The Sea turns tide for literary fiction

John Banville’s Booker win is a triumph for artistic merit over popularity, writes Arts Editor Ian Kilroy.

WHEN this year’s Man Booker winner, The Sea, by John Banville, was published, the critic Peter J Conradi hailed it as the work of a “writer’s writer.” This phrase is really shorthand for, ‘this is literary fiction, a less commercial book’.

Indeed, yesterday Banville himself tacitly underscored this judgment by saying The Sea “seemed to me too poetic a book to win.” He added: “I thought it was a little book that wouldn’t survive against the great beasts that have stalked the literary jungle this year.”

It seems Banville was aware from the onset that he only had an outside chance of winning: something reflected in the bookies’ choice of Julian Barnes as the clear favourite before the prize; they had placed Banville quite far down the list before the race was run.

And, as it turns out, Banville’s victory was by the tiniest of margins. With the judges tied between Banville and Kazuo Ishiguro for the prize, the jury chairman, John Sutherland, had to use his casting vote to break the bind, coming down in favour of the Wexford-born writer.

It is a decision that is widely being seen as a victory for literary fiction over popular fiction, a vote of confidence in the novel as a work of art.

What it reinforces is the importance of literary prizes as a means of rewarding literary excellence, a way to pay homage to artistic merit over straightforward units shifted. That’s why Banville said yesterday that this year’s Booker is good for publishing.

What’s clear is that this year’s Booker is good for John Banville. Last Tuesday, The Sea had only sold 3,318 copies in Britain. Now, with a Booker victory, the book will walk off the shelves - also creating a cascading effect for his earlier books in terms of sales, including 1989’s The Book of Evidence, which was shortlisted for the Booker but which failed to win.

So, while Banville is clearly a surprise win for this most prestigious of literary awards, his is not an unpopular win, especially among critics who have been well disposed to the book.

The same cannot be said for all Booker winners in recent years, however - particularly from an Irish perspective. Last year’s winner, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, was seen as too long and unoriginal a book to scoop the prize from Colm Tóibín for The Master. The victor in 2002, Yann Martel for The Life of Pi, although a popular winner, was seen as pulling the rug from under Cork-born William Trevor, for The Story of Lucy Gault, his fourth novel to make the shortlist.

But this has been a good year for the Booker, especially for the Irish novel. To have had two Irish writers on the shortlist of six - Sebastian Barry was also on the shortlist for his novel A Long Long Way - was good news enough. But to have an Irish author winning the overall prize for only the second time in the competition - that is indeed reason to celebrate.

Not since 1993 has an Irish author won: Roddy Doyle for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Let’s hope it’s not another 12 years before someone scribbling out there today makes it a hat-trick.