Booker Update

Daithí has already blogged about the shortlist, and having preempted the post-writing with a nice heated discussion with me it’s safe to say he covered all the important points.

Except one, which is as follows: The Reluctant Fundamentalist Must Win.

I say that having just finished it, and having also read fellow shortlistEEd (can we make that a word?) On Chesil Beach and The Gathering. I’ll have to read the other three to be sure, but if I’m wrong I’ll be sure to correct myself!

The Gathering starts well, in that I didn’t have the usual sense of dread that I get when trawling through the story of a miserable Irish childhood that inevitably becomes a parody of itself.  I have to be careful here not to give away too much of the story, but towards the end the book gets a bit too formulaic. In fact I don’t think it would be ruining the book at all if I gave away the whole thing, because anyone who has read the blurb on the back cover could probably guess it, and unfortunately would be right. It’s well written, but god why couldn’t it have had more to it?

On Chesil Beach is very good, but possibly suffers from but-wait-its-McEwan-he-can-do-better-ISM.

The premise of a nervous couple on their wedding night is a good one, but the last ten pages (and bear in mind this is a novella so that’s a relatively big chunk) feel too much like he chickened out at the last minute. Maybe it was getting too complex, maybe the simplicity would have been lost in any full exploration of what came next, but in the absence of anything more than what McEwan leaves us with in those pages, it’s hard to be satisfied by it.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist benefits from being both different and relevant. It tells the story of a young man who leaves his home in Pakistan to make a life for himself in America, only to see it fall apart  in the aftermath of 9/11. I like almost everything about it, and would urge you to go and find out why for yourself.

Now I know my views are heavily tainted by the fact that I’ve only read half the list, but still – The Reluctant Fundamentalist MUST win!!