My (Very) Impressionistic Take on 2024’s Booker

Although it was touch and go to finish those last two novels (Wandering Stars & Headshot,  respectively twelfth and thirteenth on my list), for the first time in many years I actually read all the Booker nominees.  My thoughts on the novels?  Well . . . .

My heavens, dear Readers, can it really have been eighteen months or so since I last posted anything?  I can’t imagine that anyone’s still checking the blog, after so prolonged an absence, but if I’m wrong many thanks for your patience/optimism!  Despite intending otherwise, my teeny little break from blogging somehow morphed into a very prolonged absence.  There were many reasons, positive and not, for this shift in plans.  On the plus side, I had an interesting trip or two; on the minus, I suffered through a prolonged & rather aggravating home construction project, followed by the angst & dislocation of three (!!!) hurricanes in little over a year (admittedly, one of these was mostly a bad rain storm by the time it reached my little town; two, unfortunately, were much more).  And then, of course, there’s the anxiety and anger that comes from reading the current political news and surviving an election that was something of a nightmare, even by U.S. standards.  

And books do help us survive, don’t they?  Along with the arts in general, combined, perhaps, with a judicious limitation on internet usage.  I recently stumbled upon a very interesting NYRB essay on a phenomenon Russians term “vnutrennaya emigratsia,” defined as “internal immigration” or “internal exile.”  (You can read a far more sophisticated explanation at https://www.nybooks.com/online/2019/02/11/a-refuge-from-reality-a-la-russe/ as I believe the paywall allows a free click or two.)  This self-exile involves the creation of an internal space facilitating observation and thought; the concept has morphed from describing what was literally a  geographic exile into the idea that one mentally relocates by forging an internal space apart from the prevailing cultural norms.  The internal exile’s mental relocation facilitates survival and sanity by focusing on the arts & avoiding anything connected to politics or public life.  Although cultural self-exile may become nihilistic or counter-productive (too much disengagement may permit real evil to thrive–think Hitler), what other choice is available in times such as these, dominated as they are by political and cultural ideas that one regards as sheer anathema?  Rather than tuning in to the latest “bro” podcast or having hateful political screeds raise my blood pressure to dangerous heights, I’ll self-exile to my shelves of fiction, or to the haven of the nearest art museum (well, maybe not the nearest!  I find its paintings to be a little dull and I’m willing to travel to see some more interesting stuff).  As I’m sure you can surmise, the 2024 Booker long list has also provided a welcome distraction from the current political cycle. 

This was particularly true as I found this year’s long list much more interesting than I have for some time. Aside from being a welcome distraction, it solved my paralysis about how to fill my reading schedule and was a handy way to re-acquaint myself with contemporary fiction, which I’ve been somewhat neglecting this year.  To be candid (and I’m nothing, if not candid, dear Readers, it’s a professional survival from my legal career) it helped that the list included Harvey’s Orbital, which I’d just finished reading and that several of the nominees looked reasonably short.  I quickly discovered, however, that several were actually what my British friends call chunksters (my own term is “doorstops”), at which point I gave myself permission to take breaks at will or to abandon the project altogether if I felt like it.  Despite some temptation to stop, I did finally stumble through all thirteen novels, having finished Headshot and Wandering Stars about a week ago.  As my title indicates, the remainder of this post is a mosaic of the impressions I gained from my reading. Please do remember that these are impressions rather than reviews; by their nature they’re a bit shallow, quickly formed and highly subjective.  Your own judgments may well differ from mine; in fact, I hope they do so and that you’ll share your reaction!  I’ve followed my bookish talk with a brief account (accompanied by a few photos) of some of my activities since my last post.  Not to worry, however, as I separated it with bold-face type, making it easy for you to skip if you so desire! 

