The Complete Booker

Hi everyone! I've just rejoined the Complete Booker after a couple of years away. My blog is at Aquatique.net. I didn't have a blog so I couldn't really participate anymore, but I haven't stopped reading Booker Prize winners in this time. I look forward in discussing and participating with everyone.

Here is the list of Booker Prize winners that I have read so far in bolded:


2011 - The Sense of an Ending (Barnes)
2010 - The Finkler Question (Jacobson)
2009 - Wolf Hall (Mantel)
2008 - The White Tiger (Adiga)
2007 - The Gathering (Enright)
2006 - The Inheritance of Loss (Desai)
2005 - The Sea (Banville)
2004 - The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst)
2003 - Vernon God Little (Pierre)
2002 - Life of Pi (Martel)
2001 - True History of the Kelly Gang (Carey)
2000 - The Blind Assassin (Atwood)
1999 - Disgrace (Coetzee)
1998 - Amsterdam: A Novel (McEwan)
1997 - The God of Small Things (Roy)
1996 - Last Orders (Swift)
1995 - The Ghost Road (Barker)
1994 - How Late It Was, How Late (Kelman)
1993 - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Doyle)
1992 - The English Patient (Ondaatje)
1992 - Sacred Hunger (Unsworth)
1991 - The Famished Road (Okri)
1990 - Possession: A Romance (Byatt)
1989 - The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)
1988 - Oscar and Lucinda (Carey)
1987 - Moon Tiger (Lively)
1986 - The Old Devils (Amis)
1985 - The Bone People (Hulme)
1984 - Hotel Du Lac (Brookner)
1983 - Life & Times of Michael K (Coetzee)
1982 - Schindler's Ark (Keneally)
1981 - Midnight's Children (Rushdie)
1980 - Rites of Passage (Golding)
1979 - Offshore (Fitzgerald)
1978 - The Sea, the Sea (Murdoch)
1977 - Staying on (Scott)
1976 - Saville (Storey)
1975 - Heat and Dust (Jhabvala)
1974 - The Conservationist (Gordimer)
1974 - Holiday (Middleton)
1973 - The Siege of Krishnapur (Farrell)
1972 - G. (Berger)
1971 - In a Free State (Naipaul)
1970 - The Elected Member (Rubens)
1969 - Something to Answer For (Newby)

Rites of Passage is written as though a journal by a young man, Edmund Talbot, embarking on a long journey by sea to take up a position as a civil servant in the southern hemisphere. The man writes to his Godfather, who has requested details about the journey, and who is clearly a major benefactor.

Holiday is what it says on the tin. Our protagonist, in the midst of a messy relationship 'break', gets away from it all at an East coast resort. We meet fellow residents of the boarding house, relive parts of the failing relationship, and encounter the bossy parents of the wife, who are determined to patch things up between their la-la daughter and her absent husband.

The Conservationist begins, in attention-grabbing fashion, with a dead body on a farm in South Africa. The farm workers, full of superstition, are worried about the presence of a body, and beg the farmer owner, Mehring, to do something about it.

It's hard to know where to start with this one. Our protagonist, the eponymous 'G', is born in Italy, spends part of his early youth in Paris, is resident in England during his formative years, and then becomes something of a nomad. But it isn't just his place of residence that can't be fixed - his identity is slippery, and the plot is episodic to the extent that there seems to be little linking the stories of G's adventures , aside from his insatiable appetite for women and his increasing villainy.

Hello! I'm Melissa W from Scuffed Slippers and Wormy Books (and @balletbookworm on Twitter) and I'm formally joining the Complete Booker blog.

I have a personal goal to read all the Booker-winning novels - and a few of the shortlists/longlists along the way - so the Complete Booker perpetual challenge is right up my alley.  I tried the 2010 challenge but got sidetracked (*sigh*) and only made about fifty-percent of the goal.  So I'm going to give it another go in 2011 and join as an official contributor, too.

