The post (“Fat Head”) is one from the past that attracts readers who tend to be of a different stripe than my regular crowd.  Almost universally they hate the post and want to weigh in on it.  It’s unlikely any of them come back to follow the comment thread.  It’s my guess that most of them don’t even read the entire post, much less the comments of the irate readers who came before them.

One could say that it probably doesn’t matter one way or the other whether I approve a comment or not, if nobody will notice or care.  The question only really comes up in my mind because I feel some sense of obligation that my site reflect some sort of journalistic reality.

Anyway, what do you think?  Approve everything?  Blast anything that annoys me?  Remove the entire post so I stop hearing from that segment of… humanity?

Okay, I’ve read every book on the entire long list, and I correctly chose five of the six short-listed books, as I’ve done once before in 2009.  So I’m confident enough to put myself out there in picking a winner, although I’m torn between what I consider two very strong choices.  I mentioned as much when I reviewed them.

When I read The Sense of an Ending, I was positive it would win.  Since then, I keep having visions of Jamrach’s Menagerie.  I knew it was special the very first time I heard the title.  So that’s my pick.

See what I did there?  I hedged my bets!  Now I can also say that nothing would make me happier than to see the prize go to Pigeon English – the book rescued from a slush pile to take its rightful place among the literary elite.

That’s enough out of me.  Hopefully I can sleep now.  At any rate it’s somewhat disgraceful to be blogging in one’s underpants.

http://www.stephenking.com/promo/11-22-63/promo_page/

If you haven’t already heard, he has a new book coming out on November 8.  Let’s all pre-order it so he can buy an extra-big cake.

This book is being billed as a ‘cowboy noir’ – whatever that means – but I would call it simply a picaresque novel set in 1851.  There aren’t any cowboys in it and I would also argue strenuously that it doesn’t qualify as noir, either.  Something about The Sisters Brothers makes us want to invent a new genre for it, that’s all.

I’m a nitpicker, a nitpicker with a bachelor’s in history, so I want to give this book the usual treatment to show that I don’t play favorites.  Many of the period details are more appropriate for a book set in the 1880s, a generation later.  The toothbrush – not mass produced in the US until 1887 and no American patent until 1857; not in general use in the form we would recognize until 1937.  I haven’t tracked down mint-flavored toothpaste, but I’m willing to bet it’s post-Victorian and I’m thinking WWI-era or later.   The cigarette – available in France in 1830 but not in the English-speaking world until 1853; commercial cigarettes in the US, 1865.  The other object to excite my interest was the single appearance of an indoor water closet.  1851 significantly preceded the Wild West milieu we know from film.

Speaking of film, the one I would compare this book to the most closely is O Brother, Where Art Thou?  It also reminded me a bit of Cold Mountain and Henderson the Rain King, although if you’re familiar with either you’re probably wondering why.

I’m waffling about discussing the book itself, because I doubt anything I could say would do it justice.  The graphic nature of the violent scenes somehow transcends the level of crime and adds a spiritual dimension, helping us to identify with Eli Sisters and to see him, ultimately, as sympathetic.  The bizarre incidents make an odd sort of sense and cohere in a way that justifies their presence as more than random.  Every incidental person has a message of import.  Unless we possess a weak stomach, we simply can’t stop turning the page.

I’m ranking this book with the books I’ve loved the most.

Half Blood Blues gives us a look at Nazi Germany from a perspective we most likely haven’t seen it before – that of American blacks and mixed-race Germans.  Added interest comes from Edugyan’s skilled evocation of pre-war jazz.  Friendship, rivalry, failed romance, and an unconventional beauty make this an interesting, unpredictable story.

I confess, though, that I found the dialect tiring to read.  While the plot was intriguing, it seemed like the most dramatic moments happened offstage.

The problem is that it’s a decadently easy read, almost an airport novel.  It has many of the elements of a spy thriller:  sexy women, mysterious men in suits, fancy cars, corrupt politics.  It’s like a James Bond story in which James Bond is kind of a dork and doesn’t have a gun.

It also has a great minimalist sensibility.  It made me think of Kawabata’s Snow Country.  It’s atmospheric and thoughtful, with that great Russian sense of depressive nostalgia.  Granted, it won’t win the prize this year, but I think it’s deserving of its spot on the short list and I’m curious what Miller will write next.

Which, unfortunately, this book did.  I was irritated by most of the characters.  I didn’t buy the chemistry that was supposed to exist between the protagonist and her main love interest, and the sex scenes were straight out of a romance novel.  The emotional development didn’t quite ring true.

There were things that worked in this book.  Yvvette Edwards has an ear for dialogue.  I was interested in her exploration of the spiritual arc of an unlikeable character.  The battered-woman storyline made sense.  All together, though, it clunked along between sections of inconsistent quality.  I’m not really sure why it made it onto the Booker long list in the first place.

It would probably make a good film, though, with the adaptation in the right hands.

Perhaps it’s the topic, which is about Romania in the late 80s before the revolution.  Perhaps it’s the length – the other short listers were all, well, shorter.  Otherwise I have no explanation.

What’s great about The Last Hundred Days is the way McGuinness captures the irony and humor of Eastern Europe in the face of political repression.  I’ve read a number of books in translation by authors of the region, and it seems that he really nails it.  The details make the story believable, and, as it turns out, the author did live in Romania during this time period.

Anyway, I thought it was great.  Good luck getting it on this side of the pond, though – it doesn’t have a US publication date scheduled at this time.

Neener neener neener.

I haven’t read Half Blood Blues yet – the one title I missed – but I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it’s better than The Stranger’s Child, the one I misnamed.  When you start reading the long list but don’t finish it in time, it’s nice to know that there are still some “winners” left in the pile.

I have yet to read Snowdrops, A Cupboard Full of Coats, Half Blood Blues, The Sisters Brothers, or The Last Hundred Days, but I’ve read at least a couple of paragraphs from each and I have been looking at the Ladbrokes odds off and on over the last two weeks.

The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes

The Stranger’s Child – Alan Hollinghurst

Jamrach’s Menagerie – Carol Birch

Pigeon English – Stephen Kelman

Snowdrops – A. D. Miller

The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt

Okay, that last one was so tough I’m practically sweating blood.  If I can finish something else from my stack before the press conference, I may come back here and change my mind.  I’m basically basing my guess on the realization that I’ve been saving The Sisters Brothers for last because it’s the one I most want to read.