We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
I guessed the 'twist' of Fower's novel because of
my habit of flicking to the back of books to see how many pages there
are, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book. By far the quickest
and easiest read on the shortlist, I thought the book had plenty of
depth, and its central character, a woman struggling with guilt and the
demands of family, was interesting if an unreliable narrator. Although Rosemary
had a very unusual upbringing, I thought she was relatable – her issues
with her family, her strange frenemy style relationship with Harlow,
and her uncertainty about what to do with her life are all things we’ve
lived through. She was made more interesting by the fact that her family
was told purely through her eyes, meaning the reader has to take
everything she says with a pinch of salt, although she's just unreliable
not dishonest. Families are at the centre of the book, and I loved the
spectrum Fowler showed, from poor Todd’s terrible, terrible father to
Harlow’s sweet and unappreciated parents to Rosemary’s own misunderstood
family. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is an easy yet thoughtful read, but much as I loved it, I don’t think it’s this year's Man Booker Prize winner.
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris
I also don't think To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
is this year's winner, and it's my least favourite of the six
shortlisted. I really, really struggled with this book the entire time I
was reading it, and it took me far longer to read than it should have. I
found the main character, Paul O’Rourke, grating, and his habit of
calling a mobile phone a “me-machine” reminded me of something a
four-year-old might say. Paul was implausibly awkward, and his behaviour
was never fully explained – I’d have liked to have delved more into his
upbringing, which clearly moulded him, but Ferris kept those visits to
the past very brief. Everything about baseball and dentistry went over
my head, and I found all the religion stuff really dense and difficult
to understand. I found myself in a cycle with this one - I didn't
understand it so I didn't enjoy it so I didn't want to read it, and
because I didn't want to read it, I didn't enjoy it and I carried on not
understanding it. I did think the second half of To Rise Again...
was better than the first, and the strongest part, for me, was the last
third when things really started coming together and people moved
(physically and metaphorically). But it's a no from me for this one.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
This
is my pick for what I think should win. I picked it up thinking it
would be the story of a prisoner of war, and put it down after having
read something completely different. Like Ali Smith's How to be Both
(see below), The Narrow Road to the Deep North plays with timelines, and
is split into a number of sections. Its main character, Dorrigo Evans,
is at once unlikeable, yet honourable and with many redeeming qualities,
and I grew to eventually like him, while still deploring many of his
actions. Flanagan creates a multitude of heartbreaking moments in the
POW camp - during one scene I felt more than a little sick to my
stomach, and I'm not at all squeamish - and contrasts these with
lighter, hazier moments capturing Dorrigo and his one true love as they
meet and fall for each other. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a
novel about heroism in its many different forms, as well as love, and it
focused on a part of Second World War history I barely know anything
about (to my shame). I left this book feeling like I'd read something
that would stay with me for a while, and that's one of the many reasons I
think it should win.
J by Howard Jacobson
A former winner of the prize, I had high hopes for Jacobson's J,
which has been described as unlike any of his previous works.
Unfortunately, I just didn't click with this book. I liked the dystopian
world, where an event known as What Happened, If It Happened has
coloured everything from the economy to the behaviour of the populace to
people's names, but Jacobson chose to keep What Happened, If It
Happened deliberately vague. Some people may like this as a device, and
it was fine for a while, but I felt knowing more about it (besides the
odd things I guessed later on in the book) would have helped me
understand the characters and characterisation more. As it is, I found
both Kevern and Ailinn, the central couple, lightly drawn, with their
relationship constructed using stereotypes. I also had a hard time
working out if some parts of the book were satirical, and a comment on
current society (an exchange about domestic violence particularly
springs to mind here). Like Ferris's To Rise Again... I thought the second half of the book was stronger, but the ending was, to me, devoid of hope, and depressing because of that.
How to be Both by Ali Smith
Structurally,
this is the most interesting of the shortlisted books, comprising as it
does of two separate but linked stories of a girl in the modern day and
a renaissance artist in the 1460s. How to be Both is clever, but it's
also immensely readable. My copy came with the modern day first (others
come with the 1460s section first) and I loved getting into George's
head. The flickering between past and present, which Smith does without
signposting, was clever and shows a writer who has faith in her readers'
ability to work out what's happening. The second part (my second part)
is a whirlwind, and the writing shouldn't work, but it does. As a slight
criticism, I'd say you can see he technique at play here, I didn't lose
myself in the book and was always aware of Smith's narrative style, her
play on words, and her structure. But it's a slight criticism, this is a
very clever book, annd the half set in the 1460s is particular
readable. Smith, shortlisted twice before for the Man Booker without
winning, would be a worthy winner.
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee
As
I write, I haven't finished this book, so my comments here are based on
the fifth that I have read. Mukherjee's book is intricate, from its
construction to its characters to its setting. It features a vast cast
of characters (so much so that I'm constantly having to flick to the
family tree at the beginning to remember who I'm reading about) and its
subject matter, of a family at a crossroads in 1970s India and a
political movement that changed the country, is also expansive.
Mukherjee handles it well, and his book is clearly well researched and
beautifully written. He's the favourite to win this year's prize, and I
can see why.
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