Andrew Motion has joined the chorus of disapproval against this year’s Booker shortlist, saying that it has created a “false divide” between highbrow literature and accessible books. He went on to describe the split as a “pernicious and dangerous thing”, adding that it was “extraordinary” that authors like Graham Swift, Alan Hollingshurst, Edward St. Aubyn and Philip Hensher had not been shortlisted.
Stern stuff from the former Poet Laureate, who was chief Booker judge last year. His words will further inspire those who think that a new prize should be created, one that recognises an “uncompromising standard of excellence”. Those are the words of Andrew Kidd, the literary agent who is the spokesman for the presently anonymous cabal of publishers, authors and agents who plan to establish The Literature Prize as an elite counterpoint to the Booker.
The Literature Prize might be the talk of the town, if only the public knew a little more about it. Few of those associated with the project are prepared to go on the record about it. Rumours and suggestions about the composition of its advisory panel and supporters pervade, but solid details remain elusive. Meanwhile, this year’s Booker shortlist is the most successful ever in terms of sales, totalling 37,500 copies so far. As of last month, receipts outstripped the previous year’s shortlist by 125 per cent and by 109 per cent on 2009’s figures, which previously held the record.
No wonder, then, that the Booker Establishment’s self-defence has been so confident. Ion Trewin, the biographer and the Prize’s administrator, careered across the airwaves over the weekend, rubbishing his critics’ closed-mindedness by saying that:
“A lot of people find it very difficult to take if it means their much-loved literary darlings have not made it.”
Away from the squabbles of literary London, the self-exiled Martin Amis has been speaking to the Hay Festival in Mexico. The Telegraph reports on this rare sighting of the ageing provocateur. Amis spoke about sex, age and writing — standard liturgy for him, but none the worse for that. He also relates the theme of his new novel: a satire of England today, but one that is affectionate, proud even. He explains:
‘I’ve been quoted widely as saying “I’m glad to leave England [because we’ve just moved to New York], and I wish I wasn’t English.” No one with an IQ in double figures could possibly say that.
You are what you are, and the idea of being ashamed of being English is ridiculous. You know England, we now lead the world in decline, but we used to lead it in progress.
We had our revolution a century before the French did. I think only Holland is more evolved than England. We had parliamentary democracy in the 17th century, and there used to be a fashion for saying that, for instance, Russian literature is so much more dynamic and powerful because it’s drenched in blood, but England has the greatest poetry on earth. Perhaps the only rival is Iran. To have the most advanced polity and the greatest body of poetry is, I think, an incredible combination.’
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