Publishing the long list has more to do with intensifying Booker hype than amusing Joe Public, writes Eileen Battersby.
Politics, drugs, heartache, glory, drama, and the odd surprise - as the Olympic Games draw to a close, we need something else to argue about. The Booker long-list admittedly is on a far smaller scale. But it possesses equal measures of interest and irritation. It might manage to keep a small percentage of the population busily sparring until the 22 titles are further whittled down to a tidy half dozen with the announcement of the shortlist on September 21st, paving the way for a further month of speculation.
This is the fourth time the long list has been published, the reason has less to do with providing Joe Public with mass amusement and just about everything to do with maximising potential Booker hype. True, it must be said that we may well owe the publication of the long-list to the ritual begun by the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award of also publishing its considerably longer long list some months before the posting of its shortlist. The Booker, confined as it is to novels published by writers from Great Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, also has a smaller range, the US and mainland Europe are not eligible, and this shows.
The strength of IMPAC is that it is spanning the world and bringing an exciting assortment of international fiction. Yet the Booker is continuing to hold its place as the major showcase for fiction.
If some shortlists have, over the years, appeared narrow and parochial heavily dominated by familiar British names, Booker has recognised, and in some instances discovered, many outstanding Indian, African, South African and Australian writers.
Of the 22 books announced yesterday, several are debuts and second novels, and UK writers have a high presence. A first glance shows three books that should well feature on the shortlist and are likely to decide the eventual winner. Nadeem Aslam's lyric, rather rich Maps for Lost Lovers, is the second novel from the Pakistani-born, London based author of Season for the Rainbirds. Aslam represents exactly that cross-cultural voice so popular with Booker panels. In the absence of the great Anita Desai, a three-time Booker runner-up whose new book, The Zigway Way, disappointingly failed to make the long list, Aslam who is exploring family and community, against the wider issues of nationality and religion, is a strong contender.
Another major claim is that of the young Nigerian, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose debut, Purple Hibiscus, a girl's account of growing up in a Nigeria torn by political crisis, has enormous appeal. Both Aslam and Adichie will be hard pressed by a remarkable performance from the veteran Australian, Shirley Hazzard, whose The Great Fire, a complex wartime romance, is her first novel in 20 years and may well be her finest work. It could also win as Hazzard is operating on a higher, more crafted level of artistry than either of her two gifted, younger rivals.
This trio alone suggests a potential shortlist of significant merit. As expected, Colm Tóibín is also included for The Master, a subtle study of the mind of the great Henry James. To achieve this, Tóibín has looked at specific episodes and in attempting to examine the man has paid elegant tribute to the artist. While Sean O'Reilly's fine second novel, The Swing of Things, certainly deserved a long listing with an eye to a possible shortlist placing, he has been overlooked, as was Neil Jordan's Shade, a nostalgic, cinematic work blessed by vivid, descriptive prose.
But the strongest Irish hope of a shortlisting for this most established of establishment prizes could well rest with the quiet and assured voice of the always intriguing Ronan Bennett, who was yesterday longlisted for Havoc, In Its Third Year, an historical novel set in England in the 1630s. Wrongly imprisoned as a young Belfast republican, Bennett served almost three years in Long Kesh and Brixton jail before being cleared of all charges. On release he quickly established himself as an understated writer with a flair for psychological insight, and one who looks beyond the expected.
Watchers of British fiction will be disappointed by the absence of two of the most highly praised of the younger, still under-40 generation; A.L. Kennedy for Paradise, while Hari Kunzru's Transmission, a funny, very slick and topical satire, looked Booker-bound from publication yet failed to clear this first hurdle. No surprise will greet the inclusion of the much-hyped and I feel seriously overrated Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell,, who was previously Booker shortlisted for an excellent display, Number9Dream. Cloud Atlas is a long novel composed of a sequence of narratives that are linked together in a contrived and stylised way. Although there is some good comic writing to be enjoyed en route, it is one of those hefty novels that leave the reader feeling bloated by easy options and little real substance.
Much the same could be applied to the inclusion of Nicola Barker's Clear: A Transparent Novel. Barker was winner of the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for Wide Open. it is interesting to see a former IMPAC runner-up, Achmat Dangor, who was shortlisted for the Dublin award two years ago, surface on this year's Booker longlist. An important rather than particularly outstanding novel, Dangor's book revolves on passion and hurt in present day South Africa. Its central weakness lies in the fact that its territory is already well covered by many finer writers.
The chair of the judges yesterday stressed that this was a long list of diversity "with a mixture of seriousness and fun". It is good to see contrasting first-person narratives by newcomer Justin Haythe feature with The Honeymoon, a precise, small novel included alongside James Hamilton-Paterson's comical Cooking with Fernet Branca, which juxtaposes Englishness with life in Italy. Such choices almost compensate for the inclusion of contrived, pretentious trendy novels. Just as the best book on a shortlist often fails to take the top prize, the best of a long list often are left in the dust. Hazzard, Aslam and Adichie should fight it out. But who knows? Let the battle begin.
Ronan Bennett's Havoc, In Its Third Year, will be reviewed in the Books page on Saturday.