Bluestalking

2012 Orange Prize: The Shortlist

 

Well, well. It's that time, once again. The shortlist's out and from that list I've read only one: Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz.

There But for the... didn't make the cut, somehow. A bit puzzled but I knew State of Wonder would make it through. It was one of my original poorly-informed guesses, though if you look back so was There But for the...  So, let's not look back, shall we?

Couldn't be losing my touch, could I?! Perish the thought. My brain is positively catching fire, I'm taxing it so heavily. If my brain were the American Colonies and I were Britain I'd be dumping all my tea in protest.

 

Now, the real question that keeps me on the edge of my seat is, "Will I even try to read any more of these before the announcement in late May?" Because, really, what could be more interesting than that. I am bent over with the weight of it, my dear internets. Sure, the IPPY judging will soon be done but I have another event to start promoting between now and June: Booktopia, Oxford, MS 2012.

I'm actually going to make one of these literary shindigs for a change; if you don't think I'll milk that for all its worth you haven't been hanging out here long at all. I'll be meeting authors like Jesmyn Ward, Kevin Brockmeier, biographers of Eudora Welty and Margaret Mitchell... The list goes on and it's positively stellar. A lot to do between now and mid-June: books to be read, authors to interview, research to be done...

Crikey.

But back to the Oranges.

 

Cynthia Ozick. Oh dear lord, she's a precious gem. Go back to one of her earlier works like The Shawl,  or The Puttermesser Papers and you'll see this woman's as much Nobel-worthy as Orange Prize recipient material. She may even be too lofty to win. Is that blasphemous?

 

Anne Enright. Lovely writer! Adore her. But she does have that Booker already... I know, it's not supposed to have any bearing on anything but for my money one award per writer (with a few Sebastian Barry exceptions)until all have something to put in a trophy case is sufficient. Did I love her book? Why, yes! But I wasn't betting on it making the shortlist, either! It tells a damn good story, very quirky-in-a-good-way, extremely fresh from the standpoint of the plot framework. Loved it.

That leaves the two I'm unfamiliar with: Esi Edugyan and Georgina Harding. The two Dark Horse candidates. And this is killing me!

Will a relative unknown come from behind for a surprise victory or will Patchett or Miller claim the £ 30,000 Prize? Option three: will Cynthia Ozick win because she's had such a long career, with such a string of beautiful books, and deserves recognition?

I honestly didn't expect to be this frazzled. I usually skim across the top of the list and when the divining rod points I call it. This year's a totally different experience. But I really think Patchett, Miller or Ozick will prevail. In that order, too, as far as likelihood.

So, here are the remaining events leading up to the BIG DAY:

• Orange and Grazia writers’ evening at Southbank Centre: 28 May
• Orange Prize Shortlist Readings at Southbank Centre: 29 May
• Orange Prize for Fiction awards ceremony: 30 May

 

Here are all the books I could read, given time:

 

State of Wonder

Foreign Bodies

The Song of Achilles

 

I've read the Enright, so that leaves:

 

Painter of Silence - not released in the Colonies until September!!

Half Blood Blues - thought I owned it but I can't actually FIND it in the maelstrom Chez Moi

These are my unknowns, the two I may be unable to test drive. Internets, this is a frightening proposition.

At least I know I won't be bored the entire month of May. There is that. Now I'm trotting off to find reactions re: the Shortlist, blogs with gossip and the like.

__________________________________________________________

Blog dedicated to reading the Oranges:

The Orange Prize Project

And one for 2012, in particular:

Orange Prize 2012 Shadow Group

___________________________________________________________

 

Read on, my internets!

 

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

 

ORANGE PRIZE LONGLIST TITLE

 

WW Norton & Co., 2012, Fiction, 272 pp., Purchased - Kindle.

 

"The next few days were full of shouting. Much cliché. It seemed that everything was said. I mean everything, by everybody. The whole thing felt like a single sentence; one you could imagine bellowed, hissed, scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror; you could carve it into your own flesh, you could chisel it on a fucking gravestone. And not one word of it mattered. Not one stupid word.

You never.

I always."

- The Forgotten Waltz

 

Oh, lordy lordy. If things keep going at this rate I'll never shorten the list of candidates. Longlisters, stop writing so damn well. THAT IS AN ORDER.