I'm going to start at the "Pick-a-Mix of Six" level with (most likely):
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Sea by John Banville (which I think is coming out as a movie this year, so I should read it)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (the new Penguin Ink cover is awesome)

If I finish those I'll bump up the goal to "The Booker's Dozen" (pefect opportunity to read Possession again).

I've read some of the past winners and shortlisted novels (these links go to my blog reviews):
2010 Man Booker winner:  The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
2010 shortlist:  Room by Emma Donoghue
2010 "Lost" Man Booker winner: Troubles by JG Farrell
2009 Man Booker winner:  Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2009 shortlist: The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
2008 Man Booker winner:  The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
2007 Man Booker winner:  The Gathering by Anne Enright (no blog review)
2003 shortlist:  Brick Lane by Monica Ali (no blog review)
2003 shortlist:  Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (no blog review)
2001 shortlist:  Atonement by Ian McEwan (sort-of blog reivew here, but mostly about the movie)
2000 Man Booker winner:  The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (no blog review)
1996 shortlist:  Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (no blog review)
1992 Man Booker winner:  The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (no blog review)
1990 Man Booker winner:  Possession by A.S. Byatt (no blog review)
1988 shortlist:  The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
1986 shortlist:  The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (review for Banned Books Week 2010)

I also tried to read Oscar and Lucinda (1988 winner), mostly because the edition at the library had a picture of Ralph Finnes on the cover, but I didn't get very far - I was a biology major with a half an eye on the book and half on my organic chemistry.  Since Oscar and Lucinda wasn't for class, it had to go back to the library but I'd be willing to give it another go.

Cross-posted from my blog:


Is anyone else tired of winter yet? It snowed again this past week, and it's been very cold, and I just wish I could stay indoors curled up under a duvet. Reading, of course. Well, I haven't been so lucky but I'm still enjoying some good books.

Orange January has dominated my reading this month. I've read my four selections, ending with Rose Tremain's The Colour, which was very good. Look for my review later today. And while I've loved focusing on a single literary prize, it's also inspired some thinking about my other favorite prize: the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

I've followed the Booker Prize for some time and host The Complete Booker, a community blog dedicated to reading Booker winners and nominees. Now, I'm not doing reading challenges, but if I were ... I'd be doing the 2011 Complete Booker Challenge. This year I'm going to clear several Booker Prize nominees off my shelves:

• Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood (I read this last week!)
• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• Remembering Babylon, by David Malouf
• An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
• On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan
• A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr

But wait! There's more! Not long ago, June Starr at Reading the Bookers noted that Iris Murdoch is the most frequently short-listed author (five shortlisted novels and one winner). If you were here last week, you'll remember that Iris Murdoch is one of my featured favorite authors. And yet: I've read her winning novel, The Sea, the Sea, but not the shortlisted books. This has all the makings of a good reading project! So my Booker Prize reading will also include Murdoch's five nominees:

• The Book and the Brotherhood
• The Good Apprentice
• Bruno's Dream
• The Nice and the Good
• The Black Prince

And I'll probably read the 2011 winner too, for a total of 13 books. This qualifies me for the 2011 Challenge Booker's Dozen category: read 12 winners or nominees from the short- or long-lists.

If your reading plans include prize-winning literature, why don't you hop on over to The Complete Booker and join the fun?

I will be keeping track of my progress here and also on my blog. Below is the list of Booker Winners I have read and when I read them (with links to my reviews)

Read in 2007:

The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai – won in 2006 (completed March 16, 2007; rated 4.25/5; reviewed here)
The Bone People, by Keri Hulme – won in 1985 (completed July 12, 2007; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood – won in 2000 (completed August 1, 2007; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy – won in 1997 (completed September 29, 2007; rated 5/5; reviewed here)
Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee – won in 1999 (completed December 14, 2007; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2008:

