This week I made more progress with my Booker reading and I finished two of the novels on the longlist. This means that I have finished four books, and I have a further nine to go. At this point I doubt if I’ll manage to read twelve out of the thirteen books before the shortlist announcement on September 23 (one novel will only be published on the day) but the important thing is that I’m enjoying the journey.
Initially Audition by Katy Kitamura and The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller seem very different plotwise but now I’m at that point where themes are recurring in the longlist and so there are similarities.
Audition’s unnamed narrator is an actress of the stage who is going to meet her agent in a restaurant when she finds a young adult waiting at her table. When she greets him, he tells her that she is his mother. The narrator cannot think of any evidence to support this claim. She is extra nervous because she doesn’t want her husband to think she is cheating on him. To make matters worse he enters the restaurant. The meeting evolves into a discussion of complicity.
The second part opens with the narrator and husband living together with their ‘son’ now a fixed member of the family. The book then details the interactions between these three protagonists.
Both confusing and vague, my theory is that the book itself is a play, albeit an experimental one. The characters play off each other as they are in the theatre where one can jump to a second part without any form of closure (theatre experts, you may correct me on this!). Thematically I saw it as a book about trust, faith and the requirement to be loved. However, as there are no clear answers, my interpretation is just one of many.
Despite the concise and clear writing style which creates a deceptive simplicity, I can see Audition dividing readers. It certainly requires more than one reading for the nuances in the narratives to emerge.
Next up is The Land in Winter, Andrew Miller’s second dalliance with The Booker Prize. In 2001, his novel Oxygen was shortlisted and given the high standard of The Land in Winter, I will not be surprised if it happens again.
The novel follows four characters: Edgar, a doctor; his wife, Irene; Bill, a moneyed immigrant; and his wife, Rita. The setting is rural England during the year 1962, in which a December blizzard caused power outages and caused some of the country villages to become landlocked. Throughout this frosty atmosphere we follow these four protagonists. Some commit acts they shouldn’t, some are innocent, some have a mysterious background, some have experienced traumatic events.
As in Audition, these protagonists want to be loved, and all have different ways of showing it. There are many family dynamics at play as the two men reflect on their relationships with their fathers which, in turn, formed their characters. Once again, the theme of identity plays a big role. None of these people are suited for country life, yet they all try their hardest and manage to various degrees.
One aspect I enjoyed about the novel is Andrew Miller’s use of subtlety. Other than a tiny description of what each character is doing in the present day, Miller merely drops hints and clues about these people’s past: some will surprise. In a time when exposition is a bit of a problem in novels, I found this technique more satisfying. And, to use a cliché, The Land in Winter is a page turner. There’s an ‘old schoo’l’ Booker feel, and I’ve always felt it’s good to have a couple of these on the longlist.
In conclusion, the two novels, are different in style but seem linked in different ways. Although The Land in Winter is the more accessible, don’t be fooled: it contains lots of weighty topics, and both books were satisfying in their own way.
