Prize Fiction Reading Log
Name:_Phoebe Carrona__ Date:___8/31/2024___ Entry # ____1_____
1. Choose two key ideas from two different sources from our daily reading assignment (These could be chapters in the novel, selections from the novel AND the contextual materials in our assigned edition, from the novel AND the assigned secondary criticism)
2. Synthesize these two ideas: How do they speak to one another? What are you seeing in their relation? You’re making text-text and text-world connections here.
3. Raise an open-ended question that follows from your synthesis. Given what you’re seeing/thinking, explain also what you’re wondering. What do you think is important we discuss in class?
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PART 1: PREPARING FOR DISCUSSION
SOURCE IDEAS:
- “This year marks the fifth Booker Prize sponsored by billionaires Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman, who asked that their charity not be appended to the prize name, unlike previous sponsors the Man Group. This act of linguistic modesty has saved commentators and critics from being forced to write “The Crankstart Booker”—a tuneless, steampunk appellation”(pg 5)
“The closeddoor talks have been historically nothing of the sort: jurists’ exit interviews are often conducted with a member of the British press, guaranteeing much gossip and a bit of tawdriness. In 1974, Elizabeth Jane Howard pushed for Ending Up, which happened to be written by her husband Kingsley Amis.”(pg 4).
- “Harding’s book doesn’t want respect; it wants a pat on the back. And the overreliance on real-world events is both suspicious and fraught. That much-abused phrase “Based on a True Story” should be incidental to the work, not its fundament, and it clouds Harding’s novelistic judgment. A novel isn’t an op-ed. I’m aware that books with good politics have many readers. But let’s not give them the Booker.”(pg 18)
“His stated inspiration for the Prophet Song is telling. Syria’s tragedies are entwined with religious extremism, history, and geography. They can’t be airlifted to the Republic of Ireland. And by withholding any policy, politics, or individualized antagonists from his novel, Lynch prevents any engagement with the why of such human destruction. It’s a three-hundred-page melody played with every knob turned to ten.”(pg 21)
SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:
How do they speak to one another? What are you seeing in their relation? You’re making text-text and text-world connections here.
1/ A lot of the judges seem to be in the literary world as well as receiving the prize themselves. Does being awarded based on what the judges wanted help the author get some criteria of their own, and just move ideas along in a similar light without making it much different. The current sponsors especially asked that their charity not be added to the prize itself. Charity means the sponsorship so they don’t want their interests to be involved in the choosing of who wins the prize. That would be different according to the author of this article. As prefuse sponsors wanted to be involved in some way with who wins it. ITs like a marketing name that is well known enough that sponsors want to sometimes in past years send messages it seems. Appearly in the past people have pushed for their spouses to win.
2/ This critic definitely has some critiques toward the prize. Which is staying away from detailed politics. It seems that this award isn’t according to this author not deserving of the booker in their own criteria. In comparison with The Prophets Song which isn’t detailed political strife compared to Harding’s book which is detailed and specific in political and social issues.
QUESTION:
How much has the Booker’s Prize changed over the years with who is judging it? Do personal interests of the individual judges fall into how the criteria is formed? How are they selected to judge?
What are some of the personal/business interests that fall into the prize?
What do people want to read?
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PART 2: IN-CLASS WRITING RESPONSE (NAME:__________________)
