So judged on their judging they’re not doing too badly. I’m still backing the Galgut for the win but we’ll see what happens.

I’d prefer to read the mini-check list as a menu of possibilities, rather than a set of requirements. As in, historical sense would be a strength (I’d say The Long Song meets that criteria) but not a requirement (Galgut doesn’t have much history to it). That’s perhaps a little kinder than he deserves, but I don’t know how I would go about explaining the collective criteria developed by five readers.

Whatever their criteria, I do think this year’s Booker jury did have a positive bias towards established writers, with a subset bias against those it perceived as overhyped (MacEwan, Amis, then Mitchell when it came to the shortlist). No first novelists (the Giller jury found seven on a list of 13 — probably because two of the three jurors are authors who I think are more inclined to recognize the debut writer).

This paragraph stood out:

“So what did we set out to be, if not popular? Open-minded. That’s to say, we had no preconceived wish to reward particular styles, or genres, or themes, or individuals. We wanted to find books that seemed “the best”, and to base our decisions on what we found in front of our eyes. And how would I characterise this “best”? By all the means that sound familiar, but make their material strange. Good writing (adventurous as well as scrupulous). Imaginative daring (confirming what we feel might be true about the world, by means that are surprising). Historical sense (an ability to see the present in the past, and vice versa, so as to illuminate both).”

I thought it interesting, and a little troubling. Is it good writing to confirm what we feel might be true? Isn’t that just saying he’s looking for books that confirm his preconceptions? That great books are books which are at a fundamental level comforting? What about books that challenge us? That undermine what we believe to be true?

I also wholly fail to see the relevance of historical sense as a requirement. That can certainly be a strength for a book, but I don’t think it deserves anything like that importance.

It seemed very middlebrow to me as a set of criteria, which makes it interesting given that the shortlist does as others have mentioned contain at least three very strong books.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7994914/Philip-Pullman-and-Philip-Hensher-criticise-Booker-Prize-for-including-present-tense-novels.html

I find it interesting that neither you nor John finished the other’s consolation choice!

The only problem with that, of course, is that The Long Song did not even make the Orange Prize shortlist this year.

There is a strong case to be made for now saying that Jacobson could take the prize, if the judges are split between ‘literary’ (McCarthy, Galgut, Carey) and ‘issues’ (Room, Long Song). Could Jacobson be a compromise winner? And, more importantly, will you now be re-attempting it, Kevin?

As for Trespass and The Long Song, I did not think either was perfect (that’s true for every book on the list this year) but did find their strengths outweighed their weaknesses, for me at least. I don’t think that’s the case for a lot of readers, however.