It’s official. Booker season has arrived. From now until October my reading will consist of reading all thirteen novels on the longlist.
This year’s longlist is quite a global one, with authors from UK, Canada , US, Hungary, Trinidad , Tobago. Albania, Ukraine, Malayasia and Pakistan. Here’s the list for those who are curious:
Love Form – Claire Adams
The South – Tash Aw
Universality – Natasha Brown
One Boat – Jonathan Buckley
Flashlight – Susan Choi
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny – Kiran Desai
Audition – Katie Kitamura
The Rest of Our Lives – Ben Markovitz
The Land in Winter – Andrew Miller
Endling – Maria Reva
Flesh – David Szalay
Seascraper – Benjamin Wood
Misinterpretation – Ledia Xhoga
As one can see a lot of authors are new to this year’s Booker. The only returning ones are David Szalay, Andrew Miller, and Kiran Desai, who won in 2006 with The Inheritance of Loss.
One Boat is the first of this year’s shortlist that I have read and it’s also a first as it’s publisher Fitzcarraldo’s debut Booker Longlist entry. This publisher is known for their translations. Fitzcarraldo has been nominated 15 times for the International Booker, and in additional to their translations they publish a couple of non-translated titles every year: it looks like they got lucky with One Boat.
One Boat’s main premise is simple: Teresa goes to visit a Greek island. There are a couple of reasons. One is to grieve her father’s death. The second is because she visited this island nine years earlier to grieve her mother’s death.
Teresa then recounts events that happened during her first sojourn and there are flashes of her situation in the present day as she sees if anything has changed. During this personal odyssey, Teresa meets certain people.
Each chapter consists of a meeting in the past or present, a philosophical discussion and some kind of lesson. One chapter is about a man whose nephew is murdered and his sister takes her life and that chapter is about depression, grief and loss. Another chapter is about her ex-lover diver who marries a beautiful woman, There’s the mechanic who moonlights as a poet. With each encounter, Teresa writes about her impressions.
This is not a book for people who like closure. Instead, one sees meditations on all aspects of life: both good and bad. Within this structure One Boat manages to unearth a good number of intricate issues. Already One Boat as been compared to novels by Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy and I can see that as both authors treat their novels as extended discussions although One Boat does not hit their heights (personally I think Cusk tries a bit too hard write about nothing and make it meaningful, but that’s another discussion) but it works as a novel. One Boat is also gorgeously written so there is the pleasure of soaking in Buckley’s erudite style.
There is a lot more I could talk about : how the Odyssey and Iliad have their role to play in the book; the significance of Teresa writing her thoughts, or how love can turn up unexpectedly or equally how it can be deceptive – Jonathan Buckley throws a lot at the reader but as I said, his style makes all these thoughts flow,
As the start of my Booker 2025 journey, I started strongly.
Let’s see how I’ll fare with the remaining twelve.
