tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post3774735888718285034..comments2024-03-18T16:55:31.971+00:00Comments on This Space: More Booker falloutStephen Mitchelmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-43459988300435403842007-10-25T18:54:00.000+01:002007-10-25T18:54:00.000+01:00If literary prizes mattered, they wouldn't.If literary prizes mattered, they wouldn't.Stephen Mitchelmorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-65482449263401714742007-10-25T18:45:00.000+01:002007-10-25T18:45:00.000+01:00The correct phrase is a flock of fools. A bunch sh...The correct phrase is a flock of fools. A bunch should only be used in conjunction with bananas.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11708539533684206357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-33446568937083499082007-10-24T09:42:00.000+01:002007-10-24T09:42:00.000+01:00I must confess to never having recorded my reading...I must confess to never having recorded my reading speed, though what does it mean these days when so many books (paperbacks in particular) are puffed out with white space and generous margins to bump up the word count and appeal to that most aliterate of book-choosing concepts, value for money?<BR/><BR/>In any event, surely the book decides the speed, not the reader? You're not going to get much out of Saul Bellow at 50 pages an hour, let alone 80. Similarly, there'd be little point in dawdling for a minute and a half over each page of a Patricia Highsmith suspense novel.<BR/><BR/>I have some concerns with the way Sir Howard Davies, for example, gave his thoughts on the six shortlisted novels in the Independent a week before the announcement; but in his defence, if you read the full text of his speech on the Booker site, the stuff about reviewing takes up literally a few lines.<BR/><BR/>Incidentally I read Winterson's new novel quite quickly too and <A HREF="http://theasylum.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/jeanette-winterson-the-stone-gods/" REL="nofollow">very much enjoyed it.</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-46555471234652943432007-10-24T03:32:00.000+01:002007-10-24T03:32:00.000+01:00I don't understand the logic of single winner judg...I don't understand the logic of single winner judgments. Nor of the collaborative process. I would rather see each judge read and submit a vote independently in a multi-tiered process of elimination. At some set point, if there is a tie for the first choice, perhaps one or two additional votes might be taken, and at that point, if there are three or four at the top--then there would be three or four sharing the prize. <BR/><BR/>I would hope that might be the case more years than not. More realistic, in terms of the comparative merit, and in those years when a consensus selected a single winner, it would mean a great deal more. <BR/><BR/>Setting up a literary honor as though it were a track meet, with a single "winner" makes no sense at all: a publicity gimmick to sell books. No matter how much self-satisfied ego stroking the judges get out of participating in this sort of folly... like the joke; we know what you are, now we're just haggling over the price.Jacob Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07090220157886320148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-75829707459482327352007-10-23T22:56:00.000+01:002007-10-23T22:56:00.000+01:0080 pages per hour...that's astounding. The best I'...80 pages per hour...that's astounding. The best I've been able to get up to was 73 back in the heady days of the late 90s through a diet of amphetamines, sleep deprivation and electric shock therapy. The books I read... not that I can remember much about them, but there were plenty of them. I now average a disappointing 64 per hour, and that's only because of limiting myself to writers of the short, clean, curt style...Camus' Outsider, that kind of thing.<BR/>The lines from Blake, which I read earlier at a furious pace, come to mind:<BR/><BR/>The errors of a wise man make your rule<BR/>Rather than the perfections of a foolAndrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11708539533684206357noreply@blogger.com