Chair's blog 2007
Read the final blog from Howard Davies, chair of the Man Booker Prize in 2007
19 October 2007
This is my final contribution to the site. I am now the ex-Chairman of the judges. And there is nothing so ex as an ex-Chair of the Booker judges. In the prize's 39 year existence, no one has Chaired the judges twice.
Before I sign off, I would like to offer just a few comments on the judging process and the conclusion we reached. There have been some questions about precisely how we did so, and the status of the winner. Let me try to be as clear as I can. I said that all the shortlisted candidates had their advocates on the judging panel. But we were all satisfied that the choice of Anne Enright's The Gathering reflected the balance of opinion among the judges and we all thought it a very worthy winner indeed. It was a tight decision, but I explained that The Gathering emerged as the favourite from a number of different voting systems which we used to confirm our choice.
Obviously that choice has divided readers. We explained our reasons as clearly as we could. It is a very well constructed novel with highly believable characters. The language is strong, vivid and often memorable. It is a novel which we think will live on and, though we were judging the book not the author, I am confident that we shall hear more of Anne Enright in the future.
At the event I was particularly struck by the graciousness of all the disappointed authors. It cannot be pleasant to spend a whole dinner with a prize and a large cheque dangled in front of your eyes, only to have it snatched away as the coffee is served. But all the other authors were highly complimentary about the winner, and could not have been more charming in their disappointment. The New Zealand rugby team have a lot to learn from Lloyd Jones in that respect!
There has been some commentary about remarks I made on the night about reviewers and reviewing. Some of the reactions seemed to be responses to rather more inflammatory remarks than I actually made. Anyone who is interested in my views on that subject, on the whole of the shortlist, and a few other things, can find the full text in the Perspective section of the Man Booker site.
More seriously, the Evening Standard have suggested that one of the judges - Ruth Scurr - may have been influenced in the judging process by sharing the same agency as Anne Enright. This is journalism by innuendo, unworthy of the paper. There is no basis for it whatsoever. Potential conflicts of interest were disclosed throughout the process - to my full satisfaction as a former regulator! No bias was shown by any of the judges, all of whose arguments and advocacy were based on analysis of the texts.
Finally, I would say just what a privilege it has been to Chair the judges this year. The Man Booker Prize is a great institution which brings excitement to literature. I think there is no more worthwhile calling than novel writing, and was proud to be associated with a prize which provides some recognition and reward for those who undertake it.
8 October 2007
There is little over a week to go before the prize giving dinner in Guildhall. For the judges, that means just one more session, and we are released - once again free to read what we choose. My bedside table is groaning with non-fiction and foreign novels which I have been obliged to set aside since March.
There has been no shortage of commentary on the shortlist - most of it fairly polite by the dyspeptic standards of literary commentators. Of course some have drawn attention to the fact that Jordan's latest book has outsold five of the shortlist - but we have not been moved to add her to the list as a result.
It has been pleasing that a number of professional critics, and bloggers, have said they were glad to have their attention drawn to some of the lesser known names on the list. That has been the case with my own friends, too, most of whom have been enthusiastic about the shortlist entries they have read, though one gave me a slightly old fashioned look when I pressed my spare copy of Nicola Barker's doorstopper on her, with a request for a view by the weekend. We have also benefited from new reviews in the US. There was a particularly perceptive notice of The Gathering in the New York Times the other day.
Perhaps inevitably, there have also been some observations on the excluded novels, and indeed some from the excluded novelist themselves. A N Wilson was remarkably generous about the glitch which caused his publisher to think he was on the shortlist, only to discover shortly afterwards that he was not. Jonathan Coe was charming about his failure to make the cut in an interview. Only Jeanette Winterson struck a sour note, and in a Guardian interview called me a "bloody fool". I am sorry she feels that way, but sadly I have little consolation for her. The TLS reviewer was another "bloody fool" who noted that her prose in The Stone Gods is "often flattened by dialogue and too pre-occupied with putting across a political message".
Some of the blogs have asked why there is no runner up for the prize. One year, I suppose, there was, in that the judges produced joint winners. But being required to identify a number two would make an already testing judging task a lot harder. There is also a risk, I think, that messages start to get rather confused. We already have longlisted books, shortlisted books and a winner. Yet another category might make the Man Booker Prize a Lewis Carroll-type caucus race, in which all shall win prizes. And it would spoil the fun of those on this site who love producing their own rank orders.