Life and Times of Michael K, by J.M. Coetzee – won in 1983 (completed February 17, 2008; rated 4/5; reviewed here)
The Gathering, by Anne Enright – won in 2007 (completed March 9, 2008; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel – won in 2002 (completed June 23, 2008; rated 3.5/5; reviewed here)
Hotel Du Lac, by Anita Brookner – won in 1984 (completed July 22, 2008; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker – won in 1995 (completed December 25, 2008; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2009:

The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga – won in 2008 (completed January 3, 2009; rated 4/5; reviewed here)
Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald – won in 1979 (completed March 27, 2009; rated 3.5/5; reviewed here)
Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie – won in 1981 (completed May 30, 2009; rated 3/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2010:

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel – won in 2009 (completed February 20, 2010; rated 3/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2011:

The Elected Member centres on the Zweck family: a father lives above the shop he keeps with his son and one of his daughters. His son, Norman, is ailing from a drug addiction that brings on vivid hallucinations of silver fish. His daughter, Bella, is still wearing ankle socks despite being decades older than a school girl.

At the beginning of the novel, Bella and her father call out the doctor for the umpteenth time after Norman has another bad bout of hallucination. The doctor convinces them that, with Norman's repeated relapses, the only way to help him is to commit him to a home, where he can be rehabilitated.

Norman's 'incarceration' prompts a reflective mood in the family, and little by little, we learn about the family's history and the dark secrets that are the root cause of unhappiness for each of the Zwecks.

The book is easy to read, and though much is revealed, the pace of the story seems rather plodding - a pace that fits Norman's mentality. The reflective and nostalgic reminiscence is in contrast with the present day action, where both the care home and the family home are places of turmoil and chaos.

I found the Zwecks irritating in different ways, but really enjoyed Norman's fellow 'in-mates' with their varying psychoses and idiosyncracies. Though the subject matter has a dark heart, The Elected Member displays a lightness of touch that reveals it as a moving drama about the ultimately transitory nature of the family unit.

An ageing man gives up his glamorous life in London as an eminent theatre director, moves into an odd house on the coast, and picks up his pen with the intention of 'finding' his 'form' and exploring what has been and will be his life. The man has a few strange episodes at the start of the book relating to peculiar visions and ghostly activity, but the story is quickly overtaken by a series of increasingly incredible events the centre on him finding his long lost childhood sweetheart.

The sea, the sea is too long by far. The novel's charm comes from the daily occupations of a man seemingly seeking something akin to solitude or peace - his daily encounters with the sea, his domestication of the rocks surrounding his house, the meticulous descriptions of his particular brand of culinary activity. In these details, the novel sings. The story, though, is curiously constructed - it starts like a ghost story, quickly shifts into a somewhat farcical drama and then becomes a meditation on spirituality. The house is at times phantasmic, though it never truly fulfils its potential as a force to be reckoned with. The central plot - the overlong 'history' section - is ridiculous, and brings out all that is unbearable in Charles, the protagonist. By chance, he meets again his childhood sweetheart, who left him some forty five years earlier. He decides that he has another chance to pursue her, that they may find happiness with one another again, and he hatches elaborate plots to determine ways to meet her, to ensnare her, to 'rescue' her. She, however, has no intention of being rescued, has no notion that things might be different, and at the apex of the silliness, when Charles has her held against her will in his house, there are a number of very tedious exchanges in which Charles fails to listen to anything she says, and in which she fails to say anything rational or convincing. This farce ruins what has the makings of a great novel: many of the peripheral characters are interesting and colourful; the setting is evocative, menacing and powerful; and the context of the protagonist seeking a retreat but ending up with something different has potential. The ending is a reward for the feat of endurance to get through the book, but its potency is all but destroyed by the preceeding nonsense.

Sadly, I think this novel tries to be too many things, and as a result, fails to find a focused 'form' - which throws an odd light Charles' explicit intention to allow the writing to find its own form.

Though this story is told from the point of view of a sickening and elderly woman, it's not what I expected. Far from being morose and sentimental, Moon Tiger packs a mighty punch. It's a celebration of uninhibited womanhood, of deviance, of razor-sharp wit and searing intellect, of sexual prowess and of boundless confidence.

