Booker Prize

Struggling a bit with the Harrison - I admire it, but I'm slightly too baffled by it. As I get older I find I'm an increasingly literal reader so if it's an allegory about breeding rabbits in the Outer Hebrides, for example, I just see the story and not the rabbits.

I thought the violence was to do with how desensitised everyone had become because of whatever it is that has happened, but do feel it's a bit of a case of a shrug and a 'what do I know?'.

@Misknit Your analysis is very interesting and may well be correct. However does a book that is on so many levels a puzzle really work as a novel? I felt the same way when Alan Garner was shortlisted for Treacle Walker a few years back. Beautifully written, and brilliant on landscape and myth. But it’s essentially a riddle which isn’t answered. Garner isn’t particularly interested in character or plot and I think Harrison is the same, in this book anyway. How you react to it depends on your attitude to this kind of construct, and neither book really works for me.

I was working my way through the long list and read a few that haven’t made it to the short list. Helen of Nowhere, The Shadow of the Object and The Palm House.

I’ve also read Tell Me Everything and currently listening to John of John. Next is Black Bag. I just don’t fancy The Disappearers or The End of Everything, so of them will probably win.

The act of violence and the matter-of-fact way it is carried out was really shocking, but I think it's there to reinforce the idea that the 'catastrophe' has broken down the morality of the world and also make you believe future killings actually happen when I am not sure they do. That's what I began to really appreciate in the writing: the uncanniness of this future England. Again, I may be reading too much into things here, but is Harrison reflecting that really horribly violent things happen every day? We're desensitised to the extent that we often carry on with our lives. In the post-catastrophe world of the novel, people seem to be driven to have almost adopted a 'whistle and nothing to see here' mentality to cope with the world they now live in.

Everyone seems to have been driven crazy in some respects. However, they are still trying to cling onto elements of the past that they find comforting. The seaside settings, especially in the latter part of the novel, are nostalgic. People appear to keep coming to the coast for holidays, just like they did in the past, despite the chaotic society that now seems to exist.

Then there is the naming of the 'alien' life form as 'the artefact' – something of historical interest made by man. This links to the idea of memory. It has an ambiguous form to begin with. I am trying to avoid spoilers here, but late in the novel Marnie shouts, 'You're not him!' but is it that he is no longer recognisable?

But every one of the judges would then need to have read several other Harrison books, on top of the 163 novels they had to read!

Yes , that’s an interesting take though I’m not completely convinced! The bizarre random act of extreme violence near the beginning for example. What’s that about? And why is everyone so apparently unaffected by it? I didn’t hate the book, I just don’t think it’s especially deep. Or if it is, then why make it so enigmatic ? Interesting to see what the judges conclude. I still think they will go for Marlon James.

I have just finished The End of Everything, was cautious because of the low ratings but I actually loved it. I may be reading far to much into it though.

The ambiguity about the IGhetti, what they are and what the effects of their have been on the wider world is what initially drew me in, but I think the 'alien' invasion could be a metaphor for something more manmade than extra-terristrial.

Harrison deliberately sets out to disorientate the reader. I think he's exploring memory, morality and what happens when our sense of reality breaks down. By the end of the novel, I had decided that although we start with Tennent this novel is really centrally about Marnie; that Harrison's writing is an attempt to get the reader to experience some of the disorienating affects of dementia. As a reader your constantly trying to make connections, recognise people and places and construct a coherent narrative from fragments.

I think the book is quite meta in places and that Harrison also muses on the writing process.

I finished it feeling that the novel was less about the end of the world than about what happens when someone gradually loses the ability to recognise the world, and the people, they love.

I wasn’t keen on MWFTK either though a lot of people obviously love it. To me it’s one of those currently fashionable books with nebulous undefined characters. Problem is that you struggle to be interested in them and I didn’t really care about the curator or the King.I agree with @cassandre that the medieval background is unconvincing. A real king of that period who was so ineffectual would have been quietly removed to a handy castle and smothered or something. She does write beautifully about clothes and food though.

