This year’s longlist has been a different experience for me, though. The committee is definitely proud of itself for getting a broad field of entries – the geography, the style, the author’s experience – and I think that in attempting to do that they’ve given some high quality books short shrift while honoring other books just to create some variety even though little else recommends the book. But the Booker always seems to attempt to give us a broad range of books from a variety of authors. We just hope that does not include such a wide variety of actual quality!

With the inclusion of Child 44 I wonder if there were discussions among the judges that went something like this: “We need a book that will appeal to the masses. We need a bestseller to get the Booker out there!” At least there’s something noble in that misguided cause, even if they’re actually alienating many of us who have always loved the Booker. Worse than that, though, (and this is a possibility this year) would be if someone like me were on the committee who felt a beloved book was jilted in past years, but who felt that that jilted book that should have won the Booker was Harry Potter, because that’s quality.

At least there’s still hope, though. Several of these books will be forgotten when the shortlist come out.

As far as sounding too realistic at all, the book succeeds in taking a real event and making it into what could be considered a farse.

I guess that, despite its flaws, the book succeeds in sounding – no – in being a playful work of art. Though that doesn’t make me consider it any more worthy of the Booker.

Did you find the book too realistic, since a journalist wrote it.

Thanks for the info on Hanif, particularly the detail about the fantastic elements which sound like they work rather well. I’ve no aversion to the inclusion of such elements, like anything they can be done well or badly and it sounds like here they’re done well.

I may read this one, not sure yet, but your review has made me more inclined to than I was previously.

Now, let’s see if I can respond to your other questions: This is Hanif’s debut novel, though he has been a correspondent for The Washington Post and The New York Times, and he now works for the BBC. So despite this being his first novel, he’s been writing for some time. I guess throughout the book there is evidence of his experience and of his inexperience.

As far as the talking crow and the curse (and don’t forget the vicious tapeworms!) go, I found them welcome elements in the narrative because they exaggerated the “conspiracy” elements to include even the supernatural – everyone wanted Zia dead! I especially liked it in contrast to Zia’s belief that he was the voice of God. These fantastical passages took up only a small amount of space, so they didn’t overwhelm the more realistic elements, and there are plenty of other plots for killing Zia at work, so they didn’t become all important to the ultimate demise of Zia. Still, these elements were, to me, only further entertainment. They didn’t help the novel transcend it’s basic premise – General Zia, how he made people mad, his death, and how it might have happened. The more weighty matters about politics of the region, Afghanistan and Russia, and Afghanistan and OBL were dealt with only sardonically and tangentially.

What’s The Spare Room? I don’t know that (or Carpentaria for that matter).