Reaching the 2009 longlist
Ion Trewin on the 2009 judging
Ion Trewin is Literary Director of the Man Booker Prizes
It's a supremely special year all right. When James Naughtie and his judges met to select this year's Man Booker long list, the first half dozen titles were a comparatively simple choice. Not a shoo-in, but by general agreement. Choosing the remaining seven novels was another matter. Don't get me wrong. Journalists who were hoping to hear stories of blood-spewed carpets were disappointed. But selecting the ‘Man Booker Dozen' saw all five judges using every ounce of literary argument as they battled it out.
One of the privileges of being the Man Booker's literary director is to sit in on these enthralling debates. Sometimes I must bite my tongue: oh how much I would like to add my two pennoth of opinion, but it is more than thirty years since I was a judge! My job now is to advise, to remind judges where necessary of the rules, and to keep an eye on the clock. This year, when the quality of the submissions has been as high as I have known it, I did wonder if to reach a decision on the long list in time for media deadlines a guillotine might prove necessary.
Each year judges identify themes. One remarked how the second world war remains a perennial. Another judge spoke of how the 1940s and 1950s - very much evident in this year's submissions - leant themselves to characters suffering from repression, not something so common in contemporary life or fiction. Almost half the longlist might be described as historical fiction. What should one read into this? As James Naughtie said in his comments the history this year ranges from the court of Henry VII to the Hollywood of the 1930s.
This brings me to identifying the annual Man Booker controversy. Hardly had the news release hit the screens than abuse hit mine. One publisher's editor of my acquaintance asked how it was possible to include James Lever's Me Cheeta, but not --------. - and here I must be discreet, it being a Man Booker convention that we do not reveal the titles of entries. I have no idea whether the editor in question had read Lever's cod autobiography, complete with photo sections and index. I do know, however, that comic fiction has just as much right to be on the Man Booker longlist as the thriller, the romance, fantasy or science fiction. In each case quality is what counts. By including Me Cheeta on the longlist you should assume - rightly - that it made the judges laugh.
Themes in the discussion ranged wide. The merits or otherwise of creative writing - if it shows does it invalidate the fiction in question? Is writing in the historic present a disadvantage? Feelings were divided on whether inaccurate facts in fiction actually matter, but the irritation factor is definitely not beneficial. Best and worst opening sentences were discussed more than once. But perhaps the most frequent observation was about lapses in editing. Indeed several novels were roundly abused for what looked like no editing at all.
But one of the recurring joys of the Man Booker Prize is the discovery of a writer not previously known. One judge looked forward to reading other novels by a longlisted writer. ‘If they are half as good I'm in for a treat.'
The fact that three of this year's longlist are debuts demonstrates once more that fiction writing in English is in excellent heart - pity the French or the Italians or the Germans who bemoan the lack of new writing talent in their own languages. As another judge observed our youngest writer is in his early thirties and the oldest has topped eighty proving that authorship knows no physical barriers.
Our judges have now gone off to reread their longlist. It is the severest test of the Man Booker entries that a longlisted book has to survive two readings, and a shortlisted book three, all in the space of a few months. Would some of the great fiction in history stand up to the rereading test? Try it with Dickens or Eliot or Woolf some time.