17 September 2007
I am in the US, for non-literary reasons, rather to watch the financial markets melt down. But I encounter a number of people who follow the Man Booker process quite closely, and I mean general readers not publishing industry folk. Even in Houston, which I guess we do not think of as a cultural centre (though it is), I was asked about our deliberations, and quizzed about Sinha and Hamid in particular.
The book trade seems ambivalent, though. There is no overt promotion of Booker titles. But there is a window display of Mr Pip, in a rather attractive US edition with a photograph of a beach on the cover, in Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue. The only other shortlist title which seems to be available, however, is On Chesil Beach, which has already done well over here. I went to see the Royal Shakespeare's King Lear on Saturday afternoon, out in Brooklyn. There in the foyer, amongst the RSC t-shirts and a few King Lear texts, was Ian McEwan - the only novel on display.
The New York Times on Sunday focussed on Sebastian Faulks' Engleby, not a shortlist title of course. It is not a review the publishers will be quoting on the paperback edition.
7 September 2007
After another lengthy session of judging yesterday, we eventually laid another egg, in the form of the shortlist.
There seems to be an assumption that if you have taken a long time to decide, you must have had a row. The second question at the press conference:"Was there blood on the carpet?"
Quite apart from the fact that we would not have dared to spill water, let alone blood, on the Man Group's tasteful shag pile, the truth is that we were rather enjoying ourselves. There were divergences of view, some of them quite sharp, but I think that is one of the virtues of a collective process. And as the growing popularity of book clubs shows, the process of debating fiction is itself a rewarding and illuminating activity.
Press reaction today has been as diverse as the list. Boyd Tonkin's piece in the Independent is worth reading. The photograph in the Financial Times is the most flattering to the judges. The Guardian seems to find it hard to read beyond McEwan and, along with the Times, show an odd fascination for the views of the bookmakers. Perhaps they are still hooked on the now discredited Blairite agenda of encouraging gambling at all costs. The Telegraph focus instead on sales figures, and the current disparity between McEwan and the rest.
Close readers of the Times may be puzzled by my supposed regard for the "emotional steps" of On Chesil Beach. If my press conference diction had been clearer, they would surely have heard "emotional depth".
At the shortlist launch party last night we were delighted to see four of the authors, looking appropriately cheerful, and a large group of librarians and book club organisers. I imagine all of the judges spent a moment or two reflecting on our personal enthusiasm which didn't make the cut. But there's always another year.
15 August 2007
There has been some discussion, elsewhere on the site, about how the judging process works, centring on who reads what, and when.
The short answer is that we have all read all the 110 entries. We began to read in early march and finished, in my case just in time, in the first week of august. I do not think it would be easy to construct a meaningful long list in any other circumstances. The list published last week is not a collection of individual enthusiasms, it is our best collective shot at choosing the best 13.
Now we are all re-reading the 13, and paying attention to the reactions elsewhere to the list, including in the debate section of the website. I guess we'll then re-re-read the six.
One reader asks if I read at home , or at work. What a shocking insinuation! It is more or less possible to manage in one's spare time, by cutting out other reading, and non-essentials like television and sleep. But a full three weeks of holiday was devoted to the last 25 or so, by all of us.
Lastly, it is true that we enjoyed the experience, and felt that there were many other meritorious novels published in the year. Some very good books were unlucky not to make the cut.
9 August 2007
At the risk of further provoking purists like DJ Taylor, perhaps it is of interest to ask whether the Man Booker long list has any measurable effect on readers. We know from past experience that the eventual winner is more or less guaranteed a significant sales uplift, and the shortlisted entries too. But the long list is a relatively recent phenomenon, and in some years has been so long as to reduce the attention focussed on any individual title.
We will not have reliable bookstore sales figures for some time, and of course they are affected by availability, and by promotions. Some of this year's list are not yet easily available in shops, though we are working on it. But we there is a proxy guide in the form of the Amazon bestseller list.
I took the positions of the 13 titles on that list at 6am on Wednesday (mine is a sad existence , I know) , before most people had received their morning papers with the news of the selection, and then again 24 hours later. What does that simple - no doubt flawed analysis - show?
