Swans at Bluewater

Breakfast at Carluccio's and the start of a long journey home.
 
Man Booker Prize

Just a couple of comments. Sadly, I was correct about the book that the panel chose for the award – 'The Sellout' by Paul Beatty. It is now being hailed as a great book, but I just wonder how many people have actually read it. Claire Armitstead in The Guardian today said: ‘The Sellout is not always an easy ride’. Well, I don’t mind ‘difficult’ if it is worthwhile, but this book has defeated me. But then she went on to say ‘its riffs are so baroque’ – can anyone explain what is meant by this?

It is obviously thought to be an important book, because of its subject of US racial politics and Beatty does talk quite movingly about the book, but surely the books were not being judged on subject alone. Perhaps I just don’t ‘get’ satire, but my opinion is that when satire gets to the stage where the humour is hard to find, what is being satirised is lost and the whole thing becomes meaningless, I do not see the point. However, it may be just me. I would love to meet some ordinary person who has read it.
 
Anyway, the result does not take away from the fact that we, with our daughters and son-in-law, had an excellent evening at the South Bank Centre on Monday. The six short-listed authors read from their books, talked about their books and answered questions; it was a privilege to be in their company. It is a big hall and it was virtually full; that’s a huge number of interested people and good to see. The fact that there was a contest was totally lost, as we sat absorbed by the whole event. And we went for a good meal afterwards! Fine company and a great evening.