National Book Awards: The Finalists

Now that the Man Booker award has been handed out, attention turns back to our side of the pond, where the finalists for the 2011 National Book Award were recently.

I generally don't put much stock in the award.  By and large, the judges seem to value heartwarming, feel good stories (and in particular, those that deal with race and class) more than literary merit.  In addition, the Award is a little bit too enamored of first-time authors -- perhaps there are some guilty feelings still lingering from 1986, when they stopped giving out a separate award for "First Work of Fiction."  In any case, is it really possible to make the case that Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain was a better book than Don DeLillo's Underworld?

But sometimes the right novels do win, and in any case, there are almost always some great writers among the finalists -- authors like Peter Matthiessen, Tom Wolfe and Peter Carey (who has dual citizenship, and thus eligible for both the Booker and the National Book Award!)

So, let's see.  This year gives us, Andrew Krivak, Tea Obreht, Julie Otsuka, Edith Pearlman and Jesmyn Ward. 

If you are shaking your head asking, "Who?" you are not alone.

Perhaps the award committee was looking for books they could read quickly: the average length of these five boks is 274 pages.  (Curiously, the average length of the books on the Booker shortlist, with its newfound emphasis on "readability" was 275 pages.)

More significantly, this relatively anonymous list simply represents the fact that it's been a slow year for novels by American citizens. 

Still, I certainly would have expected to seeTeju Cole on the list for Open City.

Who do you think was snubbed in 2011?

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Review: The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes)

In recent years, a certain type of literary fiction has become in fashion.  An elderly narrator recalls the story of his life (and I say "his" because these do tend tend to be books by men), beginning in youth and moving forward.  The narrator's purpose, perhaps only vaguely sensed by the reader at first, is to make sense of some particular "event" that formed a turning point in his life.  The nature of that event will only become clear toward the end of the novel.  When it does, it drives home the point that memory is fallible: it consists of stories we tell to make sense of our lives, but that do not always correspond to to fact.

This isn't new stuff: Proust understood as much, and since the 1990s it has been a hot topic in psychology, criminal science, and other disciplines.  But it's also rich a vein for writers to explore.  I am sure you can think of several examples -- the ones that come to my mind include The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Sea by John Banville, Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersen, and now, The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes.

The Remains of the Day, of course, won the Booker Prize in 1989, The Sea won the Booker in 2005, and The Sense of an Ending is being tipped as the frontrunner for the 2011 award, which will be announced later tomorrow.  If Pettersen had been a citizen of the British Commonwealth or Ireland, he no doubt would have been a contender as well.

I will say this: Barnes is the best writer about old age that we have today, far better than the repetitive, randy, Philip Roth.  As his narrator, Tony Webster, delves into his past in 1960s England to make sense of a friend's suicide, Barnes (finally) shows that he is a master of such old-fashioned skills as atmosphere and plot.  In short, I found this slim novel very difficult to put down; indeed, I nearly finished it in one sitting.  But was it great?  Barnes is treading territory that has been well-covered before, and he fails to use the device to connect to the greater concerns of, say, The Remains of the Day.

I've not yet read any of this year's other Booker contenders, so I can't say whether Barnes deserves the nod this year.  I will say that this book is a fine way to spend an evening, and one that will leave you thinking about your own memories for some time after.

UPDATE: It has just been announced that Julian Barnes has won the Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending.  Congratulations!

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