Time to Be in Earnest (21 page)

The other title which caused problems was
A Taste for Death
. This was taken from four lines of verse which I had read, I think in a
Spectator
article, some years previously:

At the time I scribbled down the four lines, telling myself that “A Taste for Death” would be an admirable title for my next novel and would, indeed, probably prove suitable no matter what the plot. When the novel was finished, I tried to find the source of the verse, expecting little difficulty. In fact the lines were totally elusive. My editor and I, helped by Faber staff, culled Auden, Kipling and any other poet who seemed likely to be the author. Again the weeks passed and the novel was due to be printed. It seemed to me that the title was meaningless without the verse, but it could hardly be printed from memory and without acknowledgement. At the last minute the source was discovered simultaneously by an elderly lady living in the Cathedral Close at Norwich and a young woman working on the book pages of the
New York Times
. The lines are by A. E. Housman, published among his later work, untitled and not part of a longer poem. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that the quotation eluded us for so long.

To Cheltenham by car with Nicola to give a talk at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. All the publicists with whom I have worked both here, in America and in Australia have been women and I don’t find this surprising. The job requires a combination of qualities which I think are more often found in women than men: an eye for detail, particularly time (missing a train can upset the whole schedule), an ability both to get on with a wide variety of people while protecting the writer from over-enthusiastic demands, and to be supportive, encouraging, soothing or bracing in response to the individual author’s personality and needs. Writers are not the easiest of people, especially soon after publication day, always a time of trauma. This morning both of us set out in good heart.

It has been a glorious day with great snub-nosed clouds like ethereal dirigibles against a sky of astonishing blue. The feel of the air was spring, the colours the beginning of a late autumn. I like Cheltenham and the city looked its best in the sunlight, the long red banners advertising the Festival giving it the air of an elderly respectable dowager a little surprised at her unaccustomed gaiety. The Festival is one of the most successful and best organized of the English literary events and attracts large and knowledgeable audiences. There were 350 for my talk. I enjoyed myself and so, I think, did they.

It is difficult to assess how a talk will go, but much seems to depend on whether I am tired, on the ambience and on the initial response of the audience. I find it surprising that writers today are expected to be public performers. Addressing an audience of 350 for forty to forty-five minutes and then taking questions is a public performance and writers, often the most solitary of people, are seldom actors. I wonder how Virginia Woolf would have coped with today’s demand that successful writers be seen and heard.

I returned to find a call on the answerphone from granddaughter Beatrice. She is due here with her bridge partner, Rachel, and Rachel’s boyfriend to play bridge in the English squad. Bea said that there were two more friends, whom she ironically described as clean-living boys, who had no bed for the night, so she has told them that they could turn up with their sleeping bags and sleep at my house. Last year there was only one clean-living lad. Next year, no doubt, there will be three or four clean-living boys trooping in with their sleeping bags. However, there is plenty of room and I like civilized, lively and intelligent young people, although I find this passion for bridge incomprehensible in anyone under forty.

This evening there was a call from Paul Bogaards of Alfred A. Knopf about my prospective American tour in January. I had queried whether I could really manage it. I am due to begin at Boston, then on to New York, Washington, Chicago, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and then down to Miami, in just over a fortnight. Paul went through the itinerary with me and pointed out that, with one exception, the flights were not as long as he had expected. He thought it was manageable and I knew that it was important, so I gave in as I usually do. Time will show whether this was wise. But I can be sure of two things: the tour will be organized with efficiency and carried out in comfort.

I was driven to Cambridge by Will Atkinson of Faber through continuously slanting rain to sign books at Heffer’s. We were fortunate to find a parking space in the garage close to the shop, and then dashed through the downpour into Waterstone’s to sign stock. The queue at Heffer’s was long by half-past twelve, and progress slow, mainly because of greeting old friends. Afterwards, as usual, Heffer’s provided luncheon in the boardroom and I gave an interview for the local radio. Grandson Tom and his new wife Mary appeared and Will and I called in at their house for tea before driving back to London in the early evening.