Ian McEwan was already at no. 32 on the list: Chesil Beach is now at 22. Eng, surprisingly, was already at no 92 - a combination of the fact that The Gift of Rain is already in paperback and clearly some word of mouth, as there have been few reviews in this country - and has jumped to 52.
All the rest were below 200 on Wednesday morning. All have risen sharply, as the table below shows:
Amazon Bestseller rank : 6am 8/8 6am 9/8
Barker 593 149
Docx 584 183
Eng 92 52
Enright 805 192
Hamid 557 320
Ho Davies 705 304
Jones 995 182
Lalwani 349 167
McEwan 32 22
O'Flynn 241 77
Redhill 1087 809
Sinha 870 343
Wilson 1285 280
I suspect the scale of the Wilson bounce may have something to do with the fact that Winnie and Wolf is published this week, so one might discount that to some extent, but the other figures seem to show that at least the friends and family of these authors have put their credit cards on line as a result of the long list. It will be interesting to see if this improvement is sustained.
Does the effect extend to the books written by the judges themselves? I should not speak for my well-published and well-read colleagues. But I was excited to discover that someone did shell out for my recent book yesterday. It rocketed from no. 163,320 to no. 96,438. Though, sadly, a fairer comparison is with the hardback edition, which languishes at 971,726. More marketing effort needed there, I think.
8 August 2007
After almost five hours of discussion, albeit punctuated by a decent lunch at L'Etoile, we delivered our long list in time for tea on Tuesday.
The atmosphere in the judging room was somewhere between a book club and a maternity ward. What could be more agreeable than a freeform discussion of 110 novels, when you know that everyone else in the room has read them all and - even better - is obliged to display at least a polite interest in your exciting views? The only fly in the conversational ointment is that you are under the cosh to deliver 13 favourites at the end of it all.
Around five o'clock we gave birth, with Ion Trewin as an unlikely bearded midwife. Actually we were about 90% of the way there a couple of hours before, but the last couple of places proved hard to fill. Not because we couldn't find any worthy candidates, or because we were at penknibs drawn, but because there were another few candidates whom we would have been happy to see included. Should one tell the nearly men and women that they were oh so close to the list? I suspect that would be more cruel than kind, so our ten lips remain sealed.
The early reaction to the list has been roughly as we expected. We were well aware that some better known names didn't make the cut and that choosing four first novels would be a surprise. In fact we slightly surprised ourselves to find that was they case : all four stood up well and no allowance was made for learner drivers.
Only DJ Taylor in The Guardian took immediate exception, and then to my quote in the press release rather than to the books, it would seem. He thought my suggestion that the list would appeal to a wide readership was "more of a marketing statement than a guarantee of good writing. What about all those excellent novels that don't appeal to the Waterstoned throng?"
Two responses. One is that we don't apologise for taking readability into account, though by no means all the books on the list are conventionally structured. We have chosen novels we think are excellent. The second is that a quick look at the Waterstone's site shows that not a single one of our choices appears on their list of featured fiction this summer, which is quite extensive.
The betting odds are predictable. Of course if any of the judges were tempted to punt my former employer the Financial Services Authority would instantly take out an insider dealing case.
25 July 2007
Judging the Man Booker prize is a marathon, not a sprint. This year we find ourselves with 110 entries covering just over 35000 pages. Even at a brisk 80 pages an hour, that represents 437 hours at the typeface.
Slightly to my surprise, only 39 of the authors are women, while 38 are from outside the United Kingdom. Even more surprisingly, 14 of the entries are either wholly or substantially set during the Second World War. Many of our novelists are clearly deaf to Basil Fawlty's injunction. Tony Blair makes only the most fleeting and oblique appearances, Gordon has yet to strike a fictional chord, but Adolf is everywhere.
Surely you don't read them all, my fellow judges and I are regularly and tiresomely asked, as if we have a team of copy tasters at our disposal? Can't you spot a turkey after 10 pages? Well, maybe one ought to be able to, but even when you find an official Bernard Matthews label affixed to Chapter One, sometimes a swan swims into view before the end.
It would be idle to pretend that all 35,000 pages will stay in the memory, and there are certainly longueurs, but on this showing the English novel is alive and well, albeit with its roots still firmly in the 1940s.
If you would like to comment on Howard Davies' blog please visit our Debate section.
To listen to an interview with Howard Davies please visit Telegraph.co.uk's Man Booker page.