@Aviarythebird you're absolutely right, Strout hasn't won the Booker before! Sorry I was wrong about that. She has won the Pulitzer so maybe I was thinking of that... anyway I was muddled.

Interesting reviews of the Harrison! I don't feel more inclined to read it now, ha.

I just read May We Feed the King and didn't love it. I've heard people say that it's a marmite book, and I'd agree. The concept was original and the author writes well, but I just didn't find her world-building very convincing. I study/teach the Middle Ages in real life, and I found the historical backdrop frustratingly vague. That's probably a me problem though!

Do post about it. It’s the one that most interests me.

I've given up on the Harrison. It was irritating me too much. On to May we feed the king.

I don’t think it’s a ‘longevity award’. It’s not the Oscars! To get onto the longlist, several of the judges had to feel strongly about this specific novel out of 163 others, and be able to convince any others who didn’t that it was extraordinary. Same again to make the shortlist. That or a very split vote on shortlisting that couldn’t be resolved, and the Harrison was a lot of judges’ runner up?

I mean, taste is subjective. I won’t be reading the Harrison, Marlon James or the Douglas Stuart because while I can see their quality, they’re not at all to my taste, based on their previous work that I’ve read. I’ve got a bit bored with Elizabeth Strout, though I thought My Name is Lucy Barton was great. I will definitely read May We Feed the King, and possibly Black Bag, but I wouldn’t view their shortlisting as any guarantee that I’ll like either, just that other people did!

@pippistrelle You may well be right but I don’t think the Booker should be a lifetime award. I suspect that the story is a kind of metaphor for the constant change and upheaval we’re living with at the moment. It’s also possible MJH intends the alien invaders to reflect the way the internet/ AI isolates us from each other and can make us hardened and indifferent to suffering. But I don’t think this works. For a book to work as a metaphor the author has to generate some interest in the characters. I didn’t care in the slightest what happened to Philip or Marnie. One reviewer describes the relationship between the two of them as ‘tender, almost romantic’. Couldn’t see it. There is no tenderness in this book.

@Stowickthevast Yes,I enjoy SF and I just don’t feel that End of Everything does anything that other post apocalyptic fiction doesn’t . In fact rather less because the book is uninterested in human emotions or relationships . Compare for example Emily St John Mantel’s Station 11 or Tim Winton’s Juice. Or even The Road.

Agree on both!

@pollyhemlock DH, who's an avid SF reader, has just finished MJH and told me not to bother. He was very unimpressed.

I feel like I should read The Disappearers but the subject matter is not appealing.

Of the other 4, I'd be happy with any but actually would prefer Black Bag or May We Feed The King to win as they're debut authors who are doing something original. And I really liked both books.

I agree with this. I enjoyed it as I enjoy all her books but I don’t think it’s outstanding.

But it’s entirely different judges every year, so they will all have different tastes, plus, from friends who’ve judged other book prizes, there’s a huge amount of horsetrading involved, inevitably.

Five people who have been chosen in part because of diverse tastes read 163 novels (in 2026) in seven months, meeting roughly monthly to discuss the books they’ve agreed to read that month, and have to whittle them down to a longlist of 13 and then a shortlist of 6. If some judges argue passionately for Book A to win, and others argue equally vehemently for Book B and will not hear of Book A, then it can be that Book C, which everyone liked, but less so, is the compromise winner.

I don’t think Elizabeth Strout has won the Booker before. She’s been nominated a few times. Would be nice to see her win and I loved this one.

I've just started the Harrison. It's very weird. I finished the Strout and felt it was one of her weaker books.

I have now read five of the six and I’m afraid I will not be reading the Marlon James although I suspect it will win. Can’t cope with relentless violence. I would be happy if Black Bag or John of John won. Has anyone else read the M John Harrison? Yes he creates memorable images. But the idea that the book is saying anything profound about contemporary concerns is way off beam imo. If the judges think it does then they clearly haven’t read much science fiction/ speculative fiction. Or indeed much by MJH.