Booker short-lists are by their nature designed to inspire debate and sales. But the one announced yesterday in London suggests that the eventual outcome of the 31st Booker McConnell Prize for Fiction on November 7th will be far less memorable than the spectacular litany of fancied Grand National fallers who failed to make the final six.
It can only be hoped that the short-list, which includes a former Booker winner as well as two US-based Irish writers, Michael Collins and Brian O'Doherty, does not completely kill off all interest in the prize.
Judge-baiting is an established pastime, but this year's panel should hang its collective head in shame over several omissions and a dull list which leaves one wondering if the plan was to shock or simply irritate.
No one could claim surprise at the inclusion of Canadian Margaret Atwood with The Blind Assassin (Bloomsbury), her fourth Booker short-listing, following previous contenders such as The Handmaid's Tale (1986), Cat's Eye (1989) and Alias Grace (1995).
Atwood has a massive international readership. This short-listing is expected, and while she should have won with Cat's Eye, she must now be favourite. The Blind Assassin is a big book in many ways and, as expected from Atwood, the consummate storyteller, is technically accomplished, meticulously detailed, deliberate and ironic. It's no surprise to see Kazuo Ishiguro short-listed for the third time. Nominated in 1986 for An Artist of the Floating World - his finest novel to date - he won the prize three years later for The Remains of the Day.
Both were marked by a graceful, limpid style. However, his latest novel, When We Were Orphans (Faber), is an odd, flat and ultimately unconvincing narrative about a celebrated detective who finally decides to search for his parents and engage in a half-hearted romance.
The narrative has an irritating still-life quality and fails to catch the offbeat mystique of his previous book, The Unconsoled. When We Were Orphans is dull and mannered. The thin plot exposes the true limitations of his narrative voice.
Ishiguro's inclusion in a year which saw the publication of superb novels from John Banville (Associate Literary Editor of The Irish Times), J.G. Ballard, Amit Chaudhuri and a former Bookerwinner, Michael Ondaatje, is not going to enhance the credibility of the judges.
Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost is a beautiful and important work which exposes the horror of events in Sri Lanka as well as telling a personal story about a believable heroine who in returning home discovers she is now an outsider. A strong contender in any year, but no, left out.
As was J.G. Ballard's Super- Cannes, another important novel in which Ballard, the undisputed maverick visionary, shows how the futuristic has become the sinister now.
Still even the poorest short-list throws up a special novel that might not otherwise be noticed. Such a work is The Hiding Place (Picador) by Trezza Azzopardi, a Cardiff-born writer of Maltese parentage. Set in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, this atmospheric first novel is delicate and beautiful, possessing both the simplicity and toughness expected from a narrative told from a child's viewpoint.
However, the same and more must be claimed for Alistair MacLeod's magnificent first novel, No Great Mischief, a family history of staggering, almost nerve-wracking, lyric power. Dominated by a bleak seascape of ice and wind, No Great Mischief seemed an obvious winner, destined to battle it out with fellow Canadians Atwood and Ondaatje - and win.
Booker has a reputation for acknowledging the awesome talent of contemporary Indian fiction. Rohinton Mistry's big, living human comedies Such a Long Journey (1991) and A Fine Balance (1995) were recent runners-up. Anita Desai's Fasting, Feasting shone last year.
What a pity this year's panel overlooked yet another of the year's best books by excluding a marvellous Indian writer, Amit Chaudhuri. His book, A New World, a moving and subtle portrait of a man coming to terms with the collapse of his marriage and his increasing alienation from his Indian homeland, is outstanding. A great book, too good to be included.
If ever a novel seemed tailor-made for Booker it must be Zadie Smith's White Teeth, a first novel exuding streetwise confidence and multiracial awareness straight out of the Salman Rushdie academy of political and cultural send-ups-with-a-sharp-message.
Its exclusion is the one interesting point this panel has made. They bravely ignored the obvious. But I would rather have seen this young black north-west Londoner's novel exploring cultures within a culture on the list than establishment-darling Ishiguro, whose other books I admire.
As with the Indians, some of the best fiction is African. But no Africans this year either. Guyanan poet and novelist Fred d'Aguiar's gorgeously daring verse novel Bloodlines follows two runaway slaves through history to the Underground. With its echoes of Eugene Onegin and its Byronic sheer originality, it could have injected some life to the short-list.
British publishing's love affair with all things Irish continues. By now we expect at least one, if not two contenders, per short-list. This year it was looking congested by a charge led since February by Mary Morrissy's The Pretender. This is an intelligent, sensitive novel that takes the Anastasia mystery and gives it new life, exploring all notions of truth and lies and imaginings.
Anne Enright's more defiant, tougher voice brought a punchy New Ireland energy to What Are You Like? But through the character of Evelyn, a well-intentioned stepmother, the book at times achieved a daunting pathos. It seemed it could attract the judges.
John Banville's mastery of language comes with a heavy price. One of the most admired of writers, he certainly appears to intimidate Booker judges.
His latest novel, Eclipse, earned admiring reviews. A man runs away from the collapse of his acting career and seeks refuge in his family home. There, at the mercy of his memories, nervy intelligence and a sense of humour, he attempts to sort out his chaos. It is a personal odyssey. As with Coetzee's majestic 1999 winner, Disgrace, it is another story of a man in crisis, yet is far less extreme. Banville should have won with The Untouchable (1997), was ignored and has been again. Why? Why has Ballard been ignored since Empire of the Sun was short-listed in 1984?
It does no disservice to Limerick-born Michael Collins, the youngest contender, to describe his short-listing for The Keepers of the Truth (Phoenix House) as an example of an outsider upsetting the odds. As early as his debut collection of short stories, The Meat Eaters (1992), he proved he could write with a surreal flair. As with his near-contemporary, Colum McCann, Collins has gone beyond traditional Irish settings. This is his third novel. Its plot, that of a lonely newspaperman who works for the Truth, a local paper, and seeks the truth about a killing in which a son looks guilty, has a whiff of a sane Twin Peaks.
Still it would not have seemed to have the edge on Morrissy or Enright, never mind Banville.
The surprise of the short-list is art critic Brian O'Doherty's The Deposition of Father McGreevy (Arcadia). As with Atwood and Collins, there is a mystery at the heart of the book, but the oldmovie feel of O'Doherty's rural Ireland never convinces. Its nomination over superior novels such as Eclipse and The Pretender does not reflect the quality of current Irish fiction.
Author of The Strange Case of Madamoiselle P (1992), O'Doh erty tells the story largely through the eponymous old priest, but the novel is filtered through the voice of William Maginn, who returns to Ireland and begins investigating a bizarre story. (It will be reviewed in the books pages next week.)
English writer Matthew Kneale's English Passengers (Hamish Hamilton) turns to the most trusted of English literary genres, the historical novel. Well tipped as a contender, it is a multiple narrative with shades of Golding as the characters take to a creaking ship. With its underlying theme of Victorianism, and religion versus godless science, it is highly readable and could prove to be the dark horse.
To be controversial may well be the aspiration of any middlebrow Booker panel. But too wayward to be honoured as eccentric or even individual, this short-list is little more than a chronicle of lost opportunities. Atwood to win - but, in a field as undistinguished as this, does it really matter?