'The Beguiling of Merlin' by Edward Burne-Jones
It's one of my favorite times of year -- the Booker longlist was announced last week.
Before looking at this year's slate, an explanation. Why would anyone care about a list of possible award winners? Especially a list from a British award? Shouldn't people read what they like, instead of looking out for books that have seals of approval from a judging panel appointed by publishing insiders?
Well, yes. But.
As a young reader, I gravitated toward classic books. Fairy tale collections. Edith Hamilton's mythology. Lewis Carroll. Robert Lewis Stevenson. Sir Walter Scott. But as a young teen, I veered more toward fantasy (yes, it was The Lord of the Rings that did it) and mystery (oh, those Golden Age detectives who taught me about whodunits and casual racism -- which certainly made history easier to understand when that reading bug bit).
And then there was A.S. Byatt's Possession with the striking cover, the painting "The Beguiling of Merlin" by Edward Burne-Jones. The looks on their two faces tell such two different stories. I had to read this book. It was an enchanting experience. The two stories of lovers in two timelines, with poetry by Byatt that mirrored the work of real poets that her Victorians were based on, the contrasts and comparisons, the craziness of academic competition, and the inevitable unhappy ending for the historical lovers, comprised one of the best reading experiences I've had.
It won a prize. What prize? Something called the Booker. That came out every year. And had a longlist, and a shortlist. I was hooked.
Over the years, Booker nominees and winners have been, for the most part, rewarding. From Alice Munro to Salman Rushdie, from Beryl Bainbridge and Iris Murdoch to Julian Barnes and William Trevor, from Pat Barker to Martin Booth, I am indebted to the Booker for steering me toward their work.
This year's longlist has one nominee that overshadows the rest. Nobel and previous Booker winner Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, Klara and the Sun, is the obvious frontrunner. Like many of his other novels, it seems a simple, straightforward book that is affecting in its story of the artificial intelligent creation that seems more human than most of the people in the novel.
The other dozen books on this year's list, with publishers’ blurbs, are:
A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam
A Passage North begins with a message from out of the blue: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother’s caretaker, Rani, has died under unexpected circumstances—found at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an impassioned yet aloof activist Krishnan fell in love with years before while living in Delhi, stirring old memories and desires from a world he left behind.
Second Place, Rachel Cusk
A woman invites a famous artist to use her guesthouse in the remote coastal landscape where she lives with her family. Powerfully drawn to his paintings, she believes his vision might penetrate the mystery at the center of her life. But as a long, dry summer sets in, his provocative presence itself becomes an enigma—and disrupts the calm of her secluded household.
The Promise, Damon Galgut
Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris
In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys.
Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community.
An Island, Karen Jennings
A young refugee washes up unconscious on the beach of a small island inhabited by no one but Samuel, an old lighthouse keeper. Unsettled, Samuel is soon swept up in memories of his former life on the mainland: a life that saw his country suffer, then fight for independence, only to fall to a cruel dictator; he recalls his own part in its history.
A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson
A Town Called Solace … opens on a family in crisis: rebellious teenager Rose been missing for weeks with no word, and Rose's younger sister, the feisty and fierce Clara, keeps a daily vigil at the living-room window, hoping for her sibling's return.
Enter thirtyish Liam Kane, newly divorced, newly unemployed, newly arrived in this small northern town, where he promptly moves into the house next door--watched suspiciously by astonished and dismayed Clara, whose elderly friend, Mrs. Orchard, owns that home. Around the time of Rose's disappearance, Mrs. Orchard was sent for a short stay in hospital, and Clara promised to keep an eye on the house and its remaining occupant, Mrs. Orchard's cat, Moses.
No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood
A woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"
Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?"
The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed
In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Matton, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Lily Volpert, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, and in a country like Great Britain, he is secure in his innocence, and certain that justice will be properly served. But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles.
The U.S. release is scheduled for next March.
Bewilderment, Richard Powers
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain.
Scheduled for release in September.
China Room, Sunjeev Sahota
Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the family’s “china room,” sequestered from contact with the men—except when their domineering mother-in-law, Mai, summons them to a darkened chamber at night. Curious and strong willed, Mehar tries to piece together what Mai doesn’t want her to know. From beneath her veil, she studies the sounds of the men’s voices, the calluses on their fingers as she serves them tea. Soon she glimpses something that seems to confirm which of the brothers is her husband, and a series of events is set in motion that will put more than one life at risk. As the early stirrings of the Indian independence movement rise around her, Mehar must weigh her own desires against the reality—and danger—of her situation.
Spiraling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who arrives at his uncle’s house in Punjab in the summer of 1999, hoping to shake an addiction that has held him in its grip for more than two years. Growing up in small-town England as the son of an immigrant shopkeeper, his experiences of racism, violence, and estrangement from the culture of his birth led him to seek a dangerous form of escape. begins to knit himself back together, gathering strength for the journey home.
Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead
After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.
A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide.
Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford
Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: the Woolworths on Bexford High Street in South London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages—after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children.
Who were they? What futures did they lose? This brilliantly constructed novel, inspired by real events, lets an alternative reel of time run, imagining the lives of these five souls as they live through the extraordinary, unimaginable changes of the bustling immensity of twentieth-century London.
The shortlist will be announced on September 14, and the winner on November 3.
While I'm not certain how many of these will be featured here in the weeks to come, there are some other novels that I definitely want to write about. Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson is set in the California redwoods country in the late 1970s, with the timber-cutting way of life looking to be changed forever. Harlem Shuffle is Colson Whitehead's latest novel, a caper novel set in the 1960s. Ruth Ozeki, author of two earlier magnificent novels (My Year of Meats and A Tale for the Time Being), releases The Book of Form and Emptiness, about a boy mourning his father's death who starts hearing the things around him talk, including his own book. Wise Louise Erdrich's next novel is The Sentence, which is billed as a wickedly funny ghost story. I'm in.
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