Asleep at the gates

Publishers toss Booker winners into the reject pile

The Times of London: They can’t judge a book without its cover. Publishers and agents have rejected two Booker prize-winning novels submitted as works by aspiring authors.

One of the books considered unworthy by the publishing industry was by V S Naipaul, one of Britain’s greatest living writers, who won the Nobel prize for literature.

The exercise by The Sunday Times draws attention to concerns that the industry has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent.... The rejections for Middleton’s book came from major publishing houses such as Bloomsbury and Time Warner as well as well-known agents such as Christopher Little, who discovered J K Rowling.... Critics say the publishing industry has become obsessed with celebrity authors and “bright marketable young things” at the expense of serious writers.

Wow; and yet, not surprising. I think it's funny how the Times had to detail who Naipaul is.

I've only read Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur, about an overly-educated man in Trinidad-Tobago who makes something of himself. I really enjoyed it, thought it was bitingly funny and conveyed well both TT and, ironically enough, how a little knowledge can go a long way in our undereducated world.

In a lot of areas, it seems there are no standards anymore, and things are no longer properly judged on their merits. Some thoughts on why:

-As big corporations gobble everything up, everything becomes homogenized and safe. Nobody is willing or able to ditch the company line and go with their gut, so we get a bunchof slush pile readers at publishing houses unable to go beyond the vapid and formulaic.

-The standards at all the broadcast networks have slipped so much that we're regularly exposed to unwitting mediocrity--bad writing and illogical stories dominate our comedies, dramas and most damning of all our journalism. Fed tripe, is it any wonder that we're unable to discern pearls?

-It's interesting, I think people in general are more arrogant now. They're pandered to by advertising and personal technology, and everyone belives they're deservedly the man. But when you go strutting around, it's hard to pay attention to--and respect--your surroundings, and learn. Paradoxically, people who deep down know they're hollow have this surface arrogance but lack the real confidence that comes from actual competence.

-In our lowbrow culture, who reads anymore? How many people actually have a liberal education, learning for the sake of learning rather than to make more money? And who has the patience to develop good taste? Much easier to be as crass as popular culture has become, to go with the flow and skim through life.

-Closely linked to all this is how celebrities and the wealthy have hijacked everything around us. Even the gatekeepers get overwhelmed by the tidal wave of spin and hype; awed and bullied by star power and money, they find it easier to say no to a seeming nobody than to a celebrity who comes pushing their latest 'book.'

Things will be okay, though. The Web, like no other medium, both rewards competence and punishes idiot gatekeepers. And it has an insatiable appetite for good content--most of it consisting of the written word.

Even if we're still waiting for www.vsnaipaul.com.

Cover image of V.S. Naipaul's In a Free State via A Novel Idea website.