The Booker Prize will be announced next week and once again, we have turned to the expert and slightly biased opinion of Kateisreading.
Reading the Booker shortlisted novels this year put me in mind of a timeless existential dilemma: are we failing to connect with one another or is connection all we have left? Authors Anne Michaels, Charlotte Wood and Samantha Harvey seem to come down on the side of humanity’s fundamental capacity for unselfish love. Rachel Kushner, Yael van de Woulden and Percival Everett tread a more cynical line, questioning the true motivations behind our stated values. While these authors' works of fiction are all more nuanced than a simple binary, I do think that in awarding a winner the judges will be championing either hope or disillusionment as the dominant literary paradigm of the day. Will we cheerlead for love or roll our eyes for realism? Find out on November 16th when the judges make their decision with no regard for my preferences.
In any case, here is a little rundown that may help you to make a literary match this Booker season.
Summed up in a line: Six people watch the world go round, literally
Vibe of the thing: Formally inventive, full of philosophical digression, transcendent to the point of disorientation, in a word: sublime
Recommended for: Those who want to comprehend the profound privilege of human existence, and also our utter insignificance
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
Summed up in a line: In outback Australia a woman discovers a small group of nuns, a large group of mice and, eventually, herself
Vibe of the thing: A quiet masterpiece that trembles loudly with all the things left unsaid
Recommended for: Anyone who is looking for meaning, looking for a good read, or looking to witness a new classic of Australian literature (not recommended for those with a rodent phobia)
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Summed up in a line: Apathetic, conventionally attractive white female spy infiltrates unbearably pretentious environmental activist group
Vibe of the thing: Cynical, sometimes indulgently so; gesturing towards deepness but remaining in the shallows
Recommended for: Readers who enjoy deriding both late-capitalism and the double standards of those who seek to dismantle it
Summed up in a line: An ingenious subversion of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the shrewd perspective of James, the slave
Vibe of the thing: Fizzing with energy, scathing and unflinching, never a dull moment and always one more shenanigan to be had
Recommended for: All who dare to hear the truths behind a good story, who do not seek simple recusal from complicity, and who wish to laugh deeply while shivering a little with shame
Summed up in a line: History lives in the moments we hold onto
Vibe of the thing: A sincere ode to love without irony or sentimentality, deceptively simple and intensely moving
Recommended for: Those who need a moment of gentle reprieve from a fear-mongering world
The Safekeep by Yael van de Woulden
Summed up in a line: A house in the Netherlands holds secrets, and many spoons
Vibe of the thing: Erotic, sometimes disturbingly so, with a cold distant tone that is sometimes intriguing and other times affected
Recommended for: Fans of hyped literary debuts, readers who like a good plot twist, connoisseurs of unexpectedly graphic sex scenes
Who I’d like to see win: Held or Stone Yard Devotional
Who I think might actually win: Orbital or James
Novels I’d be shocked and privately disappointed to see win: Creation Lake or Safekeep
Shortest book with longest sentences: Orbital
Medium length book with short sentences: Held
Most rip-roaring plot: James
Most likely to make you weep a little, and then underline the part that made you cry: Held
Most likely to involve skim-reading large sections: Creation Lake
Author who should be crowned a national treasure no matter the outcome: Charlotte Wood
Happy reading!