To the Booker dinner with Rosemary Goad, who has edited all my books. It was one of the most enjoyable Booker dinners for us, largely because we shared a table with Anne Elletson, late of Faber and now a BBC producer, who is always a delight to meet. Others at our table were Clare Short with her newly discovered son; Martyn Goff, administrator of the Prize, and Geordie Greig of the
Sunday Times
. There was some muttering about the choice of winner, but not, of course, from Martyn, who is always a model of discretion. All members of the Booker Management Committee are sent copies of the shortlist and I have made a start with the winner, Arundhati Roy’s
The God of Small Things
, but haven’t got very far. It seems to me somewhat lush and overwritten, a beginner’s attempt at a Naipaul or a Rushdie. But I admit to prejudice: I seldom enjoy books seen through the eyes of children,
The Go-Between
being a notable exception.

In announcing the prize, the Chairman, Professor Gillian Beer, suggested there was merit in finding a first novelist as prize-winner; I think this is a mistaken view. The Booker jury are there to reward the best novel of the year. Was this the best? Hardly, I felt. But then, if we set up ten different juries of five, it is unlikely—except in a rare year—that they would award the prize to the same book.

Next year will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Booker Prize. On the whole I think it has succeeded in its aim of celebrating the best of contemporary fiction, although there have been years in which it was difficult to see the winning novel as even worthy of the shortlist, let alone the accolade of best novel of the year. But the prize has always been controversial and this isn’t surprising and is, perhaps, part of its appeal. When I chaired the panel of judges in 1987 with Selina Hastings, Allan Massie, Trevor McDonald and John B. Thompson as my colleagues, we recognized at our first meeting that literary judgement is inevitably subjective and that one person’s masterpiece is another’s pretentious and incomprehensible absurdity. For this reason we agreed never to impugn each other’s taste.

The problem for the judges, which existed when I was Chairman and still exists, is the number of entries. By the time I had got to the hundredth novel I was beginning to doubt my own judgement. The Management Committee has made efforts to cut down the number of entries, but too many novels are entered which hardly merit publication, let alone gaining the shortlist. Then there is the problem that publishing houses with a distinguished list can enter only the same number as smaller houses which may only have published a couple of novels. The entry is further complicated by self-publication, and now by publication on the Internet. Somehow the numbers will have to be reduced, but how?

If I were in sole charge of a literary prize I would arrange things differently. I would appoint a panel of a dozen or so people consisting of literary editors, well-regarded reviewers, booksellers and members of the general public who are lovers of fiction. Each member would submit a list of up to fifty novels which he or she thought worthy of consideration, although there would be no obligation to read all of them. From the total it would be possible to compile one list of fifty novels from those which appeared most frequently. The judging panel would select the winner from this fifty, but they would also have the option of calling in an additional ten. In this way the reading task would be far more manageable, it is unlikely that any novel of merit would be overlooked, and the panel would still have the power to call in a book by a previously unknown author which didn’t appear on the shortlist.

It is for the Chairman of the Booker panel of judges to decide how the judging panel shall carry out its job, although it is expected that all members will read all the novels. The worst way of arriving at the ultimate
shortlist of some five or six is for each panel member to nominate his or her favourite. I believe this was done one year, but it is difficult to see how it could result in a generally accepted first choice. I wanted to achieve a shortlist of novels which all the judges thought worthy of the prize even though we each had a particular favourite. The shortlist is inevitably a compromise. I would certainly have included at least one novel, Ian McEwan’s
A Child in Time
, which another judge heartily disliked and spoke against very strongly, so the five of us would probably, if judging alone, have produced five different shortlists. One has to remember that the Booker novel can’t reasonably be regarded as the best novel of the year—only time will determine that—but is simply the book which five very different people, brought together at one moment in time and after being sated with months of fiction reading, feel is worthy of the Prize. Our final choice of Penelope Lively’s
Moon Tiger
was only arrived at after a long argument which nearly made us late for the Guildhall dinner, and the choice was not unanimous.

The Booker, like most literary prizes, has probably given more pleasure than pain, has certainly stimulated interest in fiction and has provided its share of entertainment, controversy, malice and general ill will. But if I were trying to encourage a young person to read and enjoy modern fiction I am not sure I would begin by presenting him or her with the Booker shortlist.