Seriously, I should have known Anne Enright would smack my gob, because: one: she's Irish and two: I was among the select few who thought her Booker winner - The Gathering - was superb. The lowest-selling Booker Prize winning novel of all time and I lurved it, dear reader.

The Forgotten Waltz, another - in my opinion - unjustifiably underappreciated, fine novel, is so very well described in this bit from Elle I'll steal it:

"A new, unapologetic kind of adultery novel. Narrated by the proverbial other woman—Gina Moynihan, a sharp, sexy, darkly funny thirtysomething IT worker—The Forgotten Waltz charts an extramarital affair from first encounter to arranged, settled, everyday domesticity. . . . This novel’s beauty lies in Enright’s spare, poetic, off-kilter prose—at once heartbreaking and subversively funny. It’s built of startling little surprises and one fresh sentence after another. Enright captures the heady eroticism of an extramarital affair and the incendiary egomania that accompanies secret passion: For all their utter ordinariness, Sean and Gina feel like the greatest lovers who've ever lived.”—Elle

It's the following quote I think sums the novel up so well:

 

"But I am being hard on my husband, who I loved, and who is now fighting with me about money, never mind broken dreams. In fact everyone is fighting with me about money: my sister, too. Who would have thought love could be so expensive? I should sit down and calculate it out at so much per kiss. The price of this house plus the price of that house, divided by two, plus the price of the house we are in. Thousands. Every time I touch him. Hundreds of thousands. Because we took it too far. We should have stuck to car parks and hotel bedrooms (no, really, we should really have stuck to car parks and hotel bedrooms). If we keep going the price will come down - per event, as it were. Twenty years of love can be consummated for tuppence. After a lifetime it is almost free."

 

It's the price of their affair, the relationship they never believed would sour, the vitriol spewed by former spouses, friends and relatives whose respect they've lost. It's reality, in other words, hitting with a vengeance, and the knowing - too late - it could never have turned out otherwise.

So much for Prince Charming and Princess Happily Ever After. The moral: Love Sucks.

But the worst of it is, do I need to put The Forgotten Waltz on the Shortlist as well? And, will there be anything left once I've finished reading all the Longlisters I can fit into my schedule?

This is the true moral dilemma: the literary lust that dare not speak its name. But I have to make a call; I cannot prevaricate any longer. I love Anne Enright for the occasional moments of prose that soars, in the case of TFW for depicting adultery from the viewpoint of the woman and giving the book a realistic ending.

But... And this is painful... I do not see her edging past her competition, making the Shortlist. Sigh.

 

 

Anne Enright on why there are are so many good Irish writers. Brilliant. Listen (audio only) if you have a few minutes.

 

Reviews:

the Paris Review

The New York Times

Guardian.co.uk

 

 

Video: Ann Patchett on 'State of Wonder'

 

 

 

 

A definite Shortlist contender. Definite.

Prediction: This one will make it through the first cut.

So far, for the Shortlist:

There but for the

State of Wonder

 

It's that time again: The Orange Prize Longlist

 

 

You may recall the inordinate amount of pride I felt when I called last year's Orange Prize Winner correctly: Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife. Looking back at my frenzy to read the complete Longlist, then make guesses on which would make the Short, I wonder how on earth I had the energy.

Just reading over this year's list makes me feel exhausted! I own, or have read, the following books highlighted in red:

    * Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg (Quercus) - Swedish; 1st Novel
    * On the Floor by Aifric Campbell (Serpent's Tail) - Irish; 3rd Novel
    * The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen (The Clerkenwell Press) - American; 4th Novel
    * The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel
    * Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Serpent's Tail) - Canadian; 2nd Novel
    * The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) - Irish; 5th Novel
    * The Flying Man by Roopa Farooki (Headline Review) - British; 5th Novel
    * Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (Quercus) - American; 4th Novel
    * Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding (Bloomsbury) - British; 3rd Novel
    * Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (Faber & Faber) - British; 2nd Novel
    * The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - British; 2nd Novel
    * The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy (Jonathan Cape) - British; 6th Novel
    * The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker) - American; 1st Novel
    * The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury) - American; 1st Novel
    * Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Atlantic Books) - American; 7th Novel
    * State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury) - American; 6th Novel
    * There but for the by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) - British; 5th Novel
    * The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard (Alma Books) - British; 2nd Novel
    * Tides of War by Stella Tillyard (Chatto & Windus) - British; 1st Novel
    * The Submission by Amy Waldman (William Heinemann) - American; 1st Novel

Honestly, I don't recognize more than half the titles or authors listed. I have read a grand total of one: There but for the by Ali Smith, which I'd gladly just hand the award, I loved it so much. It fits the definition of unique and imaginative, with lyrical language.

Unfortunately, I haven't once been contacted to casually hand the award to an author whose book I enjoyed. I know, life is so unjust.

 

I have The Forgotten Waltz on my Kindle and it's my current "before I fall asleep" read. So far it keeps my attention, the writing style is good to good plus but I can't see this as a prize-winning novel. There but for the  kicks its butt.

I'm not sure I'll have time to read just the ones I own or can get hold of easily via interlibrary loan. And I simply can't afford my normal Grand Search to find and purchase what's in print via Amazon/Amazon.uk. I've outgrown that bit of insanity. No time, no money, no energy to pick them up. My membership in the Longlist Club has officially lapsed.

When it comes to the Shortlist, the odds are better I'll read a couple of those. But before I get that far, instinct tells me it'll come down to Ann Patchett v. Ali Smith, judging from critical attention and the fact Patchett's book was passed over entirely for the NBA. Sometimes that acts to boost the profile of a really great book - because judges seem to pay attention to this - and look, here it is on the Orange Prize List.

I'm just saying.

 

 Interesting facts:

    * This year's list carries eight British authors, seven American authors, three Irish authors, one Swedish author and one Canadian author.
    * The following author has previously won the Orange Prize for Fiction: Ann Patchett (2002)
    * The following authors have previously been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction: Emma Donoghue (2011), Jane Harris (2007), Ann Patchett (1998) and Ali Smith (2006, 2001).
    * The following authors have previously been longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction: Roopa Farooki (2010), Anne Enright (2008) and A.L Kennedy (2000, 1996).
    * The following author has previously won the Orange Award for New Writers: Francesca Kay (2009).
    * The following author has previously been shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers: Roopa Farooki (2007).
    * There are five first novels on the 2012 longlist.

 

Five first novels! Amazing. But I know some are stuck in there to encourage authors who've produced fantastic first efforts (Tea Obreht, anyone?), challenging them not to buckle under in their sophomore attempt after such huge attention the first time around.

Pressure... Pressure... Pressure

 

The Shortlist will be announced sometime around May 29, when each author will read from her nominated book. Soon I'll post on a few I've prematurely whittled out, based on such solid guesses scholarship as judging the level of skill illustrated in first paragraphs (which actually speaks volumes), or what I've read about the author which I liked or didn't.

Remember: there is a method to my madness. And that's all I'll say.

 

 

Sunday Salon: March 18, 2012

 

 

A big part of me wants to use today's platform to go on a tirade against all the callous people I've dealt with over the past few weeks  but what good would that really do. Eveyone falls into the Deep Pit at one time or other and the fact I live on a ledge far enough down I can barely see a pinpoint of light puts me in a category with loads of other people, therefore unexceptional. It's cool and damp here, like a cave, so could be worse. I hate the heat, and sometimes the sun, so maybe it's here I'm best suited. Dare to poke your head out, expecting others to be compassionate despite the fact I've developed the huge, freakish eyes of those who dwell in the dark, and you'll be used as a stepping-stone for the "above" people who are bigger, therefore better, than you. If you're one of these people, you'll know who you are from the bit of sting you feel, the acknowledgement of your shame. Ah, but that's assuming you have a conscience.

And that's how my life life's been going. Enigmatic, maybe, but a shot back over the bow to a few people who more than deserve it and are fortunate I haven't named them. A pox on you and I will not let you ruin this week as well.

Now, let's talk about books.

First off, the Frank Delaney interview. God that went well! I did a good enough job picking the questions, he blew me away with his answers. It's of course up here on Bluestalking, as well as in the Chicago Tribune Local edition. Hoping Library Journal will pick it up, too. I review for them and have asked pretty please. It may be upcoming.

Funny aside that made that in some ways embarrassing debacle (trust me) a bit less painful, I received an email from a publicist/marketing person re: Mr. Delaney's answer to my question about technology and what impact it will have on book publishing. He went into his feelings on book blogs and how much he loves them. She sent me a note, along with a ton of other bloggers I'm sure, praising him for his stance on literary bloggers. From  my own interview, of course, without her realizing it! Made me laugh. Flattering, too, of course, as she enjoyed the interview.

I'm planning to post separately re: the recently announced Orange Prize Longlist, so I'm not ignoring that but just delaying it a bit. Building the suspense and all that, right?

Riiiiiight.

 

Received this review copy out of the blue and they couldn't have picked a more willing blogger. I've long struggled with my complete lack of religious belief, though positive views on some things about religion/associated with religious belief, only no one's yet written anything I've found helpful on the topic. Most spew venom (SEE: Hitchens, Christopher - may he rest in peace) or, on the other side, make me want to put my finger down my throat and vomit. But Alain De Boton is, so far, hitting this particular nail right on its very  head. Loving it. He writes so well. I really do enjoy his work.

 

 

Another funny coincidence, I'm an advisor to a nonfiction publishing house and the latest author pitch they sent me for evaluation was so similar to De Boton's book it could have been its companion. I really hope they accept it for publication. It's a book I think is sorely needed in this literary genre that's been nothing but abused by those with a slanted agenda.

Still working on The Last Storyteller. A bit hard reading this after the aforementioned negative experience interviewing him (not him, personally, but...) but the beauty of it... Swoon-worthy. Sorry to sound like a broken record but no other nationality writes so well as the Irish. Except the gems of the U.S. South, and many of those authors' ancestors hailed from Ireland. Scotland, as well. And England. But, so far as I can tell yet, mostly Ireland, as did parts of my own family. I had two red-haired, blue-eyed grandfathers of Irish extraction, whose genes somehow hopped over all my other exclusively brown-haired and eyed relations to settle upon me. Statistically improbable but my blue-eyed, auburn-haired daughter is mightily grateful.

Further on genetics, it's my belief one reason the literature of the American South is so astounding owes itself to Irish immigrants settling there. When that light bulb went on I thought, "I am so original! I shall write a book!" #Turns out I'm not the sole soul to have noticed this connection, not that this means another book - from a different viewpoint - would be amiss. I simply wouldn't have the time, despite the inclination. A scholarly paper, perhaps? A long article? I think I have a few hours free in late 2018. I'll throw it in the pot, where a nice stew's already bubbling away.

 

 

And I'm not quite sure what to make of this:

 

A Rap Tribute to James Joyce by Frank Delaney

 

Otherwise, reading away for review, book clubs I've been asked to run online, prize candidates and a shameful amount of library books I checked out because a review comes under my  nose and I can't NOT pounce.

Especially dangerous are all those lovely literature blogs listing outstanding books read recently. If they're short I tell myself, "Surely I can fit in this ONE!" Trouble is, it's never just one.

Here's one:

 

 

Alison Wonderland by Helen Smith

 

Amazon:

"After Alison Temple discovers that her husband is cheating on her, she does what any jilted woman would do—she spray paints a nasty message for him on her wedding dress and takes a job with the detective firm that found him out. Being a researcher at the all-female Fitzgerald’s Bureau of Investigation in London is certainly a change of pace from her previous life, especially considering the characters Alison meets in the line of duty. There is her boss, the estimable Mrs. Fitzgerald; Taron, Alison’s eccentric best friend, who claims her mother is a witch; Jeff, her love-struck, poetry-writing neighbor; and last, but not least, her psychic postman.

Clever, quirky, and infused with just a hint of magic, Alison Wonderland is a literary novel about a memorable heroine coping with the everyday complexities of modern life."

I thought you'd agree.

And:

 

 

Spurious by Lars Iyer

 

 

"A tiny marvel of comically repetitive gloomery.... [A] wonderfully monstrous creation."  
—Steven Poole, The Guardian

"Viciously funny."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"What could be more fun than laughing at intellectuals? This, Lars Iyer's first book, sprang from his blog, Spurious, which sprang from his career as a philosophy lecturer at Newcastle University. I'm still laughing, and it's days later. But who, exactly, am I laughing at?"
—The Los Angeles Times

"Ought to be unreadable, but manages to be intelligent, wildly entertaining, and unexpectedly moving instead."
—The Millions

 

YUM! 

 

# How Celtic Culture Invented Southern Literature by  James Cantrell