My Overall Impression of the List:

I thought on the whole it was a pretty good, if not overwhelming, assortment of novels.  (I won’t speak to the mix of gender, ethnicity and nationality, or the number of debut vs. well-established authors, as there’s already been plenty of comment on these subjects.)  Necessarily I liked some of the nominees much more than others, but I didn’t regret the time I spent reading any of them.  Only one novel, Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, blew me away but, on the other hand, none aroused my active dislike.  (This hasn’t always been true in the past.  I detested Richard Flanagan’s Narrow Road to the Deep North as well as George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, winners, respectively, in 2014 &  2017.)  Although I don’t go so far as to claim this year’s nominees demonstrated any particular linkages or themes, it did seem to me at least that several of them revolved around characters who were cultural outliers, either by birth (Everette’s enslaved James & Orange’s disinherited indigenous Americans in Wandering Stars); by circumstance (the Libyan exiles of Matar’s My Friends or the prickly doyenne of van der Wouden’s Safekeep) or choice (check out the female rogue intelligence agent in Kushner’s Creation Lake).  Sarah Perry’s two protagonists lead fairly mainstream lives but are spiritually estranged from the religious community which has shaped their values (one is a single and very independent woman while the other is a closeted homosexual).  Given the number of women authors who made the short list, it’s hardly surprising that so many of the novels contain strong female characters who make unusual or unconventional life choices, such as Bullwinkel’s girl boxers (Headshot); Harvey’s female astronauts (Orbital) or Wood’s contemplative solitaire (Stone Yard Devotion).  Respecting stylistic approaches, the list seemed mildly tilted towards experimental or at least non-traditional narration, most notably in Orbital and Anne Michael’s Held.  

My Personal Short List (doesn’t coincide with the judges):

I know, I know — I only list five novels (and four of them already rejected!), while the real list has six, all of which are of course still in the running.  Fantasy lists, however, are meant to be self indulgent!  Besides, this way you get to supply your own nominee!  I almost limited my personal short list to four, as Playground survived my scrutiny only by a whisker.  I’m not a big Powers’ fan, as I usually find his work a little too cerebral, an opinion that still stood after reading his latest.  Playground was also burdened IMO by being a bit too baggy in its plot and a little too prone to preachy information dumps about ecology and artificial intelligence.  But Powers’ ideas are fascinating and his descriptions of undersea life sheer magic.  Since Matar, like Powers, isn’t one of my favorite novelists, I was surprised to discover how much I liked and respected My Friends.  It opened my eyes both to a history that’s been largely ignored and to the practical difficulties of living as a political exile, which has also been largely ignored (my observations in these regards, dear Readers, pertain only to what we in the southern U.S. refer to as “our neck of the woods”).  I usually have somewhat mixed feelings regarding Messud’s novels (I’ve read about half of them), but found her saga of lives disrupted by historical forces her best work yet.  I almost skipped Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot, the story of eight teenage girl boxers who are each determined to prove she’s the best, but am so glad I didn’t.  It’s funny, it’s compassionate and it’s very, very realistic in depicting a gritty, physical and ruthless competition that isn’t usually associated with teenage girls.  Bullwinkel’s innovative technique (a narration structured on the tournament’s rounds, with the girls’ past & future told in brief chronological shifts) serves her unusual subject well.  As for her next novel — sign me up already!

My Personal Winner:

This was an absolutely fabulous novel, one of the best I’ve read in a very long time.  It’s about forgiveness, both of one’s self and of others; about facing the dreadful consequences of how humankind has treated the earth; and about living a life that’s both unknown and unknowable to others.  “Midway in life’s journey” Wood’s unnamed protagonist found herself “in a dark wood;” the story of how she searched for the path out of it will stay with me for a very long time.  Who cares if the plot is unconventional (unlike many, I actually think quite a bit happens, but it occurs mostly on an interior plane)?  Or that much of the novel’s middle section is dominated by the physical necessity of dealing with a huge mouse infestation?  Disgusting though it is, the mouse plague reinforces Wood’s theme of how human depredations have destroyed the earth’s natural balance (the protagonist is an environmental activist who has given up her work in despair, while the mice are trying to escape bad weather & dwindling food supplies).  It occurred to me that the mouse plague also serves a symbolic function of providing the protagonist, a modern day hermit, with a desert trial comparable to those faced by the the early eremites.  This is a short novel, but its reverberations are huge.

The Novel I’d Least Like to Win (from the real short list):

A tie, for opposite reasons, between Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep & Anne Michael’s Held.  Although I found Safekeep’s historical background compelling, and its depiction of the prickly and unconventional Isabelle skillfully done (at least in the earlier portions), I thought the novel as a whole became something of a potboiler, with an easy and unconvincing resolution of the central dilemma.  If Safekeep struck me as an airport type read, Michaels’ Held was at the opposite end of the spectrum.  Admittedly, my preference for traditional narrative structures may have unfairly prejudiced me against Held’s highly fragmented style, which at times I found quite distracting.  The author obviously has loads of talent, the writing is poetic and beautiful and some of the individual sections are very moving.  But those constant time shifts, combined with extremely tenuous (and sometimes extremely artificial) connections among the characters became too frustrating for me by the end.  Perhaps I’d have coped better if Michaels had simply labeled her work a short story collection.

