The Booker in the Seventies
So, the first ten or so years of the Booker. 1969-1979. Thirteen books down, what have we learned?
Overall, it's definitely been an interesting journey. A few definite highlights and winning authors I'll return to in future, no books that felt like a chore and none that were outright stinkers. Let's hope the next four decades can keep pace!
I'm going to take a periodic look at themes and commonalities (and lack of), between the winners of the prize I've read to date. My chosen method is to pick a bunch of words that seem to examplify these connections, explain myself, and then highlight which books I'm referring to, and maybe a few exceptions (that prove the rule).
Maybe we'll arrive at some sort of understanding of what makes a Booker winner, maybe not. What keywords am I missing? Do you think these will hold true when I tackle the 80s winners? Any other thoughts - chuck them in the comments!
Men
Take a cursory glance at the first 10 or so years of its history and you'd think that the Booker had done a sort-of-OK job of gender representation. We've had five female winners (of 13), plenty of nominees and a decent enough balance of judges.
Dig a bit deeper, though, and you'll find precious few stories told from the perspective of female characters, and even relatively few secondary female characters that are developed beyond their role as objects of male attention.
This may be chance, coincidence, and likely is a product of the era (and indeed of some of the themes - see below), but it does mean that the story of the Booker so far is largely the story of men.
Case in point: Almost all of them are male-dominated narratives, but G. is perhaps the worst offender.
AND YET: Heat & Dust has not one but two primary female narrators; Offshore perhaps the most satisfying female lead; and Iris Murdoch certainly knows how to write interesting women.
History
At a superficial level, you don't get much of a feel for "the Seventies" in the Seventies' Booker winners. Maybe this is unsurprising - I guess the majority of successful literature that engages with the "real world" tends to do so retrospectively. But at the same time there's definitely a backwards-looking vibe to the winners so far. While not all of the jaunts into history are rose-tinted and nostalgic, there's definitely a pervasive sense of a need to draw inspiration from beyond the present day.
Case in point: The Siege of Krishnapur; G.; Something to Answer For; Heat & Dust
AND YET: The Conservationist is perhaps the most urgently "present" feeling, though there are other examples
Empire
Perhaps the dominant theme of the Booker winners so far, and intrinsically linked to my last point. Maybe this is almost where you locate the Seventies in these works - the British discomfort with its diminishing role on the world stage, and former colonies' attempts to define themselves in opposition to what went before. Occasionally the engagement with the subject seems to lack teeth, but there are definitely counter-examples.
Case in point: The Conservationist and Farrell's novels, on the plus side; slightly less satisfactory takes in Heat & Dust and Staying On. Something to Answer For kicked the whole game off by looking at the Suez crisis, so we can perhaps partly blame Newby for the obsession...
AND YET: Obviously, not every book touches on the subject. It's harder to find references to Empire in, say, Holiday or Offshore - but perhaps I'm not looking hard enough...
Race
It’s obviously impossible to tackle Empire without digging into issues of race. On the whole, though, we hear less than we should from black and minority voices, with their stories - when they are told - often mediated through the voice of white authors.
There's also a disturbing occasional tendency towards punching down. The most egregious example is probably the grotesque comic presentation of Mrs Bhoolabhoy in Staying On, but elsewhere there are numerous uncomfortable examples of minority characters seeming to be played for laughs.
Case in point: There are serious looks at this subject, particularly in The Conservationist and (less successfully for me) In a Free State. Heat & Dust and especially Staying On seem more problematic.
AND YET: There are also plenty of novels in here, of course, in which you wouldn't know that anything other than white people existed in the Seventies. These are (of course?) mostly the ones set in Britain, perhaps especially Holiday.
Class
While not exactly interrogated by most of the Seventies winners, class is inevitably a present concern in many, even if only in the background. It's there in the India-centric novels, of course, but maybe even more front-and-centre in some of those located in the UK.
Case in point: Saville is the most obviously class-themed novel, with Holiday and G. also offering their own, very different, perspectives on the issue. It's there in The Sea, The Sea, too, for sure.
AND YET: It's actually rather difficult to find an example here with absolutely no concern for class. Even the quasi-Bond world of Something to Answer For still occasionally engages with the theme, if not so obviously.
Seriousness
I guess it's hardly surprising that a prestigious award should reward tackling serious issues, but there is an occasional tendency towards a certain heaviness that doesn't necessarily make for great entertainment. There's not a total lack of humour in the winners here, but great comic writing doesn't seem to be much valued.
Case in Point: In a Free State veers perilously close to being hard work, The Conservationist redeems itself with an ending that packs a punch but is also tough-going in places, and G. is largely ponderous philosophizing.
AND YET: J.G. Farrell's winners achieve the best balance of comic writing and serious theme, and The Sea, The Sea is wildly fun if you take it in the right humour. Conversely, the most overt attempt at a "funny" winner, Staying On, fell flat for me and perhaps makes the point for why comedy is often swerved by awards panels (it often dates badly).
Convention
Let's say that in a decade that saw the publication of Gravity's Rainbow in the US, there's little evidence of such exuberant originality on display in the Booker winners of the decade. I'm genuinely interested to know if this was simply a reflection of the prevailing trends of the time, or if there was a bit of conservatism at work here.
I'm also somewhat torn as to whether I'm actually keen to see more experimentation or not. I didn't highly rate the novels that came closest to pushing boundaries, but I still had an overriding sense of safeness that sat a little uncomfortably. Perhaps we'll see the turn of the decade energy that produced punk and riotous anger better reflected in the 80s. Or perhaps not.
Case in point: Most of the winners are reasonably conventional in form, as far as I can see.
AND YET: G. is definitely trying hard to be unconventional, but in a slightly irritating fashion. And Something to Answer For was a bold first winner, but also somewhat frustrating. Perhaps you could also argue for Offshore's quiet economy as a more successful form of originality?
Understatement
This is by no means universal, but I feel in general I've been using words like "quiet", "understated" and even "slight" a fair few times in this first sequence of winners. There's more variety here for sure, but there definitely doesn't seem to be a "Great Novel" quest going on in many of these winners - perhaps that's a good thing. That ambition can certainly lead in several directions...
Case in point: Offshore, Holiday, The Elected Member, Staying On, etc.
AND YET: The Sea, The Sea is anything but understated, and is all the more fun for it. G. is another one that you couldn't accuse of being "quiet", but while it has moments that take off, it also has a whole lot of loudmouth yammering that leaves you yearning for a dose of Penelope Fitzgerald.
Water
Bit of a fun one to wrap up with. There are a fair few watery narratives in the first decade of the Booker. Does this mean anything? No? Well I'm including it anyway.
Case in point: The end of decade run of The Sea, The Sea and Offshore, which we'll continue into the start of the 80s next week with Rites of Passage. Suez in Something to Answer For. Storms in The Conservationist. The seaside in Holiday.
AND YET: Heat & Dust is certainly the most water-deprived winner so far, as its title would suggest. Not much water in Saville either, being as it is set in the Midlands.
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Did I miss any big themes? I'm sure I did....
In any case, I've enjoyed this little wrap up, and I'm looking forward to checking in to see whether the 80s produce anything dramatically different or more of the same.
* * *
The Seventies (and a bit of the Sixties…) Ranked:
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7 .
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
* * *
As a final note, I've also picked out a few authors I'm keen to read more of one day, if I get round to it. Shout me if you have any further recommendations by Iris Murdoch, Penelope Fitzgerald, J.G. Farrell or David Storey. Or indeed anything else from the winners or nominees of the Seventies that I may be missing out on!
