Booker 2004/BBC4 reminder...

External Since: Jul 30, 2004 Posts: 87

Just a reminder for those with access to BBC4 that the 2004 Man Booker
Prize coverage starts at 9:30pm tomorrow (Tuesday) with 'Bookered Out':
a show following five members of the public who were given three weeks
to read the twenty-two long-listed titles. This is followed by 'Man
Booker Prize 2004: Live' at 10pm from the Royal Horticultural Hall in
London, which will include the announcement of the winner.

Although David Mitchell is the dead cert to take this one away, my silly
money is on Colm Tóibín's The Master. If only because the Rt Honorable
chairman this year is Chris Smith, a ministerial queen with a weakness
for Victorian literature and upper-class fag hags. Tóibín satisfies him
on both counts by chronicling the Victorian times of Henry James,
throughout which his good friend Lady Wolseley enters each scene
'dressed like thunder and lightning', advising him how to dress and
behave accordingly.

Sarah Hall's The Electric Michelangelo is the work of a show-stopping
genius so she probably /won't/ get it, unless the Booker panel goes all
Nobel on us and gives it to a woman because she hasn't had it for so
long. Oo-er.

(Yes, I am being sarcastic about the recent Guardian coverage which
implied that.)

--
La Putain du Subtext
"No man can be always a cynic and live." - Thomas Hardy
---------------------------------------------------------
Literary review and rambling at http://subtextwhore.co.uk

External Since: Aug 10, 2003 Posts: 90

"Subtext Whore" <lee.DeleteThis@subtextwhore.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrncn8cf8.15s.lee@subtextwhore.co.uk...
> Just a reminder for those with access to BBC4 that the 2004 Man Booker
> Prize coverage starts at 9:30pm tomorrow (Tuesday) with 'Bookered Out':
> a show following five members of the public who were given three weeks
> to read the twenty-two long-listed titles. This is followed by 'Man
> Booker Prize 2004: Live' at 10pm from the Royal Horticultural Hall in
> London, which will include the announcement of the winner.
>
> Although David Mitchell is the dead cert to take this one away, my silly
> money is on Colm Tóibín's The Master. If only because the Rt Honorable
> chairman this year is Chris Smith, a ministerial queen with a weakness
> for Victorian literature and upper-class fag hags. Tóibín satisfies him
> on both counts by chronicling the Victorian times of Henry James,
> throughout which his good friend Lady Wolseley enters each scene
> 'dressed like thunder and lightning', advising him how to dress and
> behave accordingly.
>
> Sarah Hall's The Electric Michelangelo is the work of a show-stopping
> genius so she probably /won't/ get it, unless the Booker panel goes all
> Nobel on us and gives it to a woman because she hasn't had it for so
> long. Oo-er.
>
> (Yes, I am being sarcastic about the recent Guardian coverage which
> implied that.)
>
I've asked for the Booker shortlist books for my birthday next month as
it'll be ages till the winner turns up in a charity shop. I really hope they
don't make a bollock of it this year - have you read Vernon God Little? it
wasn't that bad but hardly show stopping stuff. No big names in there so no
"lifetime achievement awards" . Last year the only other shortlisted books
to raise any interest on the messageboards was Astonishing Splashes of
Colour and The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime - the latter
winning a deserved Whitbread the former being astonishingly bad.

Its the justifications that'll be the most interesting - especially from
Rowan Pelling editor of the Erotic Review. Still it'll keep the Book boards
busy till next year, though I still doubt any winner will match the awesome
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth - 1992 co winner.