Protest and poetry have occupied the literary pages in recent days. The TS Eliot Prize has been rocked by the withdrawal of two nominees, Alice Oswald and John Kinsella, who objected to the prize’s hedge-fund sponsor. The Books blog will examine this curious issue throughout the week; but, for now, here’s Geoff Dyer and William Skidelsky debating the topic.
Skidelsky: To me, it was striking that neither poet appeared to find anything much out about Aurum. For them, apparently, the dread words “hedge fund” were enough. Do either of them actually know anything about what hedge funds do? Bankers are often accused, rightly, of arrogance, but there’s a kind of snobbishness, too, in the way that some artists wrinkle their noses up at the mucky dealings of business.
Dyer: I agree about a tendency to bash bankers and hedgies. But the larger point about questioning and worrying where prize or other money comes from is an important one. I’d never heard of Aurum until a couple of days ago but let’s suppose the dough had come from a nice firm that had decided to use the prize to enhance its image. Great! But if that firm happened to be an Israeli-owned company in the occupied territories, then of course one might be under a political and moral obligation to have nothing to do with it. The key thing if you are to make some kind of statement or stand is to strike a balance between specificity – knowledge of the money’s sources etc – and a larger declared political point.
Aside from the war against hedgies, it was a quiet weekend on the literary front. The other major news was the death of novelist and critic Gilbert Adair. He may well have cracked a wry smile at the self-regarding artistic integrity of Oswald and Kinsella. He was a witty author, who mastered pastiche and parody as a literary form. Even his acclaimed film and literary criticism had its satirical moments, as a glance at some of his journalism for the Spectator will prove. Of the numerous memorials written over the weekend, Jake Kerridge’s is the most poignant. Kerridge concludes:
‘He was never a best-seller; as his Guardian obituary notes, when somebody mistook him for Red Adair, he replied “no, I’m unread Adair”. One can only hope that his death prompts more people to buy his books and give their little grey cells a work-out they’ll never forget.’
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