The Novels I’d Be o.k. with Winning (assuming, of course, that Stone Yard doesn’t):

James was my first novel by Percy Everett (about time, wouldn’t you say?).  It’s extremely well written and quite tender in spots; it also says things that desperately need to be said.  Despite all this good stuff, I didn’t quite warm to James.  I’ve always detested the Huckleberry Finn strain in American writing, even when it’s been as cleverly subverted as it’s been done here.  Orbital was very beautifully written, an icon of words designed to invite contemplation but . . . although I’m not unduly demanding in this regard, I just needed something in the way of a plot.  As for Creation Lake, it was quirky and interesting, and I’m sure I’ll understand what Kushner was doing with it as soon as I finish reading The New Yorker’s very clever review.   https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/creation-lake-rachel-kushner-book-review

My Own Prediction About the Winner:

Who knows? Certainly not the Booker Frog.

Non-Sequiturs & Stray Observations:

Two of these novels (History & Friends) made my own, if not the judges’, short list!

To begin with a total non-sequitur, I found it interesting that both Messud’s Strange History & Matar’s My Friends dealt with the post-colonial effects of European expansion, but from entirely different perspectives.  Messud’s Cassar family (strongly modeled on her own grandparents) are French-Algerian settlers who lose their home and cultural identity after that country’s bloody war of independence.  Scorned and rejected as Pied-Noirs by their French countrymen, they are forced to forge new lives in cultures whose language & customs are alien to them.  Matar’s protagonist Khaled, by contrast, is a Muslim native of a Libya that has ejected its colonial overlords; after doing so, however, it forces its dissidents into an exile that requires them to build lives that are largely the opposite of those they would otherwise have experienced.  Different perspectives in the two novels — European colonizers and native colonized — but the lives of both equally twisted and bent by the force of European expansion from the shapes they would otherwise have possessed. 

In closing I’d like to offer a few observations on three other novels that didn’t make the short list.  From the positive side of the street, I’d like to put in a brief word of praise for Colin Barrett.  I wasn’t surprised that his Wild Houses didn’t make the short list, but its believable characters, great dialogue and unsuspected depths put Barrett on my “novelists to watch out for” list.  On a negative note, I was a little disappointed by both Orange’s Wandering Stars as well as Perry’s Enlightenment.  I love Tommy Orange’s work (I went to a great deal of trouble to get an autographed copy of his debut novel, There, There) but somehow I didn’t connect nearly as well with Stars.  I think it covered so much historical ground, along with so very many of the problems created by the historical injustices inflicted on its characters, that I began seeing them less as individuals and more as avatars of various societal ills to be checked off the author’s historical list.  That being said, Stars remains a very good novel, with a spot on and touching portrayal of how a family deals with generational trauma, whether it be caused by alcohol, drugs or an unexpected stray bullet.  As for Perry, she’s less of a favorite of mine than Orange, although I did enjoy Melmoth, her shivery gothic from a few years back.  Enlightenment had some really good stuff, most notably its misfit main characters and its depiction of the outlier religious community that shaped their lives (I believe a few reviewers have hinted that Perry was drawing on her own background for this aspect of her novel).  Despite these strengths, however, a number of reasons prevented me from really connecting with the novel.  I found the unrequited love to be just a bit too unrequited; the friendship between the main characters a little too unlikely and the reappearing ghost far too prone to provide helpful hints at key points in the plot.  

PART II: WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST YEAR (See — It’s Easy to Skip This Part)

. . .  a little bit (never enough) of interesting travel. I finally made it to Berlin & Dresden, where I spent a lot of time in their fabulous art museums.

 

. . .  a little bit of wildlife viewing, including this bald eagle with its chick (thanks to Mr. J., his camera & a spring birding trip to western Ohio)

 

. . .  a little bit of home remodeling (this is a photo of my once and future bedroom, temporarily converted into a construction site).  Fortunately, I could camp out elsewhere in the house.

 

. . . surviving hurricanes (one last year and two this fall). This tree belongs to my next door neighbor. Although Mr. J & I, along with house and cats, escaped untouched, my area suffered a great deal of damage, particularly on the barrier islands.