Claudia Hampton is a dazzling character - admired and loathed in equal measure by all, known by very few: Claudia, on her death-bed begins to write the history of the world, commanding her extensive knowledge despite failing memory, and recalling, along the way, those things that 'made' her. The recollections paint a vibrant picture, but cast little judgement - Claudia is unbound by conventional morality: what she does, she does because she must, because she is compelled, because she believes in her self-knowledge. Still, the dying woman is aware enough to allow minor concessions, acknowledging the puzzlement that she provokes in others.

Moon Tiger is masterfully told - the narrative is engaging, the 'voice' is audacious and strong, and the odd touch of literary convention - used to great effect and with superb subtlety - combined to leave me breathless. For all the strength and force of the narrator, Lively manages, in the most economic way possible, to leave that crucial space for the reader that turns a good book into a great book.

Cross-posted from my blog:

When I first realized my Complete Booker goal was in sight, I was actually more worried than excited.  Why?  Because some of the books I need to read are old and hard to find.  Three were especially elusive:

• 1974 – Holiday (Stanley Middleton)
• 1970 – The Elected Member (Bernice Rubens)
• 1969 - Something to Answer For (P.H. Newby)

My local library didn't have them, they had been on my Paperbackswap wishlist for two years, and copies on Amazon were often quite expensive.  Then, two well-read friends came to my rescue, offering to lend me their copies of Holiday and The Elected Member.  That was all well and good, but I kept remembering this post on The Complete Booker, where Lisa described paying 225 AUD to get her hands on a copy of Something to Answer For.  Well that just gave me the heebie-jeebies.  Would I be able to live with myself if I couldn't read the very first Booker Prize winner?

Enter The Book Depository. I'd heard great things about this site (free worldwide shipping, for one!), but I hadn't purchased anything from them yet.  I was browsing the site just after Christmas, when lo and behold, I discovered a Faber Finds edition of Something to Answer For.  It was $25 US, more than I'd usually pay for a paperback, but since I'm borrowing those other two books ... and Santa hadn't brought me any books ... well, I think it was OK, don't you?  The book arrived yesterday and I'm quite happy with it.  The Faber Finds edition was published in 2008, so it doesn't have the "mildly groovy design" of Lisa's vintage copy, but I'm so glad Faber is restoring "lost classics" such as this!  And I'm thankful for The Book Depository, both for their wide selection, and free shipping!

Where do you find your Booker reads?

The Booker Prize is one of my favorite literary prizes.  I've been hosting  The Complete Booker since 2007 to encourage others to join me in reading works by these great authors. In 2009, I achieved my goal of reading 12, including the 2009 winner.  And now, there are only 10 remaining winners left for me to read.  My goal is in sight!  However, it's going to be more difficult to achieve because 1) I've been putting off some of the books that I think I won't like, and 2) some of the older titles are hard to find.  Still, it will be fun trying ... and once I've read as many winners as possible I will pay more attention to the shortlists!

In 2010 I'm also participating in The Complete Booker 2010 Challenge.  I'm joining at the Winners Circle level, which requires reading at least 6 winners.

The rest of my Booker Winners "TBR" list (links to reviews will be posted as read):
2010 - The Finkler Question (Jacobson) - review
1995 - The Ghost Road (Barker) - review
1994 - How Late it Was, How Late (Kelman) - review
1991 - The Famished Road (Okri) - review
1986 - The Old Devils (Amis) - review
1983 - Life & Times of Michael K (Coetzee) - review
1974 - Holiday (Middleton) - review
1972 - G. (Berger) - review
1970 - The Elected Member (Rubens) - review
1970 - Troubles (Farrell) - 2010 "Lost Booker Prize" - review
1969 - Something to Answer For (Newby)- review

A complete set of my Booker Prize winner reviews can be found here. 

