Is the Man Booker Prize Dumbing Down?

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I usually make a point of reading the Booker Prize winner most years. I also try to read the short-listed novels, as it's often a guide to where the prize-givers think literature is at right now.

I have to say that, in the last couple of years, I think the Booker Prize is edging towards pulp novel territory.

This year's winner is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, a historical novel about Thomas Cromwell. It's a very well-written book, but it's pretty uneven. There is some nice prose in places, and Cromwell frequently unloads some very witty dialogue. But the picture of King Henry is about as stereotypical as it gets; you can almost see Keith Michel lurking on the page. Anne Boleyn is portrayed as a Queen Bitch, and comes across as a much more modern character than the real Anne would have been. Jane Seymour is portrayed as a simpering fool, which also seems at odds with her as a historical figure - the histories I've read paint her as a serious and substantial figure. Mantel also never misses an opportunity to comment on Anne's neck, which is pretty clumsily done.

There are some real clangers. At one point Mantel makes a very clear reference to voodoo, in a book set well before Britain had ever encountered the Americas. It is hardly feasible that Cromwell would have been aware of wax dolls and pin-sticking.

So an unexceptional historical fiction has won the Booker. Fair enough; at least it didn't go to Harry Potter. Still, I can't help but think that novels by the likes of Sarah Waters, J.M. Coetzee and A.S. Byatt are likely to exhibit a bit more literary merit, when I get to reading them.

This is not a sole example. Last year, Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 was short-listed. This is a darn good read but really, it's just another well-written thriller. It's not even that original. Ian Rankin and Val McDiarmid have written yards of thrillers that are better than Smith's, but never got short-listed.

All prizes awarded by committees are just a reflection of the committee and its chair. This year's chair, James Naughtie,

... described Wolf Hall as “an extraordinary piece of storytelling,” adding: “Our decision was based on the sheer bigness of the book, the boldness of its narrative, its scene-setting, the gleam that there is in its detail.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booker-prize/6267010/Hilary-Mantel-wins-Man-Booker-Prize-for-Wolf-Hall.html

So there you have it. It won the prize for being a big, rattling good yarn. Not for being a shining example of English literature. Naughtie is a radio presenter; perhaps next year's chair, Sir Andrew Motion, may raise the bar a bit.

[Georgina]

What are Andrew Motion's qualifications?

When I'm looking for new reading material, I tend to trust the yearly prize lists because they tend to contain work I'm more likely to enjoy. The stuff of best-seller lists just isn't the kind of writing or stories I enjoy any longer. Tastes change. The Man Booker is usually one of my go-to lists. I'm glad for this review. I'll have to see who else was short-listed.

I see that Alice Munro won the International prize for 2009. Evidently I haven't looked at the list for a while (my bookshelves are rather filled with stuff waiting for me so I haven't gone wandering off searching for recommendations). E.L. Doctorow was shortlisted too for the International. Really? He writes a rollicking good thriller, but his work is hardly remarkable in a literary sense. Jeez. Alice Munro is all kinds of literary, but I get tired of book after book of short stories. She's certainly mastered the art of the short story, but I enjoy something more substantial more often than not. Her stuff's good, and well written, and she's talented, but frequently her short bits make me feel long sad.

But, so, this was good to know. Thanks, WS for posting this.

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Andrew Motion is a former poet laureate as well as a novelist. A bit better fit for a literary prize than a radio journalist, IMO.

Doctorow has done some meritorious work - Ragtime was extremely good. I haven't read much of him lately, although his most recent novel is supposed to be very good. It's on my list; haven't got to it yet.

Short stories are not something I turn to much. I feel cheated by them - I always want more. There are a few exceptions, like Raymond Carver, who have utterly mastered the form. Them, I'll read. The most recent collection I bought was Nam Le's The Boat, which caused a sizeable stir among the cognoscenti here in the cultural capital of Oz.