 

. . .  staying off Percy’s favorite rug.  Despite a truly frightening set of fangs, I wasn’t deceived!  Percy was simply yawning after a nice morning nap!

That’s it for 2024’s Booker list and various assorted matters! (and aren’t you glad?)  I’m not going to embarrass myself again by predicting the timing of my next post, but I have been reading some very interesting things lately  . . .  

 

33 thoughts on “My (Very) Impressionistic Take on 2024’s Booker”

  1. I also liked Stone Yard Devotional, and thought The Safe Keep a bit contrived – though powerful to an extent, before it descended into an unconvincing twisted romance. I have James in my sights for reading at some point.

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    1. Hi Simon — So nice you had time to drop by! I see our opinions are as one regarding Stone Yard and The Safekeep. Stone Yard is just such a great book, and one that worked for me on multiple levels, which doesn’t happen much with me these days. I loved its slight air of mystery about the protagonist, (Wood gives you a clue now & then about her life and then leaves you to figure it out); its spare & elegant language and, perhaps most of all, its totally unpretentious way of dealing with some very heavy issues, such as forgiveness. I’d love to see Stone Yard win, but then, I have a tendency to root for losers (e.g., the results of the most recent U.S. presidential election). As for Safekeep, I think you’ve precisely expressed my biggest reservation about it, i.e., the whole plot seems so totally artificial & contrived (must admit, though, I did enjoy the novel’s first hundred or so pages). I’ll be very interested to read your views if you get around to James. As I noted, it wasn’t my favorite by any means, but I’ll be fine (and unsurprised) if it wins.

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  2. I sure want to read ‘Stone Yard Devotional’, but it is not available in the US yet. (How did you get a copy?) I pretty much agree with you on your opinions of the Booker listees I have read, except for ‘The Safekeep’ which I thought was extremely well done.

    Although I thought ‘James’ was good, I have liked some of Percival Everett’s other novels much better, and ‘James is derivative of ‘Huckleberry Finn’.

    ‘Playground’ is quintessential Richard Powers for good and not-so-good.

    ‘Held’ was too scattered for me.

    It will be interesting to see who actually wins.

    Yours is a good long post.

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    1. Hey Tony! I’m usually commenting on your blog, since you, unlike me, actually make the effort to post about your reads (and very interesting posts they are, too). I got my copy of Stone Yard from Blackwell’s, which I generally use when I realize I’ll have to wait forever & ever for U.S. publishers to make something available to us here in the backwater States! (know I sound bitter but really guys; it’s a great novel in the running for a major literary prize and we can’t get a copy of it?). I think Blackwell’s prices are o.k., particularly as they include delivery & I’ve always gotten my items, usually within a couple of weeks. Although far from ideal, it’s much better than waiting months to read something you want NOW. I know we have exactly opposite opinions regarding The Safekeep; if it wins I’ll be happy for you, although a little disappointed for myself. I agree with you about Held; I liked parts of it very much (such beautiful writing) but that fragmented narrative distracted me from the book as a whole, if that makes any sense. Any recommendations for Percival Everette? He’s any interesting & prolific writer and my only encounter with him is James; at some point I’d like to read another work of his.

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      1. So far, of the four Percival Everett novels I have read, ‘So Much Blue’ is my favorite. I also really liked the movie ‘American Fiction’ which is based on Everett’s novel ‘Erasure’, but since I’ve seen the movie I might skip the novel. I do want to read more of his work soon, and he has a lengthy back list of novels he has written.

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  3. Hope you are doing OK, it’s great to see you posting. Stone Yard Devotional is my winner too. I enjoyed The Safekeep but like you found the ending a bit trite. I think James will win although it is my least favourite.

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    1. Thanks so much for the kind wishes! I actually have you to thank for my ever reading Stone Yard in the first place! I discovered Charlotte Wood through your blog when you posted a glowing recommendation of her novel The Weekend, which I loved. Without that earlier book, I might well have passed on Stone Yard, as the description didn’t initially appeal to me. I’d love to see it win, but, like you, think the laurels will most likely go to James. I almost feel guilty about my lack of enthusiasm for James, as it so cleverly says some important things that so desperately need to be said, especially now. Perhaps it’s the tie-in to Huck Finn that accounts for my negativity. I’ve never been a big fan of Twain’s book (or Twain, for that matter) and I do tend to be resistant to novels riffing on earlier work.

