The Booker’s Booker’s Booker
While our class has regretfully come to an end (well, for you anyway. I’ve got this looming stack of your impressive work to get through), I hope that you will take a chance to read this article on the announcement of a 40th year anniversary Best of the Booker prize. You will find many of the selections to be familiar and I hope you will take a moment to predict, laud, discredit, or in some way give voice to the nature of prizing oneself, twice.
On a much more serious note, I am posting an extraordinary paper from our class. It was a pleasure to read and is exemplary as a piece of literary criticism and more generally as a model of clear and gorgeous prose.coetzeegordimer
Scattered thoughts and conclusions:
-Quote from article: “Soon after the announcement, British bookmakers released their odds on who they believe will win, with Rushdie favoured to take the title.”
In response to this I am VERY tempted to bet on the long shot and put my money on Farrell. Not because I think he’ll win, but because I’ll never have to work again if he *does*
-Since this is a public and not a juried award, it will be interesting to see how the winner reflects on current British tastes. Rushdie’s kooky-meta style has taken on a sort of middlebrow flavor which might make it the perfect safe choice.
-Unrelated: I really want to read Iris Murdoch! Not least because of this photo:
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/05/31/irismurdoch_narrowweb__200×292.jpg