Streams of piss
Startling developments at The Literary Saloon concerning the Orlando Figes saga. They’ve received a message from Figes’ legal representatives asking for certain quotations, about his Russian cultural history blockbuster Nastasha’s Dance, to be withdrawn. It looks excessive to me, but I suppose it is in keeping with the Russian subject matter; i.e. a Kremlin-like love of Free Speech. The LS wonders, with the rest of us, why the book has made the Samuel Johnson Prize shortlist when there is such controversy surrounding it (and this particular type of controversy, which is explained in the LS link). Well, of course, such wonder is faux na�ve. Purely by coincidence of course - because the book has received much praise elsewhere - the judges are delivering what the sponsors desire, and perhaps deserve: attention and debate. So who are the judges? Well, the list astounded me: Michael Portillo, Andrew Roberts, Rosie Boycott (chairwoman), Fiammetta Rocco, and Tim Radford.
Perhaps those on the Western side of the Atlantic don’t know who they are, so let me summarise. Portillo: gorgeous, pouting right-wing Tory politician (possibly the only potential leader to be worried about, actually, but the Party has disowned him); Roberts, gorgeous, pouting Empire Loyalist historian (he appeared on several current affairs programmes in support of the recent invasion, and dedicated a recent book to Thatcher: “thrice-elected illiberal Tory”). Boycott; former editor of right-wing tabloid the Daily Express and woman-in-the-street BBC arts pundit; Rocco, literary editor of the Business Party’s bible The Economist magazine. Do you see a pattern forming here? Radford, however, is science editor of the not-right-wing Guardian.
I once heard of the judges of a big-name book prize decide that not one novel published that year deserved the prize, so didn’t award it. Can you imagine that happening again? I think it would be a good move to have prizes once every five years, or every decade even. As it is, they seem to be more about “getting more people to read � and what’s wrong that?” by giving a spurious authority to literature (prize-winning author, etc), rather than humbly awarding an irrelevant bauble to a great work of literature that, by virtue of being great, is beyond such nonsense.
“A prize is invariably only awarded by incompetent people who want to piss on your head and who do copiously piss on your head if you accept their prize.” (Multiple prize-winner Thomas Bernhard in Wittgenstein’s Nephew)
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Book ‘im Dano Like some unwelcome elderly relat…
- Booker blog
- The dark, spilling universe
- Just a thought
- He tells the truth