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      1. I think that James had a few clever moments but a lot of it was just too repetitive for me. Lots of us cheering for Stone Yard which is great to see and I’m delighted I played a small part in you reading it.

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  4. Thanks for your. It is nice tot read about your favourites and your point of views on them. We differ in opinion, that only adds to the Fun! By the way, thoroughly enjoying Richard Powers right now. I absolutely love Playground 😉

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    1. Hi Liliane, so nice you clicked by! I’ve very much enjoyed our differences of opinion (and our times of consensus as well) when I’ve commented on your posts. As you say, it’s these exchanges that make book blogging fun! I’m glad you’re enjoying Playground, which I liked very much as well. As I said in my post, I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but to my surprise I became totally caught up in Powers’ undersea world. My house project turned out splendidly (and expensively!), thank you, although the mechanics of it were an ordeal. As for the hurricanes, well, I’m afraid that’s life in coastal Florida in these days of rapid climate change (imagine a political rant at this point; the incoming head of the Environmental Protection Agency isn’t a promising choice by our new president).

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    1. Greetings, Gerts! Thanks for the kind wishes and hope to post a little more in the future (I very much enjoy the bookish discussions but unlike you I’m usually too lazy to write anything up). We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed (how many do we have total? It must be an impressive number) for Stone Yard’s success, but I agree it’s a long shot (think I saw somewhere that the bookies are giving it 12:1 odds). Like you, I think that James is likely to win, but don’t you think it’s odd that so many of us seem less than enthused about it? I could see the skill that produced James, and I totally respect its sentiments, but I didn’t really respond to it on an emotional level.

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  7. Welcome back! Stone Yard Devotional is also my favourite to win; Orbital and James would be my runners-up, in that order (and maybe Headshot too). Playground is a frustrating showing from Powers, full of potential but not his best. I deeply hated Anne Michaels’s 1997(?) Fugitive Pieces, which won the Women’s Prize, and have been refusing to read Held on those grounds; no one’s review so far has made me change my mind!

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    1. Hi Elle! I’m so excited, someone besides myself liked Headshot!!! I really wish a few more people would read it, although I must admit that I barely did so myself (as I said in my post, I mostly picked it up to finish the list). I thought it was just as clever and innovative as Creation Lake and far less self important. Held was my first encounter with Anne Michaels; given my frustration level towards the end it’s highly unlikely I’ll try Fugitive Pieces! As for Powers, Playground was only the second of his many novels that I’ve tried. I expected to hate it (and Todd’s long explanations of various esoteric topics got pretty tedious) but there was enough there to hook me in, so to speak!

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      1. Yeah, Headshot was a really nice surprise. Initially I wasn’t sure that I would have shortlisted it (if it were down to me), but increasingly I’m coming round to the idea. Don’t try Fugitive Pieces—it’s just so gnomic and self-important! Depending on which other Powers you’ve read, I’d recommend The Overstory or The Time of Our Singing (which is about a mixed-race family of classical musicians in the mid-20th century and has some of the best writing about music I’ve ever read).

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      2. Thanks for the recommendations, Elle! I suspect that it will be some time before I do Powers again (for me, at least, he consumes considerable energy & time, both of which are in short supply right now). My previous encounter with his work was Orfeo, which I read only because (surprise!) it was long listed for that year’s Booker. I didn’t expect to like it but I did, probably because it had some great writing about classical music (ultimately I became a Messiaen fan & “Quartet for the End of Time” a favorite at that point in my life). Powers must be quite a music fan, as it sounds (no pun intended) that The Time of Our Singing also has some great writing about music.
        As for Anne Michaels? Well, never say never, but it IS highly unlikely that I’ll rush to read another of her novels (if I do, it won’t be Fugitive Pieces. Thanks for the warning!)

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  8. It’s lovely to see you post again and what a topic to come back with! I haven’t read Stone Yard Devotional yet, but will, Charlotte Wood is one of my favourite writers.
    You’ve had a busy 18 months by the looks of things. Renovating, shudder, although hopefully you’ve now finished.

