That's why you need an agent.

Hmm, well, they were submitting books written 30 years ago. I can see how something daring and original in the 70's would seem old hat today.

True: and besides, I could never read Naipaul, despite everybody raving about him. Also I think the booker prize winner ooks are in reality a list of books to avoid. Especially Life of Pi or (gasp) God of small things.

i really liked life of pi.

ah well :)

I'm trying to read Life of Pi right now, because a friend really wants me to. I'm finding it difficult to get into.

Literary Catfight Shines Light, Happily, on a Brazilian Scribe

*fires up Bookster*

Oh dhruva, blessed relief to find I'm not the only one left out in the cold by God of Small Things.

As for the Bookers and most other book prizes, I find I am bored silly by a great deal of what comes with an official "great" sticker on the cover. It's glib to automatically assume the fault lies with the agents.

This really is kind of bullshit.

The exercise by The Sunday Times draws attention to concerns that the industry has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent.

I hate this fake journalism, manufacturing controversy and raising shit where there is none. And the quotes from Naipaul and Middleton at the end certainly make them sound like crotchety and bitter has-beens.

Slush piles are a combination of a sort of bulletin board from a free mental health clinic in 1970's Haight-Ashbery and the diary of a failed middle aged actor right after losing the lead in summer stock Our Town.

There is certainly the possibility that something good could be in there, but the chances of finding it are really slim. On any given day we get in 3 or 4 DSM-IV mortal lock schizo cases describing in detail how adept Ronald Reagan was with a double headed dildo or how the lizard men are in the TV again and three memiors of dudes who were in the Merchant Marine during the Korean war. Pepppered with that are one or two systemic analyses of world events and how it's all the fault of the Jews as written by retired machinists from Michigan (pretty much always Michigan, sometimes Ohio), Vampire Erotica (lots of this) and one or two that are written on typewriters and basically encrypted.

The mental health crisis in this country is pretty scary.

Anyway, really the sheer volume of the submissions make it hard for things to bob to the surface. This is really the point of having an agent, a good one will fight for you and perhaps nudge your deal up there, but even a bad one (expect a pay for play one, never pay them up front) gets your submission under the nose of someone who is going to look at it.