In around twenty-five minutes we'll know the 2009 Man Booker winner, so I thought it would be well to get my last shortlist review up before then, event though thus far I've posted in reading order.

Summertime is a novel that operates on many levels. At its most simple, it's an account of a specific period in a man's life, told from five different points of view. It gets more complicated as we make the connections between the 'fictional character' and the author; the author apparently refers to the book as an 'autre biography'. Perhaps at its deepest and most intellectual level it's a novel about writing, about creation and creativity, about truth and about the fiction that is inherently tied up with, an inextricable from, life.

As such, it's incredibly difficult to review, because my response to this book is, in many ways, inarticulable!

At its story level, it's somewhat unclear why this man has been written about - he's portrayed as socially inept, callous and aloof - but he is described as an award winning novelist in the latter half of the book. The story level points an accusatory and scrutinising finger at our collective obsession with probing the creator of a work of art as though they are an engine, as though we are trying to understand how such work can be created. Despite the novel being about the fictitious John, the five perspectives do not make a three dimensional picture and we actually learn more about the five characters that describe him. The 'reporters' are an interesting bunch - though each one seems to hold such a fixed opinion of themselves that they become caricatures.

Summertime is deftly put together and is exceptionally crafty - I felt, rather uncomfortably, as though I were being led by the nose through a set of responses or inferences. I 'tackled' the book in a structured way, making notes at the end of each report - and the book seemed designed to trip me up. I would make a notes in my own hand at the end of a section, and the comment, or its sentiment was then echoed, in print, in the proceeding section. The effect this had on me was one I can only imagine to be like discombobulating...

To summarise, it feels a little empty to review this book, because my response has either been mapped out and elicited in a very deliberate way, or else it doesn't matter. Still, in the spirit of bloody-mindedness, if you give yourself a clear head to read this book, you will be rewarded. For all the conflicted feelings I have about it, it certainly exercised the grey matter.

Fortunately, this is my first encounter with Sarah Waters, so I didn't have high expectations like many other people whose blogs I've read!

The Little Stranger is set in post-WWII Warwickshire, and focuses on Hundreds Hall, a formerly grand mansion house. Our protagonist is a Doctor with working class roots, whose mother once served at Hundreds Hall. By chance, the Doctor comes into contact with the three remaining Ayreses, resident at the Hall and trusted with its upkeep. The trio, mother with son and daughter, soon develop a relationship with the Doctor, albeit at the appropriate arms length for their respective 'stations'. The Doctor becomes very fond of the odd family, who seem barely able to maintain the Hall, and he becomes entangled in both the Hall and the family's life. Strange things start to occur, and the family's mettle is tested against the Hall.

I was absolutely terrified by The Little Stranger. The narrative is handled so delicately as to produce exquisite suspense, which left me walking a fine line between wanting to close the book to cast off the fear, and being compelled to keep reading. Waters is a masterful author, allowing the reader to be present at each odd report, each strange phenomenon, each inexplicable event. Our narrator, the Doctor, gives his account in first person and is almost bloody minded - both that the Hall is a wonderful place that ought to be saved and resurected to its former glory, and that the 'supernatural' is nothing more than individual neuroses. The Doctor's adamance in the face of compelling and inexplicable phenomena means that as the climax approaches and the Doctor starts to question himself, the reader has a palpable sense of internal conflict and the sickening sensation of being out of control.

It's a really interesting take on the 'ghost story' without exercising so much probity that it flattens the genre. Even though it's 499 pages long, the novel is engaging and compelling throughout, as it builds a fantastic sense of place and time.

What prevented this being a flawless novel was the weak romance, which wasn't difficult to understand, but was difficult to buy in to. I'm really looking forward to reading more Sarah Waters - suggestions welcome about where to start!

In comparison with other Man Booker 2009 novels, this one is fairly lightweight in length, though it masks decidedly heavy content. The novel is centred around a private asylum for residents with mental health problems, and here we encounter the asylum's Doctor Matthew Allen, a number of residents (most notably poet John Clare), members of the Doctor's family and poet Alfred Tennyson, a newly arrived village resident.

