posted on 13 April 2009 07:36
by
Peter Stockwell
Green Booker
It is not unusual for the Man Booker Prize panel to take leave of its senses, but this is the most bizarre yet. The judges from the 2008 Man Booker Prize are to plant 13 native oak trees to replace the paper used in the 112 novels they read to come to their slightly dodgy conclusion. This, of course, is an opportunity for our spin mad Government to show its green credentials. Every book from now on will be sold with an acorn. The Acorn Police, (with powers of entry, arrest and pushing people over) will be ever present to ensure that acorns are planted. This could extend to newspapers. The Sun will be sold with something quick growing and annoying (Russian Vine), the Daily Mail with roses representing the Houses of Lancaster and York, the Daily Telegraph with an oak and the Guardian with a small fir tree, rescued from a dangerous flood by a person in a woolly hat.
I am nearly at the end of volume six of A Dance to the End of Time. In volume five the hitherto chronological story suddenly goes back to the childhood of the narrator. Methinks I see the hand of an editor spotting that there was no back-story whatsoever to the narrator and it was badly needed. All is now well again and dinner parties are in full swing.
I am also reading Bonfire of the Vanities. Brilliant; read it. There's a man who can write.