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J.G. Farrell’s Troubles has the Lost Man Booker Prize by winning the popular vote (by a landslide — 38% of the vote against five other competitors).
I think Troubles is an excellent choice. I might have voted for it myself, had I voted. I might have voted had there been a bit more time to get through the books. That was one of my major problems with this award: for most, there was too little time to read all six books, particularly given that two were fairly large.
I’m not especially surprised. Haven’t read it but I hear only good things about the book. Would’ve liked to have seen Muriel Spark get it but there you go.
I own this already curiously enough, but haven’t read it yet.
I still remain unpersuaded by novels that are part of sequences winning prizes (Regeneration, Troubles, Wolf Hall). Surely the complete work is the whole sequence, not just one novel from it?
Lee, did you see Sam Jordison’s piece on the Spark over at the Guardian book blogs? He didn’t like it at all, which prompted some interesting discussion (some, and some fairly weak stuff too).
I agree for the most part, Max. Most of the people I know who read Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road, the third in the trilogy, before reading the others, didn’t like it. I’m one of them. I’m sure a lot of that had to do with the knowledge I had failed to bring to the book. That’s somewhat my own fault, but the prize suggests it is, in and of itself, a great book.
I don’t have that trouble with Troubles, though, because it does stand alone as a great individual book. I think the only way it is tied to the other two in the “trilogy” is in its thematic elements. I read The Seige of Krishnapur first, which is the second, and which in chronology takes place before Troubles. If a book really can stand alone as a great book in a year, I have no problem with the awards it garners. Ties to other books might make the experience better, but if it contains greatness in and of itself I don’t mind at all.
Max, I did indeed. My response (KoloKweel) didn’t manage to make him reconsider, but I did have a go!