The book is lyrical, and, parts of it at least, resemble extended poems. There's a surreal quality to the passages about John Clare, as he battles with delusions, a craving for the outdoors and a crisis of identity. It's a book that easily transports the reader into various states of mind, especially those that typify the condition we would normally associate with poets and those of pubescent girls.

Though there is a narrative thread of sorts, there's a sense that the novel doesn't set out to tell a story - the action is fragmented and obscure - it rather seems to give an impression of certain characters, allowing the reader to inhabit them for a little while. Allen's story seems to vie with Clare's as the driver for the book, and for me, it was the actions of Allen that were the most interesting.

The book could easily have been bogged down by the historical weight of the characters, but it successfully side-steps that trap to offer something else. The novel is certainly creative; a lyrical derivation from fact, but there just wasn't enough to it for it to grip me.

Jake is a widower and a retired architect living in Lincolnshire. He has Alzheimers, so we can't actually be sure that he's a widower, or otherwise bereaved. In The Wilderness, we encounter Jake as an impermanent glue that holds fragments of story together, and we encounter his family and loved ones through these fragments.

The Wilderness gives an impression of Alzheimers as a no-man's land: a place where there is a forever sliding scale between fiction and fact, a scale that pitches dramatically from this side to that; a place where black holes appear from nowhere, swallowing details - swallowing people and inventing others, throwing holes into the middle of stories, and shifting the order of things; it's a place where chronolgy and relations become fluid and changeable.

The Wilderness was mesmorising and frustrating in equal measure. Jake reports significants events and relates people through a series of 'reminiscences', though the same people and events keep appearing in different guises. The characters, that give the impression of being well rounded, become flattened and two dimensional in their portrayal as recurring motifs. The notion of boiling something down to its essence is played with very successfully, and Jake lays out his life as in a family album - select images, with fragments of story attached - something that we all know changes with perspective and age.

To avoid sentimentalising the disease is a remarkable achievement, and the result is a stunningly visual but cold book. It does ask a really interesting question about our emotional response to Alzheimers, and that is how can one grieve for something they don't know they have lost? Though I don't think The Wilderness is a classic, I do find the effect or recurring motifs haunting - and I can't forget Jake's daughter saying about the cherries: 'Jape, I want to pick them, Jape'.

Wolf Hall's protagonist is Thomas Cromwell: blacksmith's son, cloth merchant, adviser to Cardinal Wolsley and eventually King Henry's yes man. Set over the course of a few years (with a taster backstory) as Henry tries to divorce Catherine of Aragon and separate from Rome's primacy, we follow Cromwell as he becomes the formidable player at court.

Each section of the book drives towards a significant moment in the story, expertly building the narrative to its culmination, and displaying exquisite plotting that maintains pace and action throughout the 650 pages.

Though Cromwell is a man of few words, who becomes slightly more verbose as his staff increases, the author builds up a rich sense of a man with integrity, plain sense, confidence and elusive motivations. We follow Cromwell as he works his influence behind the scenes to achieve the King's desire, learning something of his character in his exchanges both in a domestic setting with his family, and in court with numerous dignitaries. Yet for all the detail offered about his life and his actions, the man remains a mystery - an unknowable force that defies understanding, that no-one is sure of. It's this unsurety, this fear of the unknown, that seems to be Cromwell's greatest power.

Wolf Hall in engrossing for the picture it paints about the intricacies of Henry's split from Rome, and the agency Cromwell exerts upon cracking the problem of fulfilling the monarch's apparently conflicting desires. It's an extraordinarily well-written novel, including both compelling characters and a fascinating historical perspective. I would unreservedly recommend it. This is quite an accolade from an historical fiction virgin! It deserves its place on the shortlist, and narrowly misses out on being my favourite of the shortlisted books.

Here's a link to my list of reads and TBR: