Comments on Book That's Handicapped to Win the Booker of Bookers Prize

Man, they sure are lame this year.

Oh, my god, that's humiliatingly awful.

Is this evidence that the literary tradition in Britain has finally sunk as low as its American counterpart?

It's really hard to read a book when you're always drunk.

Does that mean John Irving ISN'T the Messiah? Well, golly gee whillikers then, Garp must not be the Great American Novel!!! Oh no!!! (To be honest, Owen Meaney and Cider House Rules very well might be.)

Yeah, lit prizes always attract assholes. Go figure.

P.S.: Pat Conroy makes the short list too.

Why are Seattle audiences such suck-ups? It's fucking humiliating.

Life of Pi is slight at best. Yuck.

Lolita is the Great American Novel. There are no other contenders from the 20th century; only Huckleberry Finn comes close.

American literature's better anyways. Has been since about 1850. Shhh, don't tell.

I'm still beefed that "The Siege of Krishnapur" beat out "Gravity's Rainbow". The Booker Prize, what a fucking joke.

Life of Pi FTW!

Nevermind, I was thinking of the Pulitzer.

Lolita. Written by a Russkie about a bunch of Brits. Hmph. I'm with you on Sam Clemens, though.

nbc, yeah the Pulitzer is WAY more embarrassing than even the Booker. Cormac McCarthy? Really? National Book Award is somewhat less horrifying.

And as long as . . . hmmm . . . I brought up the subject of the Gqeat American Novel, I've gotta throw Catcher in the Rye into the ring. Oh, I know, I know, it's hip to not like it becuse it's so hip to like it, but the book touched a nerve in our society like very few others have.

Paul, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of this book, and this potential award. I fought reading Life of Pi for a while, as is my wont with every "hot" new book "everyone is reading." But then I did. And I felt totally ripped off at the end. I'm actually ashamed to have it on my bookshelf, and when I see someone else reading it, I automatically assume they are an idiot, similarly to anyone who thinks the movie version of V for Vendettta is "amazing".

I liked Life of Pi but it's definitely overrated as you say. Boooo.

I'll still read Booker books if it does, though. Don't worry, I'll fill you in.

Life of Pi pissed me off.

Stranger in A Strange Land for Great American Novel.

@13: Nabokov was enthusiastically American after emigrating here. And Lolita is in no way "about a bunch of Brits." Have you even read it? Or are you confused by the fact that Jeremy Irons starred in the most recent remake?

@15: I loved Catcher in the Rye. Fuck the haters.

Aislinn, never had the pleasure (?) of seeing the remake, so no, I don't think so. But it was set in England. Mbuna.

@21: It was most definitely set in America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita
The remake was not so good, Kubrick's version (with a Nobokov-penned screenplay) was much better.

I'm still with you on the mbuna.

I liked Life of Pi. It was fun, and I enjoyed the discussion about zoos in the beginning. Yes, nominating it for the the "Best of the Booker" is going overboard, but is it really worthy of such a big pretentious hipster flip-out?

1)uh, no, the majority of Lolita takes place in the U.S. The first 30 pages recount of Humbert's life prior to coming to America; his birth, childhood, early Lolita experiences, his shitty marriage to Valeria, his divorce, THEN on the eve of war he emigrates to the U.S.
2)Owen Meany and Ciderhouse Rules are soppy drivel; everyone knows that Garp and Hotel New Hampshire are the best Irving novels.
3)Catcher in the Rye is ok. One of those books you HAVE to read when you're a teenager but don't bear re-reading because you'll be disillusioned.
4)The Great Gatsby is the great American novel, DUH!
5)Lolita counts as an American novel because it's ABOUT America. I quote from the flyleaf: "a cutting expose of chronic American adolescence and shabby materialism..."

Man, i knew Life of Pi sucked as soon as I read the back and found out it's not about the irrational number.

My vote is for Herman Melville's The Confidence Man, where Melville's sense of humor--like Twain's, but more blatantly nihilistic--really comes to the forefront. Mind you, Moby Dick is still, arguably, the stronger work, but that nasty little wink that The Confidence Man keeps giving me always brings me back to its fold.

Other notables would be Ellison's Invisible Man and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

I have to confess I've never been "cool" enough to hate Salinger or Kerouac like we're supposed to, just like I've never been "cool" enough to find Hemingway anything but tedious.

Lolita counts as an American novel because it was WRITTEN BY AN AMERICAN. Nabokov was a US citizen. Look it up. And the book is not only set in America, it is in large part a paean to the real America, of highways and mountains and car seats and motel rooms. It's the book that On The Road wishes it was, but couldn't be, because Kerouac couldn't see, couldn't hear, and couldn't write.

Catcher in the Rye is good too, for a Young Adult novel.

And another undeserving book award thief: Only Revolutions by Danielewski won a National Book Award. WHAT?! I am a committed, dedicated reader and haven't abandoned a book in many years. YEARS! Only Revolutions broke my streak.

Everything I´ve come across that´s won screamed flash-in-the-pan two pages in, with the exception of Zadie Smith´s ´White Teeth´ which has got to be the best thing to come out of Britain since Graham Greene died, and damn well stands up there with the best living Americans (in my opinion, Pynchon, McCarthy, Morrison, and Denis Johnson).

Thank god for this post. Let us not forget, as well, that amongst the bullshit about religion which makes the first 100 pages of this book virtually unreadable there is also a pretty flagarant defense of slavery and fascism, which for some weird metaphorical reason are refered to by Martel as 'zoos.'

Nothing can be as bad as the 1994 Booker Prize winner, How late it was, how late by James Kelman. There were stacks of remaindered copies at my local bookstore. I thought, "How bad could a Booker Prize winner be? I liked Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha." Well I soon found out.

From wikipedia:
One of the judges, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, threatened to resign if it won, and upon the book being granted the prize, stormed off the panel, saying, "Frankly, it's crap."