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Do we want to read classics or bestsellers?

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

As all of you literary coves by now surely know, last week something rather dashed important happened in the world of books. The shortlist for the Man Booker prize was finally announced, and the reading public let out a collective sigh – some exhaling in relief (Well, at last!) and others no doubt in frustration (‘So why did I bother reading The Slap?!).

I have, admittedly, not read any on the list yet, although my partiality to the picaresque means Parrot and Olivier in America is on my to-read list. At present however I am deeply embroiled in another Booker book, though one written forty years ago. For it is the winner of the Lost Man Booker prize of 1970 that, bless its dear heart, is trying to grab my attention: J.G.Farrell’s Troubles.
I must confess to having a rather curious relationship with the book.  For although when I pick it up I do become instantly absorbed, I do giggle at his amusing turn of phrase and observation, and although I do recognise the gravitas of events occuring behind the Evelyn Waugh-like (comical era) façade; once I put the book down, I find my compulsion to read the thing diminishes. Having mulled it over I believe the problem lies in the fact that we have here a case of great writer (and his writing really is great) who wasted his talent on a weak plot. Nevertheless, I persevere.

So I ask myself – does winning the Man Booker prize actually mean anything? Are the judges solely looking for what is ‘new’ and supposedly (though inevitably rarely) ‘unique’ rather than what is ‘good’ (i.e. highly readable by mass consensus)? And which, if either, is more ‘important’?

The ultimate litmus test is of course which breed of book fares better with time. No matter my mixed opinion, the fact is Troubles is being read 40 years after being written; and most of the books on my shelf are at least twice that old, despite for the most part never being ‘bestsellers’ when originally published.  Will Dan Brown, on the other hand, still be read in 80 years time? I hope not.

And I take comfort from another book I recently read, Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction, which through the hilarity of the author’s palpable despise for some Bestsellers of the 20th Century, did at least offer proof that many bestsellers, with certain notable exceptions, are soon forgotten.

The question of whether one would and/or should rather read an entertaining rollick of a bestseller or a more serious work of literary merit is of course an old one, but I would nevertheless be interested in any opinions and preferences you, dearest blog-readers, may have.

My own views on the subject have become shamefully muddied by moving back-stage, as it were, from being a reader to working in a publishing company. For if a giant, friendly¸ splendidly-attired book-fairy now popped into sight, as I sit editing away at my little editorial desk, to give me a choice: I may either help publish a multi-million selling instant hit, or a slow burning, potential future classic of a novel; which should I choose?

Georgina Phipps, Editorial Administrator

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