Another BookerAward winner read

I've just now finished "Oscar and Lucinda," and that makes 12 Booker Award winners that I've read so far.

I enjoyed Peter Carey's book immensely and read with interest several reviews of it that have been posted to this blog in recent months.

I see "Oscar and Lucinda" was one of the Booker winners included in the "Best of the Bookers" competition, and it will be interesting to see which one the judges select -- although the "word" is that Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" is the favorite. "Midnight's Children" is on my list of Booker Winners I hope to read during 2008.

I would repeat that it's also greatly worthwhile also to read the other books that each year get placed on the short-list -- many of them, in my opinion, are even better than the book the judges felt deserved the prize. I would point to "Cloud Atlas" and "The Master" as examples.


MEL

Oscar and Lucinda - Farm Lane Book's Review

This book started off really well. The characters were well drawn, and I felt an emotional attachment to them from the beginning. The plot flowed smoothly until about Oscar's arrival in Australia, when I found it lost it's pace and grip on me. I think that without the tension between Oscar and Lucinda this part of the book was lacking that magic spark. I ploughed on through these lifeless, boring pages and was grateful when it improved in the last 50 pages - I loved the shocking ending. Overall it was very good, but could do with being a slightly shorter.
Rated: 3.5 out of 5

Trevor's Review of Carey's Oscar and Lucinda

When I started this book I knew I was in for something different. Two gamblers fall in love and conspire to transport a glass church across the outback in colonial times? And it's good? Yes, it is good.

Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda was a great trip for me. I loved being immersed in the details of the 1850s and 1860s. I especially loved being immersed in the details of the mind from this period. This is not a simple love story. The characters feel deeply about many things, and have many different feelings: guilt, pleasure, holiness, despair, longing, loneliness. The list could go on. It's a rich rich book.

While the basic story is what's written above, it is more honest to say that the transporting a glass church thing is just something that happens in the book. It was a way for Carey to really dig into deep questions of the soul--faith, doubt, righteousness, hypocrisy, wickedness, the fragility of relationships. While I read this book I really cared for the characters as they struggled to find their identity amidst so much external and internal conflict.

The book is also pretty funny. There are several great parts that made me laugh out loud. It's the way Carey describes things and his sense of timing. But that same talent helps him also achieve a devestating effect in the reader. The comical story is real, but so is the tragedy and the despair. The relationships are so important to the characters, who have struggled so hard to connect with anyone, yet the relationships, while honest, are also desperate. It's hard to read at times for fear of what discoveries will be made.

The books started slowly, though not unpleasantly. We see Oscar and Lucinda growing up, experiencing their rather harsh childhoods. Oscar is a bit strange to others. Lucinda too, only its because she's a rather strong willed woman. Both recognize their situation, and even though they recognize that they should not worry because they feel they are being exactly who they should be, it still hurts. On a side note, almost, they each become addicted to gambling. Ultimately they gamble everything they care for on each other. This all somehow leads to a very insightful look at faith, colonialism, love, death.

Somehow in this book Carey has taken a million minute, seemingly unimportant details, and compiled them into something touching and important. I like the way one of the Best of the Booker judges described it as building the Taj Mahal out of matchsticks (or something along those lines).
4 stars out of 5.

"Best of the Booker" Shortlist Announced

As first posted here in February, the Man Booker Prize for fiction will present a special award to celebrate the prize's 40th anniversary this year. The "Best of the Booker" will honor the best overall novel to have won the prize since its inception in 1969. A similar award was created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the prize; Salman Rushdie won the "Booker of Bookers" for his 1981 winner, Midnight's Children.

The judges have just selected the shortlist:

• 1973 - The Siege of Krishnapur (Farrell)
• 1974 - The Conservationist (Gordimer)
• 1981 - Midnight's Children (Rushdie)
• 1988 - Oscar and Lucinda (Carey)
• 1995 - The Ghost Road (Barker)
• 1999 - Disgrace (Coetzee)

A full report from The Guardian can be found here. In the opinion of their critics, Rushdie is believed to be a favorite to win this award as well. However, the decision is in the hands of the public who have an opportunity to vote on their favorite from this list. The press release on the Booker Prize website includes voting instructions.

Let the voting begin! Which one of these is your favorite?

Laura's Review - Oscar and Lucinda

Oscar and Lucinda

Peter Carey

433 pages

Oscar Hopkins grew up in southern England in the mid-1800s, under his father’s iron rule. As a teenager he left his father’s house to become an Anglican minister. He was an introverted and backward young man, called “Odd Bod” by his seminary colleagues. Surprisingly, he befriended Ian Wardley-Fish, a bit of a rake who introduced Oscar to betting on horse races. At the same time, Lucinda Leplastrier grew up in Australia, and came into a sizeable inheritance as she approached adulthood. She bought a glass factory and made her way as an independent business woman. She also became involved with a social group that spent considerable time gambling on cards. Returning from a visit to England, Lucinda met Oscar, who was travelling on the same ship, having decided to take the gospel to New South Wales. Eventually these two empty, dysfunctional people discovered their shared addiction to gambling, and a relationship of sorts blossomed. Their addiction took a bizarre turn when Lucinda bet her fortune on Oscar’s ability to transport a church, made completely of glass, to a remote location in the colony. The novel concludes with this adventure and its consequences.

Peter Carey’s Booker prize-winning novel works both as a love story and an adventure set in an untamed part of the world. The characters of Lucinda and Oscar are well-developed, and the “supporting cast” is equally colorful. The plot gets a bit fantastic at times, and I never quite understood the source of attraction between Oscar and Lucinda. Nevertheless, from the very beginning I was caught up in their lives, eager to learn when and how their paths crossed, and even more curious about the story’s conclusion. I found Carey’s other Booker winner, True History of the Kelly Gang, more enjoyable and better written, but would still recommend Oscar and Lucinda as a very worthwhile read. ( )

My original review can be found here.