First off was Teddy Ackery, whose pitch for Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other focussed on its sense of freedom and lack of exclusivity. The book's characters are predominantly black, working-class lesbians, and Teddy confessed some early hesitation about the appropriateness of a white, middle-class male reader waxing lyrical about experiences so different from his own. But ultimately, he argued, this was a book about inclusion, a funny and accessible novel that speaks to everyone through its diverse range of characters and themes.
It is not, however, without its flaws. Teddy felt that Evaristo's free and poetic prose style, which lacks punctuation, can occasionally be baffling (especially in passages of dialogue). He also had his doubts about the section based on a character from 1905, which he found forced and unreal, like an awkwardly inserted episode of Who Do You Think You Are. He wondered whether Evaristo's ingenious attempt to draw all her characters together at the novel's conclusion was really necessary: they are compelling enough on their own terms, he thought. However, in the end, Teddy argued, this is a book that feels genuine, and 'outside the box', with a realism that makes it involving for all readers, not just those whose lives are represented in the story.
Next came Adarsh Anumolu, who gave a thoughtful introduction to Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, a novel that presents the last moments of a Turkish sex-worker left to die on the outskirts of Istanbul. As her consciousness ebbs away, her dying thoughts present the reader with the story of her past, her family and the culture in which she lived and died.
The novel's criticism of aspects of Turkish society - the damage caused by its repressive patriarchy, and the way in which faith can become a way of blinding and imprisoning its people - are at its heart, but Adarsh argued that it was also at times uplifting, particularly through the central character herself, whom the reader meets first as a curious, inquisitive child, asking the questions her family can't answer. While the novel's secondary characters can feel sketchy or even mere tokenism, Shafak excels in her depiction of place and sensory detail, with the city of Istanbul appearing in all its fluid, multiple identities. Ultimately, Adarsh concluded, this is a powerful and harrowing novel by a courageous writer, that leaves you feeling its protagonist deserved so much more.
Next came Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter, tackling the book that made even English teachers nervous, Lucy Ellman's Ducks, Newburyport - 1000 plus pages, and only eight full stops. Nikolas bravely took it on - and actually ended up enjoying it. The whole point of Ellman's novel, he argued, is to give the reader a sense of what it feels like to be in someone's brain - or even to be that brain. The brain in question is that of a housewife in present day Ohio, whose worried thoughts spill out in a nervy stream of consciousness, frequently interrupted by song lyrics, fragments of popular culture or simply random words, evoking the natural disorder of someone's thoughts, the constant chaos and buzz of grey noise that permeates our consciousness.
Ellman's collage of latticed thoughts and memories is eccentric, and, Nikolas recognised, wouldn't necessarily win over all readers. It's also dauntingly long - longer, he suggested, than it needed to be - but he reassured the audience that they didn't need to put aside a massive block of time to read it, as the novel's lack of plot makes it easy to dip in and out of. Overall, he concluded that Ellman's ambition to test the limits of the novel would make her a worthy prize-winner, and that her novel succeeded in making him think about how he thinks.
Chigozie Obioma's An Orchestra of Minorities, reviewed by Michael Bryceson, seemed superficially more conventional: a blend of Romeo and Juliet and the Odyssey, the novel tells the story of a poultry farmer's quest for the woman he loves, journeying from his home country, Nigeria, to the island of Cyprus. Although acknowledging that it had less obvious social and political impact than the other novels on the shortlist, Michael argued that this semi-comedic tragedy was still a potential vote-winner.
Particularly of note, he felt, was its unusual narrative perspective, which takes the point of view of the central character's 'chi', his guardian spirit in the Igbo religious tradition: even if things are going wrong, or the character is not acting well, the narrator looks at him in his best light and forgives him. Michael felt that the novel takes a while to get going, especially as there is initially a lot to digest about the central character's context and culture, but overall it is a powerful and absorbing story, with moments of hope and happiness, even if the overall thrust of the story is ultimately tragic.
The penultimate presentation came from Henry Ferrabee, who introduced Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, current bookies' favourite (and controversial through its inclusion on the shortlist before it had even been published). Henry's perspective was that of someone who hadn't read The Handmaid's Tale - the novel to which this is a sequel - or caught its recent television adaptation. This gave him an interestingly open and unbiased angle on Atwood's book, and its presentation of life in a terrifyingly dystopian version of America.
Henry was particularly impressed by the novelist's successful juggling of three different story-lines, each equally gripping, as well as the underlying theme of social commentary, and in particular a warning about the dangers of misinterpreting religion. Although the novel's world is clearly unreal, an exaggerated fantasy, he felt that much of it was unnervingly close to home and might strike a chord with anyone in Trump's USA. On a lighter note, as someone with Canadian roots, he enjoyed the evocation of landscapes and landmarks he knew well, and the overall presentation of Canada as a haven (rather than just the 'neighbour up above').
Finally, in a first for the SPS Predict the Booker evening, we had a presenter who actively urged the audience NOT to vote for his book, let alone read it. Sam Strachan's scathing demolition of Salman Rushdie's Quichotte left the audience in no doubt as to how dreadful he thought it was. Sam's reasons included: its complete inability to connect with contemporary culture; its toothless and unsuccessful satire; the author's vanity and egotism - he appears to have named the hero's love interest 'Salma R' after himself; the paragraphs of pointless padding ...
There were, Sam conceded, some interesting serious moments, where Rushdie actually starts to consider the themes of love, death and romanticism derived from the novel's source in Cervantes. Moreover, the novel has a clever ending - which Sam chose not to reveal, although he hoped, for the audience's sake, that they wouldn't read the novel to find out what it was. But in conclusion, he argued, this is a book about a journey - and even if the final destination is worth arriving at, the journey there is 'just plain tiresome'. Sam's rant was highly entertaining, but the novel itself sounded dire, the work of a self-indulgent writer thoroughly out of touch with his audience.
At the end of the evening, after six excellent presentations, lucidly summarised by Mr Hollands, the audience were invited to cast their votes. And the winner of this year's SPS Predict the Booker 2019 is ...
Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds - a clear audience favourite, with Bernardine Evaristo in second place. Salman Rushdie, to no one's surprise, ended up with zero. Nul points. Zilch.
If you'd like to read any of the short listed books (even Quichotte), they are all available in the library, together with the novels that were on the longlist - some of them at least the equals of those on the shortlist, in the book blog's humble opinion. Many, many thanks to the student readers who heroically gave up their time to tackle challenging works of fiction, and at very short notice too, given that the shortlist was only released three weeks ago (kudos particularly due to Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter in this respect!); to Mr Hollands and Mrs Cummings for hosting the event, and to Miss McLaughlin for organising it.
The actual winner of the 2019 Booker Prize will be announced next Monday, when you can find out whether or not the SPS audience got it right ...
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