

Currently I’m re-reading Bleak House (huge favorite), Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Ron Charles of The Washington Post says it may be the best book of the year – I’m wary of such sweeping statements, though it is quite good), and Philip Roth’s The Facts, an autobiographical work. A fair mix, I’d say.

Last week I went to my first author event in years. I saw Rebecca Makkai at Woodstock Opera House and she was brilliant. She spoke about the writing of her Pulitzer-nominated The Believers, which I still haven’t read – mea culpa. It’s largely about the AIDs crisis, as it was experienced in 1980’s Chicago. Of course it made me want to pull it off the shelf and start it immediately but I simply have too much on my plate already. I do, however, have the ARC of her upcoming February release beside my bed.

This coming week I’m attending a David Sedaris event in my very own hometown. I saw him at Roosevelt University in 2019 and he is screamingly funny. I highly recommend going to his readings if you aren’t easily offended. Even if you are, to thicken your skin. Can’t wait to see him again. He’s brilliant and inappropriately funny, the best possible combination.

On the homefront, I’m excited to report I had my new Ikea furniture assembled this week! Without context that sounds bland but if you knew how many times I’ve moved in the past several years, and how tough it’s been settling anywhere longer than a year, the significance is more apparent. I like this place. It’s large enough for me to have an office, and, now that I have a job that allows me the means to spread out, I can see myself staying a while. Wanderlust is all well and good, but not so much when you feel like a nomad. Nothing can match the splendor of Scotland, and even my prior apartment in Elgin, IL was more charming, but I’m trying to balance out the benefits of living in a major metro area with the lack of history and character. That’s what travel is for.

Am I caught up? Reasonably so. I’m not pleased I’ve crammed so much into such a small space, but glad I can pick up here with more substantial posts. If you blog and find coming back from pauses as stressful as I do, you’ll get it. And there’s no reason I can’t expand on any of this later – Ireland, for instance, there are loads of stories as you can imagine. As for the books, there’s no statute of limitations on that score. So I’m well-pleased with myself, as it should be.

Next up on the Bluestalking docket, November is National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo). While I’m not planning to write a novel, I am looking forward to writing a short piece a day through next month. I’ve written up more than 30 writing prompts, stuck them in a jar, and I’ll pull one a day. To keep myself accountable, I’ve told people about it – including the writers group I founded ages ago at the library I used to work for – and promised to post the day’s prompt, in case they’re interested in giving it a go. At least one of them replied they’re excited and that’s enough inspiration for me.

Since I find myself doing little outside my apartment, I’m planning to attend a local reading group of ladies who meet at different local independent restaurants every month. The upside’s obvious: I get to discover local eateries while talking about books. The downside’s what has kept me from participating in any book group, that is, they tend to read the kind of books that get a million positive reviews on Amazon, popular books that blow up social media because they please everyone. Books that please everyone are seldom those I enjoy. Until and unless I form my own group, or find one suited to my tastes, this is it.

So much to do, so little time. So many distractions, so little discipline, more like.

Happy almost November.

Booker Longlist 2022 – early thoughts

02-08-22 / Lisa Guidarini

The 13: Booker Longlist 2022

First it was the Booker Prize for Fiction, then the Man Booker, finally, the plain old Booker Prize. I found them in the early 2000s, followed them religiously, and joined the other zealots attempting to predict the winners. Either I was very good at it or very lucky, but I crushed it for a string of years – not to brag.

Well, kind of to brag.

Okay, completely to brag. Humility will get you nowhere, do not hide your light.

I had a system. First, I grouped them into categories. Before they became a political statement, the Bookers had a formula of sorts; it was possible to crack the code with a fair degree of accuracy simply by reading a few, then researching the hell out of the others. The judges chose a certain number of established writers, a handful of up and comers who’d garnered a bit of fame (some of whom had been previously nominated for this or other prizes), then one or two debut novelists.

For a debut novelist to sweep the field, they had to be phenomenal. These were somewhat of a wild card, though their traditional role was as virtual cannon fodder. For all intents and purposes, they were chosen to be weeded out when it came time for the shortlist, in exchange for raising their visibility. For an established writer, they needed to perform at the top of their game. While I don’t have the statistics, the winners tended to lie somewhere in between (not counting the two Hilary Mantel years, and what the hell was up with that).

The years politics prevailed were dark days for literature. I am all for writers who make strong statements, but when the point is how loudly they speak out against that year’s pet issue over the quality of writing, that’s a problem. If you want a book prize centered solely on political issues, all well and good – develop that prize. If the point is to honor the best writing, the filter of political correctness needs to be muted. Judging from the past couple of years, and the books that made it for 2022, I’m tentatively hopeful the political years may be over.

Cross fingers.

This year’s longlist is dominated by Americans, taking up six of the thirteen spots: Elizabeth Strout, Karen Joy Fowler, Leila Mottley, Hernan Diaz, Selby Wynn Schwartz, and Percival Everett. I have nothing against them, they just don’t belong here. The US has so many prizes the rest of the world is excluded from, and the UK and Commonwealth produce brilliant literature that ought to stand on its own. It makes no sense Americans are allowed to be nominated for the Booker Prize.

