Booker longlist post three, and I am at the halfway mark with the list (given that it is really a list of 12, as the Desai book isn't released til after the shortlist date), which is not too bad with 4 weeks still to go before shortlist!
The two books in this set are very different from each other. Both had points to recommend them and were well-written novels, but once again, I did not fall in love with either one, although I rate one higher (as will be seen!)
At the halfway mark, there's only one book I've really, genuinely connected with, and that's Seascraper. Several of the others have had points of interest and some are exemplars of excellent craft, but I just haven't felt engaged and absorbed and book-drunk as I do with texts that are (for me) next-level. This is interesting, as it usually doesn't take me this far into the list to hit an undeniable banger (it certainly didn't last year - by this stage I'd read both James and The Safekeep, which are both stone cold bangers, as well as Held, which I personally loved although it wasn't everyone's cuppa).
It's possible this is going to be one of those lists that leaves me somewhat cold as a reader. It happens. Or perhaps all the joy is lurking in the remaining half...? We shall see!
I'm currently reading Endling, which started strong but is now stumbling, and I have copies of both One Boat and Flashlight in hand so one or the other of them will be after that. I would expect the next review pair to be up in a couple of weeks, and I'll probably stop there (at 8) until after the shortlist is out, as I am getting close to literary fatigue point and feel like a bit of lighter reading will be in order.
Here is the list with read books highlighted.
1. Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga (Albanian)
2. Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (British)
3. Flesh by David Szalay (Canadian)
4. Endling by Maria Reva (Ukrainian / Canadian)
5. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (British)
6. The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits (American / British)
7. Audition by Katie Kitamura (American)
8. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Indian / British)
9. Flashlight by Susan Choi (American)
10. One Boat by Jonathan Buckley (British)
11. Universality by Natasha Brown (British)
12. The South by Tash Aw (Malaysian)
13. Love Forms by Claire Adam (Trinidadian)
I listened to this one on audiobook, and it's a good thing I did, as I doubt I would've stuck with it to the end if I was reading with my eyes. The audio format was more digestible as I could listen while doing active things, which allowed it to wash over me a bit, especially the more boring parts.
At its heart, this is a LGBTIQ coming of age story combined with the beginnings of a sprawling family saga (Aw has said he intends this to be the first book in a quartet about the Lim family).
Primary disclaimer: I am not a big lover of family sagas generally, and coming of age stories have to be really on point to resonate for me. So bear that in mind when considering my review!
Seascraper, so far the only great book I've read on the Booker longlist, is an excellent example of a quiet, contemplative, everyday coming of age story told so beautifully that it cuts through to the heart. The South, while aiming for similar, doesn't achieve that kind of connection or empathy, and therefore I think is ultimately less successful. Rather than drawing me in, the writing seemed cool and distancing, keeping me removed from any engagement or investment in the characters or their outcomes. This can work really well for *some* kinds of books, but coming of age stories isn't one of them, in my view.
Set in Malaysia in 1997, the story is told partially by, and is mostly about, the youngest child and only son of a teacher, Jack Lim, and his wife, Sui, as they visit a family farm (actually inherited by Sui rather than Jack) with their three young adult and teenager children (Lina, Yin and Jay) one summer. The farm is tenanted by Jack's semi-secret half-brother, Fong, and his young adult son, Chuan. Jay is the protagonist, and tells the story partially in first-person reflection from some later standpoint (there are other parts that are told in third person, including the sections that give insight into the thoughts and motivations of others that Jay may not have been privy to.)
Jay's growing relationship with Chuan, which becomes his first sexual relationship, is the cornerstone that the book is built on, with all the other plotlines weaving in and around it. There is a lot else going on - secrets and lies, interior lives that don't match the exterior, national and international forces that press down on people - but it is Jay and Chuan's bond that anchors everything else. As a plot engine, the development of their relationship had some really lovely moments, but again, given that it is chronicling something so emotionally significant, I was surprised that the warmth of deep connection just wasn't really there for me.
All in all, I'd say this book was well-written and skilful, and the setting was a fascinating treat, but it was not moving or addictive in the way that a great coming of age story can be. Perhaps it's because Aw is doing a lot of set-up for the three books to follow, and the full vision will only be visible when all four are read together. For me though, as a stand-alone, it didn't rise above fair to middling.
Score: 6/10
Shortlist? I wouldn't, but the Booker judges have a habit of going for the sprawly ones, so maybe.