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    1. Hi Rose! Thanks so much for the welcome back! (hopefully, it won’t take 18 months for me to get the energy to make another post). Stone Yard was only my second book by Charlotte Wood (the first was The Weekend, which I found through Cathy746’s blog) but both novels were really outstanding. I think that she will, pretty rapidly, become one of my favorite writers as well! As for the past 18 months — activities were quite spread out, so it really wasn’t that bad. The exception to this being this fall’s two hurricanes! (we were unharmed but — just the upset! Imagine evacuating with three unhappy & very, very vocal cats!) Thankfully hurricane season is over until next year and, as for the renovation, it’s all done & we’re well into the enjoyment stage!

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      1. Well, if it does take another 18 months then so be it!
        I’ve got loads of Charlotte Wood books still to read, too, but am already convinced that I’ll like them. I recently read The Children, an earlier story based around a family whose father fell off a ladder. There was a thriller aspect that I didn’t think the story needed, as the family story was strong enough to stand alone.
        The thought of being caught by a hurricane is frightening, although I suspect it’s ‘business as usual’ for you. New Zealanders probably feel the same way about earthquakes and Australians about bushfires and snakes and sharks, and people in other parts of the world about the volcano looming over them.
        The cats might not have liked evacuating, but at least they were safe!
        Glad to hear the renovations are done and you’re enjoying the results 😀

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      2. Rose — thanks for the info on Charlotte Wood! I was thinking I might begin with The Submerged Cathedral, which looks interesting (but then, don’t they all?). My next choice no doubt depend on which novel is most available (it wasn’t totally easy for me to get a copy of Stone Yard). As for hurricanes and getting used to them — well, I’m still in the process, as I moved to this are about five years ago (after many years of visiting). Living along a coast always carries certain risks, but even in the time I’ve lived here the storm season seems to be getting longer and more intense. One hurricane, even a major one; unfortunate but . . . you’re on the Gulf Coast, after all! A second one, less than two weeks later, well, that’s something new. Could it be climate change? I’m being sarcastic here, as there are still many deniers around (including many in my state government, which discourages the use of the term). I’m much afraid in the future the kitties may have to reconcile themselves to cat carriers and hotel rooms!

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      3. The Submerged Cathedral does look good. I haven’t read it yet, either.
        The weather is more dramatic here, too, and the stats back that up, whatever the deniers say.
        It must have been a joy to you to move somewhere you loved after visiting for so long, hurricanes aside 😀

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  9. Great to see you back! We are eerily close in our opinions on the Booker longlist, which I thought was a much stronger list than usual (though unlike you, I’ve only made it through 9/13). I think our only real point of disagreement is on My Friends, which I found a bit of an overlong slog. Otherwise, I’m also cheering on Stone Yard Devotional for the win, which I adored, and would be happy to see James, Orbital or Creation Lake take it. I DNF The Safekeep and didn’t even touch Held because I hated Fugitive Pieces so much, so those would also be my two least preferred winners. Headshot and Playground (and Wandering Stars, though I agree it was disappointing) would also have made my personal shortlist, though they’d be the bottom three.

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    1. Hi Laura! I guess we’ll soon have our Booker suspense removed, although I’m prepared to be disappointed regarding Stone Yard. At one point, I found myself thinking that it was actually TOO good to win the Booker; as I said in my post, I’ve really disagreed with the judges’ choices quite a few times in the past. I will be just a teeny disappointed if either Held or Safekeep carry the day. The former because IMO at least it’s artsy for artsy’s sake, if that makes sense; the fragmented narrative structure sabotaging rather than reinforcing the work (getting a little pompous here, but I’m having trouble articulating my thought!) Unfairly or not, it struck me as almost designed to appeal to readers who regard themselves as clever! Re Safekeep — I actually thought it didn’t belong on the list, being more of a potboiler than anything else, good for a long flight but not so good for a major literary award. I also found it rather manipulative, as I suspected several elements were present in the novel for commercial, rather than artistic reasons.
      I know what you mean about My Friends. Everything about it screamed “I’m an important book that belongs on the Booker List.” I’d tried Matar’s earlier memoir, A Month in Siena, but put it aside fairly quickly as it was too much Matar and too little Siena (I also didn’t think he was particularly good in writing about art). In short, I had to force myself a bit to take on My Friends. I was surprised, to put it mildly, to actually like it. I agree it was too long, and a bit too self-important at times but I found the history (about which I knew nothing) and the depiction of life as an exile quite interesting.

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      1. Yes, I don’t usually like Booker-type books so my love for SYD makes me feel it won’t win! I did like the history in My Friends, and would actually have liked more of it.

