SPS Predict the Booker 2020 - and the winner is ...

By Ed McFie

This year’s Predict the Booker Prize, held virtually for the first time ever on Zoom, and compèred by Mr Breslin, saw six Pauline readers making six short presentations on one of six books from the Booker prize shortlist. Their task? To win the audience over by arguing the case for their given book.  

First off was Hari Collins, presenting Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. 

The book focuses on a mother, Tara, and her daughter, Antara, vividly exploring the relationship between the two. Initially, Tara treats her daughter very badly, to the point of physical and verbal abuse, as she recklessly follows her own desires. But as Tara ages, and develops dementia, Antara is obliged to take care of her mother, although her mother never did the same for her. 

Hari argued that Doshi explores ideas about freedom from an unusual perspective. Whereas many novels set a repressive, conformist older generation against freedom-seeking youth, Doshi complicates the issue by presenting it from the point of view of a younger woman who yearns for order and organisation, but is trapped by her mother's refusal to follow the traditional path: for Antara, her mother's non-conformity is as stifling and stultifying as the conformity against which the older woman originally rebelled.  

Hari also brought out the rich and eloquent style of the novel, and drew particular attention to Doshi's use of the symbolism associated with the colour white, something emphasised in the novel's original title (The Girl in the White Dress) but lost in the English version. Nevertheless, he felt Burnt Sugar had flaws, particularly a lack of emotional development which made it more like a portrait than a fully realised novel. 

Next was Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter, with The New Wilderness by Diane Cook: bleak, harsh, desperately sad and (as he put it) very, very good.  

The novel is set in an apocalyptic, climate-change plagued world, where the last patch of green space exists in American California. An experiment is set up: could a group of humans live in a hunter-gatherer environment? Cook uses the frame of the apocalyptic existence and change of environment to explore human relationships, the focal point of the book.

Nikolas argued that interactions and power struggles within the group were intense and well-written - rather like a fusion of Pinter and Lord of the Flies. He found Cook's use of multiple narrative voices especially effective: filtering events through the perspective of a child was compelling, sometimes comedic, and occasionally confusing.  Nikolas observed that Cook had worked in wilderness camps herself, and enjoyed the sense of research and knowledge reflected in the book. However, he also felt that the novel had limitations: the characters are presented as de-sensitized to the brutal violence that surrounds them, in a way that also de-sensitizes the reader.  The online audience were reminded of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a comparison with which Nikolas agreed: but he felt that McCarthy's novel was more powerful because it didn't de-sensitize the readers in the same way. He also felt the ending of Cook's novel was unsatisfactory (but was obviously reluctant to reveal why, so as to avoid any spoilers).  In conclusion, Nikolas recommended The New Wilderness, but advised us not to read it unless we were in the mood for a really sombre novel.    

Following Nikolas, Kiyo Brandreth-Stroud presented Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, a deeply moving debut novel, set in the worn-down Glasgow of the 1980s. 

Shuggie Bain explores a very  intense, intimate relationship between the young Hugh ‘Shuggie’ Bain and his mother, Agnes. The book tackles issues of extreme poverty, Agnes’s escalating alcoholism and commonplace rape, its characters and incidents real, cold and depressing as stone. The one constant is the unconditional love between Shuggie and his mother, who continue to tackle setback after setback. Stuart's novel draws heavily on his own upbringing and is written in Glaswegian dialect which, Kiyo acknowledged, could sometimes make it difficult to read but also anchored the characters to reality. 

 

The online audience asked about the politics of the novel - set forty years ago, the bleakness of its setting is clearly a reflection of Thatcherism's social policies - but Kiyo felt this was actually a more universal story, about the cracks in society, and the redemptive powers of love.  His single takeback of the book was that he felt it was almost too despondent, too depressing to read. 

After Kiyo, Joachim Sciamma presented Real Life by Brandon Taylor. 

The book follows Wallace, a gay, African-American biochemist, raised in the deep South. Wallace is an imperfect protagonist, who reacts in suitably unpredictable ways to different stimuli. His story is littered with injustices, and he is treated in an alien manner as the novel exposes institutional and individual racism, prejudice and homophobia in a university system that believes itself beyond such problems.  