Like Seascraper, this is another book by an English writer set in the 1960s - apparently the decade du jour for literary types in the UK at the moment. It has some tonal similarities to Seascraper, but, although I really loved the evocative and quite beautiful description and sense of place that permeated it, I thought the plot was ultimately less successful than that of the shorter book.
Essentially, The Land in Winter is the story of two young couples: local GP Eric and his wife Irene, and hopeful gentleman farmer Bill and his ex-showgirl wife Rita. The two couples are neighbours in a relatively remote part of the English countryside, and the action takes place in a cold and seizing winter (I looked it up - apparently the winter of 1962-63 was "the Big Freeze" and was one of the coldest on record in the UK). Both the women are in the early to mid stages of pregnancy.
The book isn't long on plot, which isn't necessarily a fault, but unlike in Seascraper (another low-plot book), there are few emotional hooks or peaks to balance the sedate movement of the very limited action in the bulk of the novel, then a lot of things happen in a big rush near the end (a pacing error that never fails to annoy me, even in a book that was clearly going for the "building tension high-impact release" model).
I think what Miller was going for was a character study, focusing in on each of the four main characters and using them as devices to at least hint at some larger commentary about post-war England and how the future is being conceived. In this, he succeeds very well with one character (Rita, whose growing instability, fears that are crystallised in her feelings about her pregnancy, and sense of latent menace and wildness are delicately and effectively portrayed). I also thought Bill was interesting, if less complex, with his ideas about independence and what that might look like and his layered family backstory, and he is the only character that I think you can say experiences a meaningful growth arc.
The second couple, Irene and Eric, are ultimately less interesting as people, and Eric certainly is much less likeable than Bill (or Rita or Irene for that matter). Irene's anxieties, while real, somehow come across as more muted and less developed than the monsters Rita is fighting, while Eric's problems are so entirely of his own selfish making that I couldn't really connect with him at all. The relationship between Rita and Irene was the most interesting thing about Irene, to be frank, and there were certainly moments where Irene was elevated in my estimation simply by her connection with Rita.
I did enjoy the interior details of English life in the 60s. The chapter with the Boxing Day cocktail party, with its dips and devilled eggs and mini sausages and dolmades as the fancy foreign food item that Irene had to write away to London to obtain, was an engaging and at times wryly funny example of a domestic scene brought to life. I think it was mostly intended to serve as the catalyst point for Irene meeting her husband's mistress, Alison (all unbeknownst to her at that point) but I actually found the other details - the drinks and the smokes, the surly teenagers dragged along by parents, the dresses, the music, the chitterchatter - much more engaging, because, once again, the wife-mistress conversation did not land an emotional punch for me at all.
It is important not to understate the beauty of the descriptive language in this book though - it was one of the main reasons I kept reading. Here are a few examples that I particularly loved:
"He was slightly surprised to find he was still wearing his coat. There are times when your body just follows you around, like a dog or a younger brother."
"Around her the city went on with its business, the day like a sheet on which it showed its wares. Even some of the small dark churches were for sale. Their bones were full of the river and they had seen too much".
"The hills behind the surgery were raw pink cliffs of quarried stone. Further on, the land was flat and green, riddled with small rivers, a region prone to flooding, a refuge for bats and dragonflies and flocks of shy migrating birds. It was secretive, drenched. The rivers were full of eels, or had been once. In the county museum you could see eel traps woven from split willow, each distinct as a man's signature."
"All winter you hold yourself like a fist, a tension you're hardly aware of until the first warm day when you lift your face to the sun."
"Irene breathed her in. The other's body, with its lumps and strappings, its terrible softness, was an animal you meet in a dream and must placate with songs and silences; a wicked witch who turns out to be a middle-aged woman with poor circulation and some unsheddable grief you are free to look away from".
At the end of the day, I found this to be contemplative, descriptive novel that leaned more heavily on character than on plot, and I liked reading it because I so enjoyed the writing. That said, unlike Seascraper, which stuck its landing so hard that I more than forgave the slow start, I don't think this book really made it in terms of plot, which is a shame in such a beautifully written text. Still, I'd recommend it lovers of language.
Score: 7.5/10 (5 points for the descriptions, and 2.5 points for Rita)
Shortlist: I think it will, because it's a very English book and they usually like to have at least one on the list like that, especially after a year like 2024 where there were *no* books with Englishness as a theme.
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