The Booker Prize, awarded in England, used to be limited to authors of the British persuasion, including authors from Commonwealth countries all over the world. Now, it’s open to U.S. authors, too, and five of the twelve authors on the prize’s longlist this year are American. Here’s the list:
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg.
The Green Road by Anne Enright
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy
The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
The Chimes by Anna Smaill
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Of the twelve books listed, I’ve only read one, Marilynne Robinson’s Lila. I didn’t like it as much as I did the first two books in the series, Gilead and Home, maybe because I found it more difficult to identify with or sympathize with the fiercely independent Lila. Her demons are not my demons, whereas pastor John Ames, the elderly man reviewing his life for evidence of its faithfulness and meaning, is a man after my own heart. And sometimes I think I know Glory Boughton of Home, albeit I am married with eight children whilst she was a spinster. The story of the elder brother in the prodigal son parable has alway been a poignant and tragic reminder of how I can miss the Father’s love while living in His very house.
I looked up the remaining eleven books on Amazon, and honestly, not one of them was appealing enough for me to add it to my ever-growing TBR list. There were lots of books with multiple narrators, lots of family dysfunction, some “experimental” stuff that I’m pretty sure I would not understand or appreciate. Maybe I’ve “outgrown” contemporary literary fiction, or regressed, or something.
I just read an article on my Kindle http://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/08/write-away in First Things, about why the current offerings of literature may be so unsatisfying. I don’t know if you can access it somehow… But it uses the novel Goldfinch, which I haven’t read, as an example of what is called a Great American Novel, contrasting it with the truly greats of the past, before the majority of writers were ensconced in academia.
Unfortunately, I can’t read the article, since I am not a subscriber, just the first couple of paragraphs. However, I did read The Goldfinch, and it is a perfect example of what’s wrong with literary novels these days. It’s got a good, well actually very bad and morally bankrupt, story, but compelling enough to keep me reading to the end. Then, I was so frustrated and disillusioned with the main character, and the author by reflection, that I wanted to yell at someone and tell them that life can be so much more than what was shown in that novel. Life can be good and righteous and joy-filled, none of which was even hinted at in The Goldfinch. I wrote a little more about the novel here: http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=23837