Man Booker prize shortlist 2010

Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America

Emma Donoghue's Room

Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room

Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question

Andrea Levy's The Long Song

Tom McCarthy's C

"The news that David Mitchell has not made the shortlist will cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth across the bookworld"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/07/booker-prize-shortlist-drops-frontrunners

Thousand Autumns isn't that good, slightly problematic in fact, I think. Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green much better. Wail and gnash away. I'm reading C at the moment, and it's brilliant, but I haven't read any of the others.

i haven't read any. i suppose mitchell gets read by a lot of people who don't read much (or any) contemporary literary fiction who will, no doubt, be venting about this.

Don't give a toss about the Booker and haven't read the new Mitchell but I guess he's the kind of dude who is not supposed to win this shit

Howard Jacobson is soooooo the Happy Shopper Philip Roth tho.

Think C has enough problems, esp in traditional crafted-novel way, that I'd be surprised if it wins; without having read any of the others, feeling like Room might get it, or maybe yeah Jacobson - think some section of the middle-aged lit world feels he's underappreciated, might move judges towards him.

only one I've read was Parrot & Olivier, which was ok but definitely not one of Carey's best

McCarthy to either not accept the cash or do something arty with it?

xpost heheheh he'll re-enact the ceremony itself! I can't wait to read C, but I'm going to wait until the talk he's doing at the South Bank centre to buy it.

Peter Carey heads up Booker shortlist

can i cavil about this tendency for the most well known person to be said to 'head up' a nonhierarchical list

altho obv he would 'head up' this list by alphabetical order but the point remains i think

(that will be all)

Hmmm. None of these, except maybe C, really interest me at all. It seems a LONG time from the years when I would dedicatedly seek out all the nominees and dutifully read them.

Finkler Question it is.

Article says betting was suspended on C. How did it get to be hot favourite? I haven't seen a review or met a reader without significant reservations.

if a book is suspended like that it's usually down to mischievous/credulous ppl circulating rumours (see also 'next premier league manager to be sacked')....but rly i don't think there was ever much chance of it winning judging by booker form and the excerpts i've read

Right, makes sense. Only uncritical praise I heard, thinking more, was from inside publishing. As per upthread, didn't seem to fit the Booker to me, doesn't quite work even as a Banville-style ART winner.

Because I quite often wonder 'whither the comic novel' I feel I should read this. And yet I never feel drawn to Jacobson. My parents had a few of his books lying around, I may have even tried to start reading one, I'm not sure. Still it gets a good write-up here, I dunno, maybe I'll give it a go.

And no, thirded on there being no chance of C winning it.

He's never really interested me - his columns in the Indy seemed a bit pompous, style less fun than I'd have expected, so I've never bothered with the fiction. Occasionally I'll read something that piques my i. - the cuckold novel sounded genuinely odd – but that soon passes.

Joke winner of a joke prize tbh

Never wanted to go near one of his books purely on the basis of his Indy column, which just screams 'crap Philip Roth, trying too hard'.

Now that woof's mentioned it, I remember it was the pomposity of his tv persona that drove me mad, even from quite a young age, and stopped me reading any of his books.

the finkler question is really a terrible name, for anything & kinda indicates the worst kind of uncomedy

also i probably liked the david mitchell book more than the two shortlisted books i have read (c and room)

I'm another who's avoided Jacobson's fiction mainly on the basis of his Indy column, which I stopped reading because it was insufferably pompous and phenomenally dull. His occasional appearances on telly have only reinforced my impression of narrow-minded self-importance.

All the same I may give this novel a try. I like plenty of writers who are/were pretty obnoxious people.

Feel the same way about Jacobson's media persona. Likewise, if I hadn't read Lionel Shriver before she started her (now defunct) Guardian column I would never have bothered, so ghastly and self-important was her journalism. There's something to be said for relative seclusion.

The persona is more dull than obnoxious. China Mieville (who reviewed the bk on Newsnight review) really slated this, saw a nasty streak under the whole thing.

Imagine if Tom McCarthy had won. Not read C but its hard to shake off the impression that there is something off about the novel and maybe him, just by the fact it got a nom.

I bought 'C' before I realised he was the 'Tintin and the secret of literature' guy, which at the time struck me as a pointless, joyless and wrong-headed thing

if i wasn't already averse to his persona from TV. that interview would have put me off on its own.

It was beginning to look like I was the novelist that never ever won the Booker prize.

no you weren't.

I'd guess the book is about as funny as his unfunny non observation about handbags in that interview. "Have you seen the price of handbags?" - yes, pretty sure you can get them in Primark for a few quid. oh right, no, you live on the plane where a handbag costs several thousand pounds.

I'd like to join in the kicking because it sounds like it's well-deserved, but I'd honestly never heard of the guy.

And your prize is -

http://theidiotandthedog.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/img_0060.jpg?w=450

(should probably cross-post to future of the book trade thread as well)

I had also never heard of Jacobson prior to this win. Any good?

HJ interviewed in Guardian on Thu: utterly obnoxious.

recent LRB interview of McCarthy, btw: also utterly obnoxious.

I like Jed's comment on the affordability of handbags.

I've read one Jacobson, an early one--it seemed like someone trying to be David Lodge, and not being very good at it. Did not encourage me to read any more.

I read the Guardian interview and concur with "obnoxious".