The Booker

I suppose I oughtn't to be surprised at Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies taking this year's Man Booker prize.  It was an altogether better read than Wolf Hall, which had too many tricks and mannerisms in it for my liking.  I prefer the writer to be invisible: it is Freddie Forsyth's cranky intrusion into his narratives, for example, that spoils many an otherwise good yarn for me - not that I suggest he's in imminent danger of a Booker shortlisting!  It was the Self-conscious, artificial, modernist stream of consciousness of Umbrella that turned me off: indeed, I nearly gave up on it.  Ought a book to be deliberately made difficult and frustrating to read?  I see this morning that last year's much-derided 'readability' criterion is of less value than that of 're-readability'.  Discuss.  The Garden of Evening Mists is my favourite of those of the shortlist that I've finished so far.  The flapping around in time makes it a little confusing, but the careful construction of the two central characters redeems it.  I shall read Tan Twen Eng's first novel once I've finished the remaining two in this year's shortlist.  I rattled through The Lighthouse in a couple of insomniac hours, and am looking forward to finishing Swimming Home, probably later today.  Narcopolis awaits on the electronic shelf.

It's getting thoroughly autumnal here.  There are some lovely trees round about us, but the two that concern us are not among them.  Thanks to a strong wind from the south and east, the garden is now full of other people's leaves, and there are a lot still to fall.  We were lucky last year in that there were a few dry days in November when I could get out and hoover them up with the mower.  Let's hope this year will be the same.