While recognising the seriousness of the issues Real Life addresses, Joachim was largely critical of Taylor's novel. He felt that the writing quality was patchy, and that the book was littered with many poorly written sex scenes, as well as gratuitous and unnecessarily detailed sections on biochemistry.  The book felt as if it had been hastily written to represent Taylor’s own thoughts, and the characters in the book only served to make a point that the author wanted to make, mere caricatures who turn up to deliver their 'message' and then disappear. While acknowledging that the figure of Wallace himself is somewhat of a saving-grace for Taylor, because his anger feels raw and heartfelt, and his character reacts very plausibly to his situation, Joachim's lack of emotional investment in the novel was telling. Ultimately, he felt Real Life had more social relevance than literary quality, and worked better as a conversation starter than a novel - not least, as the online audience pointed out, in the light of this year's BLM protests.  

Next, George Davies presented This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga. 

George began by challenging our traditional ideas of a protagonist, as an ascendent-elect to heroism. Dangarembga presents us with the antagonist to this: her protagonist, Tambudzai, will stop at nothing to improve her situation, in a selfish yet self-preserving manner. She encounters hardship after hardship, and shocking acts of violence to those close to her - acts which she ignores, scorns or even participates in. Tambudzai eventually gives in to the temptation of European tourism-money, allowing her own mother to be exploited as a stereotypical Zimbabwean dancer.

Whilst George read the book with no exterior knowledge of its setting - post-independence Zimbabwe -  the timeless themes of a desperate clawing for money and status were accessible and thought-provoking. Although reading it was emotionally-draining at times (something of a common theme for this year's shortlist), George argued that the novel was despairing, but also inspiring and intriguing. He noted that the title was drawn from an essay by Teju Cole, written after the Charlie Hebdo murders, and reflecting on the different degrees of attention Western readers pay to deaths in their own countries, and deaths further from home - which bodies are 'mournable', and which are not. But Dangarembga writes her book in the second person, pulling the reader in so close that George felt somewhat complicit in Tambudzai’s cruel but actions of survival. He was so impressed with Dangarembga’s moving novel that he has ordered her remaining works for future reading.

Finally, Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King was presented by Monty Brown. 

The book is set in 1935, during Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, modern-day Ethiopia. Mengiste explores the novel primarily through the character of Hirut, an orphan who struggles for self-identity, fights against the fear of Italy and its officers, and strives to protect herself and her body against a cruel, punishing patriarchy.  Mengiste weaves together a vast range of interesting and absorbing characters that serve to shed light on a seldom-explored nation: the novel is short, and easy to read but effectively showcases the desperation of the Ethiopian people. 

Monty praised the way in which the writer focusses on different viewpoints, chronicalising the many dead, although he also felt there were moments when this was less successful - towards the end of the novel, for instance, when the viewpoint shifts to that of an Italian photographer.  The online audience wondered whether it was strange to read a war novel written from a female perspective, but Monty felt that the universality of the story made this insignificant, while recognising that the language of war itself is often very masculine, and perhaps 'conflict' wasn't really the right way to look at some of the issues in this book. Ultimately, he felt Mengiste’s writing style and language created a powerful and compelling story, and firmly recommended the novel. 

With all six presenters having delivered their pitch, it was time for the audience to make their choice in two categories: the novel they thought should win, and the novel they thought would win. Mr Breslin opened up the onscreen poll for the online audience, and added to the suspense by giving us a live countdown as the seconds ticked away, and the polls closed.  And the novel that SPS voters think should win the Booker Prize this year is ....

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, closely followed by The Shadow King, This Mournable Body and Shuggie Bain. Brandon Taylor’s Real Life received 0% of the vote, undoubtedly due to Joachim’s eloquent dismantling of the novel. In terms of which book the audience think will win, the clear choice was Tsitsi Dangaremgba’s This Mournable Body: on Thursday, we'll find out whether or not they were right ...

Huge thanks are in order to the excellent student readers - Hari, Nikolas, Kiyo, Joachim, George and Monty - who read such long, challenging and, yes, emotionally draining books at short notice. Many thanks also to Mr Breslin for helming our first live broadcast with such wit, poise and serenity, and for revealing the significance of The Day the Crayons Quit on his lockdown life. Equally huge thanks also, of course, to Mrs Cummings for hosting and organising the event with her customary good humour and aplomb, as well as to Olivia Levins for setting up and managing the broadcast (and supplying pizza). 

Finally, the book blog would like to thank Ed McFie, for so deftly summarising and condensing the presentations, filing his copy mere minutes after the event ended: truly impressive journalistic skills! 

See you all again for next year's Predict the Booker - hopefully (!) back in the Kayton Library ...!