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Two Irish masters vying for this year’s Man Booker Prize
What does the Man Booker Prize mean for established, perhaps even great writers, who have not become huge mainstream successes? Alan Hollinghurst, who famously takes many years to write a book, said it buys time to write.
More than that, though, I suppose it means a far wider readership than before. The Man Booker is one of the most talked-about literary prizes in the English-reading world; it is as mainstream as it gets; and, therefore, it means that a writer on winning it can become known to – and, with luck, admired by – many people other than his already devoted followers.
Colm Toibin and William Trevor are two Irish masters on this year’s longlist. Both have been shortlisted before. Neither has won the prize. Will either of them go the distance this time around?
Trevor has been publishing for half a century. Toibin is, for my money, one of the finest living writers in English. And neither actually have the sort of readership that, say, Ian McEwan has.
How many books by either/both have you read?
Toibin’s Brooklyn, set in an Irish town and New York, is a sparse, elegiac, deeply affecting novel shot through with longing and loss. Its memorable protagonist leaves her hometown for New York; she loses herself, and then finds herself there. Then something dreadful happens, and we see how she is torn between desire and duty, the succour of the familiar and the thrill of the new. Focusing on the themes of belonging and exile, this is one of Toibin’s best novels.
Trevor, now 81, sets his minutely calibrated Love and Summer in a quiet, uneventful Irish town. The action unfolds over the course of a summer in which a reticent farmer’s wife falls in love a photographer. That cursory plot synopsis does no justice to Trevor’s humanity, his alert eye and ear, and his nuanced, beautiful prose. Love and Summer may not be Trevor at his best. But even when not at the top of his game, he is a better writer than most.
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Soumya Bhattacharya on Monday, September 7, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Filed under Books · Tagged Books, Brooklyn, Colm Toibin and William Trevor, Irish literature, Love and Summer, Man Booker Prize, novels
unfortunately i havent read either of them. will have to now that u recommend them.
the trevor…er…ummm…its not another bridges of madison country..rite?
is there any booker winner u have absol hated?
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Soumya Reply:
September 11th, 2009 at 9:19 am
No, no, it is NOT remotely Bridges… The Toibin, particularly, is highly recommended. Read also his stories, Mothers and Sons. Marvellous. Which Booker-winning novel have I absolutely hated? Will have to think. I can’t say I have read them all. And you?
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Looks like you have cast your vote for Toibin. I must confess that i hadn’t heard the name before today but you have done well in selling it to me atleast. Your description of it warrants a must-read. It would also be helpful if you recommended lesser known but good writers through one of the posts. Helpful to the author as well as amateur readers like me.
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Yes, I much admire Toibin. Pity the book didn’t make it to the shortlist. Recommendations are the point of this blog. And I often do recommend writers who aren’t tremendously well-known…
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Rinky Reply:
September 11th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Guess i need to go through your older posts to get them then. I am new to your blog actually. However, count me in as a regular henceforth.
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