Early favourite Joseph O'Neill's absence was one of a few surprises, writes Eileen BattersbyLiterary Correspondent
LOUD WAS the lamentation that greeted the failure of the pre-race favourite to reach the final six of this year's Man Booker Prize.
Now that New York-based Irish writer Joseph O'Neill's Netherlandis out of the running, attention may be fully directed at the novels that did reach the interesting shortlist announced in London yesterday. Included among the contenders is the other Irish writer, Sebastian Barry (53), who has been short listed for The Secret Scripture, the story of an old woman who, having spent most of her life in a mental institution, is faced with its closure.
There is an element of divine justice in this as, at the time of the announcement, The Secret Scripturehad the lowest sales of any of the 13 long-listed titles. This should change, very quickly.
Barry remains better known as an internationally established playwright, yet he is the only 2008 contender to have been previously shortlisted, which he was in 2005 with A Long, Long Way- not bad for a playwright.
In the new novel, two characters, the old woman, Roseanne, and her psychiatrist, Dr Grene, who is still mourning his wife, give their respective accounts of a changing world, a changing Ireland.
Aside from O'Neill's omission, with a much-hyped novel that had been effusively and ill-advisedly compared with The Great Gatsby, shortlist veteran Salman Rushdie also bowed out, but not unexpectedly, with The Enchantress of Florence. However, two strong Indian novels do feature: Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies; and one of the shortlist's two first novels, 34-year-old Madras-born Aravind Adiga's punchy satire, The White Tiger, a lively Naipaul-like yarn that takes modern India - and the reader - by the throat. If nothing else, this shortlist yet again draws attention to the continuing excellence of contemporary Indian fiction written in English.
Amitav Ghosh, now 52, first emerged in 1986, with the publication of The Circle of Reason, the story of Alu, an eight-year-old orphan who arrives by train in a remote Bengali village to be raised by his childless uncle and aunt. Prior to his arrival, the aunt had only loved her Singer sewing machine. This changes and she becomes fond of the boy. Science rather than affection draws the uncle to the boy, who has an unusually large head. It was a tremendous debut and made Ghosh famous overnight.
Several books followed, including an assured travel book. Yet the relative failure The Glass Palace, an epic, at times worthy tale of 20th-century India, published in 2000, left Ghosh in the doldrums. This has changed with Sea of Poppies, another book on a large scale and one with a historical sweep drawing on the 19th-century Opium Wars. It is rich, earthy and the first of a proposed trilogy and confirms Ghosh's renewed energy.
Probably no one on the shortlist could hope to match the energy, vigour and rage of Australian Steve Toltz's hilarious, though darkly tragic, A Fraction of the Whole. Here is a book that defied the odds in getting published in the first place: it is over 700 pages long and is a first novel. Its theme is a familiar one: that of fathers and sons. Jasper, the main narrator, tells the story of life with Dad, with a little help from Dad, Martin, a man haunted by his many dreams and his many failures, as well as the life-long shadow of his criminal brother.
Toltz's inclusion on the longlist ahead of more established Australian writers such as double Booker winner Peter Carey and Tim Winton was in itself an achievement. Here is the liveliest Booker voice since Vernon God Little. It is worth noting that A Fraction of the Wholedoes have echoes of Carey's Illywhacker(1985). It is exuberant and, for all its length, concentrates on relatively few characters. Certainly a vast shaggy dog of a novel, but one that resounds with uncomfortable truths, such as how a child sees everything and eventually grows into the adult who remembers.
Of the two British contenders, one is very relevant. Philip Hensher's The Northern Clemencyis the longest book on the list at 738 pages. It is a variation on a theme always popular with Booker judges: the "State of Britain" novel - remember Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beautyin 2004? Opening in the 1970s, The Northern Clemencyspans 20 years of British life.
Hensher (43) - author of Pleasured(1998) and The Mulberry Empire(2002) - is an intelligent writer with a critical following; this human, 19th-century-style, traditional and over-long narrative should establish him further. It could, on a shortlist of good rather than great novels, win. Ironically, he is also published by O'Neill's publisher, 4th Estate.
The second British contender, and the only woman, is Linda Grant (57). Her fourth novel, The Clothes On Their Backs, is also set in 1970s Britain and is narrated by the daughter of Hungarian refugees who settled in England. Grant has a forceful, direct, rather documentary approach. Her tone is harsh in this uncomfortable survivor's story. Its inclusion on the longlist at the expense of superior works such as Pakistani-born Nadeem Aslam's The Wasted Vigiland South African Damon Galgut's The Impostorwas contentious and few would have expected it to make this shortlist. It is the least engaging of the contenders and suffers from being yet another bitter, somewhat predictable account of survival.
Ghosh has to contend with the Booker's anti-historical-novel bias. Hensher's more recent social history has a real chance. Unless, of course, the panel is prepared to risk all on the sheer panache of Toltz's wayward and meaningful exuberance.
The winner will be announced in London on October 14th.