End rant.

I purchased four books from the list: Small Things Like These, The Trees, Case Study, and The Colony. Honestly, if money were no object, I’d have bought them all just to have thirteen books show up on my doorstep. They could keep company with the books I’ve bought and not read from longlists of the past. In the end I went with the titles I thought I’d enjoy most, weighing that with how many I could get from the library. Not all of them are worth buying.

From the library, I have Oh William! checked out and I’m on the waiting list for Booth. I’m planning to request Glory next, since NoViolet Bulawayo has a very good reputation in the middle-of-the-road category. Actually, all these writers are middle of the road, aren’t they. There’s no huge, iconic writer overshadowing the rest. Oh, damn. That makes my prediction a million times harder.

I haven’t fully researched the others, as much for lack of time as the fact some just don’t appeal to me at all. I watched a few YouTube videos made by booktubers and I may have taken on some of their negative prejudices, but that’s the price I had to pay for my crash course. Shrug. I’m in a lot more of a rush these days.

As of the publication of this post, I’ve finished one of the longlisted titles and I’m almost halfway through another. I’ll talk about that next time.

Spoiler: the book I finished was lovely, but it’s not the winner. I’ll tell you why, never fear.

The shortlist will be announced on September 6. The winner of the Booker Prize 2022 will announced the 17th of October.

Booker Shortlist 2016: the blood-letting of Coetzee and Strout

16-09-1616-09-16 / Lisa Guidarini / 1 Comment

Six novelists have made it to the shortlist, the last step in the Man Booker Prize competition. The 2016 finalists are from Britain, the U.S. and Canada.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Once more unto the breach.

The Shortlist is upon us. I protest I have not the time read them, yet I’ve never let this stop me from opining with gusto. I opine because literature is my life – qualification enough.

What’s interesting about this year’s shortlist isn’t only the titles that made it through, but those that didn’t: namely JM Coetzee and Elizabeth Strout. Lesser-to-unknown writers, of impressively eclectic range, leap-frogged right over them, which is the crux of my thesis.

I’ve been witnessed wailing and gnashing my teeth over slights to literary icons, frustrated it’s become fashionable to cry “entitlement” when the successful repeatedly excel. Is the purpose of literary awards not to honor the best of the best?

The purpose of literary awards is to honor the deserving. Politics and political correctness have no moral right to intervene.

And then there were 6:

Two Americans.

Two Brits.

Two Canadians.

News flash: literary icons get to the top through a hell of a lot of hard work. No one hands fame to undeserving writers. Strike that. Usually, undeserving writers don’t make it to award lists.

Okay. One hopes only the best rise to the top.

My argument against unknown writers eking through to the Shortlist is a nomination for the Man Bookers is a nod only a handful of writers will ever receive. Slapping “Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize” stickers on covers boosts sales. Boosting sales raises visibility. And when visibility rises, books get attention. And when books get attention, literary reputations are built. When literary reputations rise, the baton passes to the next generation of great writers.

In other words, they earn it the old fashioned way: writing highest-quality prose.

Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true. – Joyce Carol Oates

Yet, I’m not blind to the other side. Underdogs are exciting; knowing the outcome of a contest is flat boring. This same eclectic group of Shortlisted writers have beaten the crowd, hand-picked by judges – I won’t get into the politics of judging – who winnowed from who knows how many others, until only these few remained.

Even great writers occasionally stumble: see the list of phenomenal first books whose authors never managed to repeat. I wouldn’t rule out lesser-known writers besting the best of the best. It’s happened, and in these cases previous fame should have no influence. When a writer falters, he deserves no credit for past success. Likewise, when a writer crushes it, accolades are imperative.

The weeding process must, of necessity, be brutal. Sub-par writing deserves no sympathy. It’s here the door’s left cracked for better efforts to squeak past. And it’s here I understand lesser-knowns rising.

“Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it.” – Witold Gombrowicz

I cannot speak to the quality of Coetzee and Strout’s recent books. I have not read them. I know Coetzee to be a staggering talent, full stop. I’ve read several of his works, and know him as a giant. Even this should give him no advantage here.

Strout’s Olive Kitteridge fairly crushed it, but I know nothing of My Name is Lucy Barton. Could be she faltered, I do not know. But if she did, all’s fair in love and literature.

I have not read these six left standing. Reviews and blurbs make them all sound remarkable, but then they’re designed to sell.

Literary awards are not the only thing. Books are not defined by awards won. However, literary awards are in place to judge books that have achieved a level of excellence above the rest. It’s a thing apart. None of these books is unworthy, but only one of them is the best of this particular lot. And the one that’s nearest perfection, regardless of who wrote it – their color or gender or ethnic origin or previous fame or tough life story – should rightly win.

I’d say good luck to them all, but it should never be about luck. May the best win.