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Pipped at the post

Lloyd Jones had high hopes of winning the Man Booker Prize for his novel Mr Pip.
Not to be unfortunately. The award went to Irish writer Anne Enright.

I think the most surprising aspect of the news coverage was the spurious connection between the All Blacks failure at the Rugby World cup and not winning a literary prize. Wrong. One endeavour relies on the direct conflict between two equally matched teams. Literary awards are random. There is no opponent and the work was performed in different places at different times. The All Blacks played badly on the day and lost. Utterly objective. Lloyd Jones performed brilliantly but just didn't win on the day. Utterly subjective.

It's getting to the point where news media are more imaginative than advertising in the use of exaggeration and hyperbole.

By all accounts Mr Pip is very good. Here's what the Melbourne Age newspaper said.

I was rooting for Indra Sinha - crikey when did literary fiction become gladiatorial.

Comments

  1. Anonymous6:42 am

    I just finished Mr Pip and I found it disturbing but well written

    ReplyDelete

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