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  10. Firstly, how great to see you back! It sounds like you’ve been having a very turbulent time and I totally get about taking up that internal exile – that’s mostly how I survive my daily life, by sinking myself into books!

    As for the Booker, I don’t follow it that closely nowadays as I’m not usually in tune with much current literature (though I always make an exception when Julian Barnes is listed!) Very interested to hear your love of Stone Yard Devotional – from what I’ve seen about it online, it seems to be something of a Marmite book, so I hope for you that it wins!

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    1. Kaggsy! I’m delighted you clicked by and thanks so much for the welcome back (hopefully I can get myself posting again). This past year or so was actually reasonably serene, as some of the activities were fun (I loved visiting those great German art museums). The exception was this year’s hurricane season, with two big ones back to back. Fortunately we were spared everything but the aggravation (others weren’t so lucky) & storm season is over until next year, at least. Regarding the Booker — it’s become pretty rare for me to be terribly interested in it (is it unpatriotic of me, a dweller in the good old U.S. of A., to say I found the long lists more interesting when they excluded U.S. writers?). This year’s list came during a bit of a reading desert, so it gave me something to focus on. I’m rooting for Stone Yard but won’t be surprised if it loses. As for the internal exile thing, well, one must survive. From my side of the Atlantic, the news is only getting worse, so I’m quite thankful that, mentally, I’m already three-quarters of the way to Siberia, so to speak.

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  11. How lovely to see such a detailed and fascinating post from you after a long absence, but I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a lot to contend with over the past year.

    As we’ve touched on before over at mine, this year’s longlist did seem more interesting than usual this year, and I was glad to see Samantha Harvey and Hisham Matar in the mix!

    I’m especially interested in your observation about ‘outsider’ characters in the longlisted books:
    “it did seem to me at least that several of them revolved around characters who were cultural outliers, either by birth (Everette’s enslaved James & Orange’s disinherited indigenous Americans in Wandering Stars); by circumstance (the Libyan exiles of Matar’s My Friends or the prickly doyenne of van der Wouden’s Safekeep) or choice (check out the female rogue intelligence agent in Kushner’s Creation Lake).”

    I would if the choice of Edmund de Waal had an impact on this as I could imagine such characters resonating with him very strongly, especially those in exile?

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    1. Hello JacquiWine! Such a novel position for me, actually replying rather than commenting; I really should do this posting thing more often! I do recall that you liked Matar’s novel (we may have discussed this on your blog). I was amazed when it didn’t make the short list; I would certainly have bumped Held off in Matar’s favor, not to mention The Safekeep! You make such an interesting point about how Edmund de Waal and the fact that so many of this year’s contenders featured outlier or exiled characters! (darn — wish I’d thought of that! LOL) I also thought this year’s crop of novels had a distinctive contemplative edge (let’s not forget Sarah Perry here nor the rogue agent in Creation Lake with her fascination about Neanderthals). If you’re not in your culture’s mainstream, perhaps you’re more inclined to think about how that culture works, how it came into being and, at some level, how your outlier status was assigned (and who did the assigning!)

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    1. Michelle! So delighted you dropped by, particularly as I haven’t posted in such a long time. It’s great to know that Ditlevsen’s trilogy holds up so well, as I plan on a re-read myself (someday!) I also have, waiting more or less patiently on my shelves, a couple of her novels, which I will be most interested to read; hopefully I’ll get them, along with a review, in the next century or two! Aside from the Booker long list, my reading this year has been a bit slack, although I did try Rachel Ingalls, a new-to-me writer whom I found quite interesting (she does a type of feminist magic realism, if that makes sense). Have you come across her stuff? There were quite a few blog posts last year about her Mrs. Caliban, all highly favorable. I read her (I think) only novel, Binstead’s Safari. It’s not for those who want neat endings but it’s funny, well written & not quite like anything else.

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  13. I enjoyed this post a lot, especially since I have some of the books mentioned here, your favorite in particular. Percy is so cute and it looks like he knows it, fangs included, lol. It’s been tough for you, those 3 storms and the devastation they leave. And I didn’t know that, after the bathroom you are tackling your bedroom. I wish it turns into a beautiful oasis. I love to see your travels and the quality pictures Mr Janakay takes. I wish you more of everything you love!, art, travels, and reads.

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