J udging the Booker prize is like being in a band. A band will often bring together a very disparate set of people, their only thing in common the fact they’re in the same group. And a good band takes account of the interests and strengths of its members – that’s how you get a unique sound. Being part of this year’s Booker prize judging panel – chaired by Mary Beard, and featuring the writers Patricia Lockwood, Raymond Antrobus and Rebecca Liu – felt much the same. We were all very different, but we had a common cause: to pick a good winner.
Both bands and Booker prize panels are, at least ostensibly, democracies (though in Pulp , I’m the singer, so I make more noise than everybody else). But they shouldn’t be bland democracies. Mary didn’t expect us to toe a party line, and our panel managed to avoid what can sometimes happen when you’re on a jury and you end up agreeing on the least offensive option.
Walking into the final judging meeting last Saturday, I had three books in mind that I would have been happy to see win, but I had no idea who we’d land on. We seesawed around quite a lot, and it took a while, but we eventually managed to settle on a winner. And no scones were thrown at each other in the process.
We agreed that The End of Everything by M John Harrison is not a particularly easy book to read. But that’s not because it’s badly written – it’s actually very well written. The author is telling us that the thing that has gone wrong with the world is something that no one can really understand. For too many readers, Harrison has flown under the radar – this book is a culmination of his craft.
I judged the Booker prize while touring – the 163 eligible novels helped fill long, usually very boring flights. I couldn’t lug around a massive bag of books, so I had to read them on my iPad. I wouldn’t recommend it as a reading experience, but in this case it did help me be fairly objective – I couldn’t be put off by a rubbish cover. I also wasn’t aware of the author’s name when I was reading a book, meaning any conscious or unconscious prejudices that I may have had towards them disappeared. I sometimes had to do a judging meeting while on tour – when in Sydney, the time difference meant one of the sessions ran from 1am to 3am (luckily it wasn’t the night we played).
I ended up reading The End of Everything three times. During the re-reading process, some of the books deepened – you saw bits that you missed on the first read – and others shallowed out – you felt like you’d got everything the first time round.
Going into the process, I was worried it would put me off reading. I also felt, rightly or wrongly, like I was the least qualified judge – the odd one out on a panel of established writers and industry professionals. So in some ways I’m surprised I enjoyed it so much. I’m definitely never going to read 163 books in a year again, but I’ve certainly become a faster reader – I now finish a book in three or four days (though I don’t know if that’ll last, or if I’ll slow down to my usual tortoiselike pace again). And I’ve discovered contemporary writers I love, who I’ll continue to follow.
I’d never been in a book club before this; reading had always been a solitary pursuit. But in the way that reading a book is sometimes a welcome relief from your own consciousness, listening to what the other judges, with different modes of life, had to say about the books was fascinating. Anyone who’s invited to be a Booker prize judge is in for a treat.
