Tom Roper's Weblog

Howard Jacobson wins Man Booker

As everyone now knows, Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker with The Finkler Question. It was richly deserved and of the three of the six of the short-list I read, by far the greatest novel. The only pity is that the BBC coverage was such a shambles. They continued to interview Michael Portillo while Andrew Motion was speaking, and then cut Howard Jacobson's acceptance speech. What did they fear he might say, I wonder?

While I may have missed my target of reading all six of the short-list by the night of the prize-giving, I shall press on. In the end, both East Sussex and Brighton and Hove libraries managed to supply all the books before the prize-giving.

Inadequate, pimpled and single

It would be easy to join the chorus of outrage at Andrew Marr's remarks at the Cheltenham Festival. He was reported in the Guardian to have remarked that, 'a lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people.' Unfortunately, the brief to put the case for bloggers was given to someone from a Tory blog, who is probably guilty as charged. Marr is making a fetish of the medium; bloggers are exactly like journalists or any other writers, that is to say usually mediocre, sometimes moronic and very occasionally interesting. When he edited the Independent I had to stop buying it, so inane were the leaders he wrote. They read like a poor sixth-former's essay.

Dryden

Michael Gove is odious and his plans for education nothing short of disastrous. I never trusted the man ever since his too frequent appearances on Newsnight Review, when he would be beastly to the other panellists and rude to the presenter. That said, I think some of the commentators on his recent pronouncement at the Tory conference, demanding that 'Dryden, Pope, Swift, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Austen, Dickens and Hardy – should be at the heart of school life', have missed the point. Catherine Bennet writes in the Observer that 'only a sadist would inflict Dryden on our schoolchildren'. Now I doubt that Gove is that familar with the writers he cites, but let that pass. I read, and enjoyed, Dryden at school. He isn't an easy read, but neither are Shakespeare, Chaucer, Virgil or Homer. To understand much of his work requires a knowledge of Restoration politics, no bad thing. And his contemporary and collaborator, Henry Purcell, is known to every child through Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

I came to Dryden through pastiche. An older boy write some verse in the school magazine based on the section from Absalom and Achitophel that satirise Zimri (that is George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham): But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon This was cleverly adapted to describe a master at the school, revolving moon becoming an afternoon, the butt being a teacher compelled to teach a variety of subjects he did not understand. Having enjoyed the pastiche, I sought out the real thing, and enjoyed it. Later I studied Dryden in class. I realise that not every school child will enjoy him, but I did not enjoy trigonometry a great deal, but it was still useful to learn. I worry that Catherine Bennett and those who consider it sadism to teach children poetry lower horizons so much that, at the one time in their life when they have time to read, pupils will be kept within the confines of a narrow syllabus that excludes anything complicated and difficult. And there will be no chance to go and discover Dryden for themselves in the school library, as I did; Gove will have closed it.

Ascot and York

Ascot 305: Redford
Ascot 340: Sirvino
York 355: Poet's Place

Reading the Booker shortlist: a week to go

New readers start here: I began an exercise on 7 September, the day the Man Booker shortlist was announced, to reserve them through the public libraries I use and read them all by the prize-giving, a week away today, on 12 October. The last time I reported progress, it looked as if I would not achieve my goal; I was a long way down the waiting lists for some of the six titles.

However, I should not have been so pessimistic. I was delighted to find that East Sussex came up trumps, so I now have Tom McCarthy's C, Emma Donoghue's Room, and Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America all waiting to be read. Brighton have Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room waiting for me on the reserve shelf, so all I have to do now is read them by Tuesday. I took back Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question today. Compared to Andrea Levy's The Long Song, the first of the six I read, this was much more a novel, subtle and complex. I've read nearly all of Jacobson's novels and his themes are no surprise, but are handled here with even greater wit, skill and art than before. A note for Sussex readers: there is a PhD waiting to be written on the place of Eastbourne in Jacobson's œuvre.

It is impossible to compare two books as different as The Finkler Question and The Long Song, but I have no doubt which is the greater work. At the moment, were I the panel, I'd hand Howard Jacobson the prize this instant.

Is this a fair test of public libraries? Of course not. The ability to supply copies of the entries for literary prizes is only one way to assess stock provision. One would also want to examine how easy it is to obtain a copy of the canon of English literature, how well foreign literature is represented, in translation and in the original, the level of provision of works by local authors, of experimental fiction, and so on.

Looks can be deceiving. In 1978, when I first worked in Child's Hill branch of the London Borough of Barnet library service as a library assistant, my first impression was that the shelves contained nothing but the works of Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer. As I came to know the stock, I came across a copy of B.S. Johnson's The Unfortunates, his novel in which the reader can arrange and read the chapters, apart from the first and last, in any order. This seemed out of place with the historical romances, the family sagas, the westerns, still then a live genre, and the crime novels that made up most of the stock. But someone had had the intelligence to see that a public library is not a bookshop, and that it should have room for material that will not be borrowed frequently.

September's job-search: candidate feedback in mime

Times are hard. There's so few jobs being advertised, CILIP have cut back on number of issues of the Gazette that will be published for the rest of the year, citing 'significantly reduced levels of recruitment advertising'. I have had nothing from any of the agencies I am registered with.

Just as I did at the end of August, I summarise below my job searching activity for the past month. I have had two interviews, and, though I have not yet had an offer, there seems to be the likelihood of employment. In September I applied for jobs in the following sectors: Higher education: 2 Private sector: 1 Health: 2 Many applications simply disappear into short-listing panels' waste paper bins. If I don't receive feedback on why I haven't been short-listed, I always ask for it, but few employers can be bothered. Here are a few replies: 'Many thanks for your email, I can confirm we received your application for the above role and that you were not shortlisted on this occasion. I am sorry to say we don’t have capacity to provide individual feedback at shortlist stage. I can advise that we did have a big response to the advert for this vacancy and it was a strong competition.' 'I am afraid that you were not short listed on this occasion. I am afraid I cannot give you individual feedback on the reason for this other than to say that we had a very high number of applications and a very high number of these applications were excellent. However the short listing panel had to make a decision on interviewing those who met the spec the most closely. They commented to me that this was very difficult due to the high calibre of almost all of the applicants [I like the use of almost here-TR]. I am sorry I do not have better news and I thank you for your interest in [name redacted]' 'As I am sure you will understand, we cannot undertake to give detailed feedback to candidates since we simply do not have the resources to provide such a detailed and individual service for the large number of candidates who both apply and are interviewed for our positions each year. Prior to commencing recruitment for any post, we establish a very clear and precise person specification and list of competencies for the role and these were used by the selection committee to match the skills, experience, abilities and aspirations of the candidates to the job requirements. The final decision in relation to appointing to this post was taken after full consideration of all of these areas and on this occasion there were other candidates who more closely met the outlined specifications. I am sorry that you were disappointed on this occasion.' I have saved the best for last. '[Name redacted] has a policy not to provide feedback other than verbally [and how would they provide non-verbal feedback, I wonder? Mime? A pencil sketch? This was from an educational institution-TR] when contacting unsuccessful candidates who have attended for shortlist interview. Our application form clearly states: [Name redacted] will not enter into discussion or correspondence with unsuccessful applicants about their candidacies.'