The shortlist for the 2012 Orange Prize has just been announced as:

My thoughts on the shortlist

The 2012 Orange shortlist contains an eclectic mix of books. All are well written and none look out of place on a prize shortlist; but whilst I’m not surprised by the inclusion of any single book, the shortlist as a whole is a bit of a shock.

• I correctly predicted only two of the shortlist (The Forgotten Waltz and State of Wonder).
• The two books that I felt were the strongest contenders (There But For The and Gillespie and I) were both eliminated.
• The judges don’t seem to need to bond with characters in the same way I do, as (with the possible exception of Half Blood Blues) all the characters are difficult to bond with.
• The judges don’t seem to appreciate experimental writing as both There But For The and The Blue Book were eliminated.

This surprising shortlist means that guessing an eventual winner is very hard. None of the books stand out above the others and whilst I think The Forgotten Waltz is the best of the group a part of me would like to give some publicity to a lesser known author.

What do you think of the shortlist?

The shortlist for the 2012 Orange Prize will be announced at 9.30am GMT tomorrow. I have tried all the books on the longlist and so, as usual, I will try to predict the judge’s choices.

A Year of Happy Books

This year the judges seem to favour happy books. Darker subject matters were occasionally approached, but when done so it was always at a tangent or through emotionally distanced writing. I didn’t need to get the tissues out at all and never had to confront a disturbing scene. This led to my general apathy towards the longlist as I tend to prefer darker reads.

Decisions, Decisions

I found narrowing down the 20 books to 6 a reasonably easy process. The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, There but for the by Ali Smith and Gillespie and I by Jane Harris cruised through to the final six and I’d be very surprised if any of these were missing tomorrow.

My only dilemma came between State of Wonder by Ann Patchett and Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan. I wasn’t a big fan of either, but both have the writing quality to justify a shortlisting. In the end I decided to include State of Wonder, because those who love it are very passionate and it seemed to dominate the top of many “Best of 2011” lists. In many ways Half Blood Blues deserves the place more because it has such an original tone and if I was on the judging panel I’d put it through. I could also see them both being included at the expense of either The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern or Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg, but as I don’t know the individual tastes of the judges I’ll avoid spending too long debating this with myself!

I also think that The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy is worthy of a space on the shortlist, but I can’t see them choosing two experimental novels and There but for the by Ali Smith is easily the superior of the two.

This means my prediction for the 2012 Orange shortlist is:

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Who Will Win?

The winner of the Orange prize will be revealed on 30th May. I’d love to see Anne Enright take the prize, but I suspect that Ali Smith will be triumphant this year.

Who do you think will make it onto the Orange shortlist tomorrow?

The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard

Five words from the blurb: girl, Los Angeles, mother, photographs, men

The Pink Hotel is the story of a seventeen-year-old English girl who flies to Los Angeles for her mother’s funeral. Abandoned as a toddler, she knows little about her mother and so takes the opportunity to discover as much as she can about her life. She achieves this by finding the men her mother was close to and forming her own relationships with them.

The book started really well and was packed with vivid descriptions that gave an immediate sense of place:

Her bedroom reeked of cigarette ash and stale perfume. Two ashtrays were packed with lipstick-stained filters as if she’d just popped out for another pack. A suspender belt hung from a chest of drawers, a mink scarf was curled like roadkill at the floor next to her bed.

I connected with her and felt immense sympathy for her isolated position.

Unfortunately everything went down-hill after about 50 pages. She formed intimate relationships with one man after another – it was seedy and I became bored by the repetitive nature of the plot. It symbolised important things about personal discovery and growing up to be like your mother, but this storyline held no interest to me and I skimmed about 100 pages.

The ending was well done, but I’m afraid that books with this type of storyline rarely appeal to me.

The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy

Five words from the blurb: Atlantic, liner, fake, affection, deceiving

The Blue Book is set on a liner that is heading towards America. On board are a varied group of people, including Elizabeth and her boyfriend Derek, and by coincidence, Elizabeth’s ex-boyfriend, Arthur. Arthur is a magician and con-man and throughout the book it is difficult to establish exactly who is telling the truth and who is being conned….

I initially loved the structure of the book and the way the narrator directly addresses the reader:

And you’re a reader – clearly – here you are reading your book, which it was made for. It loves when you look, wakes when you look, and then it listens and it speaks. It was built to welcome your attention and reciprocate with this: the sound it lifts inside you. It gives you the signs for the shapes of the names of your thoughts in your mouth and in your mind and this is where they sing, here at the point where you both meet.

Unfortunately things degenerated quickly and I became frustrated by the experimental structure. I couldn’t work out what was happening and the long stream-of-consciousness sections only deepened this problem.

I found it impossible to bond with any of the characters and so I began to skim read – especially the stream-of-consciousness sections. I know this means I’ll have missed some of the more subtle aspects of the story, but it was the only way I made it to the end, which was as clever as I expected it to be.

If you enjoy puzzling over complicated books then you’ll find a lot of rewards in this book, but it was all too much for me.