In a tongue-in-cheek sting operation by the Times of London, major publishers recently rejected two Booker-winning manuscripts submitted anew, one by Sir Naipaul. It shows publishers are terrible judges of talent… or does it?

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 BritainÂ’s greatest living writers, who won the Nobel prize for literature…

Typed manuscripts of the opening chapters of NaipaulÂ’s In a Free State and a second novel, Holiday, by Stanley Middleton, were sent to 20 publishers and agents.

None appears to have recognised them as Booker prizewinners from the 1970s that were lauded as British novel writing at its best. Of the 21 replies, all but one were rejections. [Link]

Naipaul even got the dreaded cold shoulder by form letter:

“We . . . thought it was quite original. In the end though I’m afraid we just weren’t quite enthusiastic enough to be able to offer to take things further.” [Link]

Naipaul got in his usually cranky licks against the critics, but in this case he earned it:

“To see that something is well written and appetisingly written takes a lot of talent and there is not a great deal of that around. With all the other forms of entertainment today there are very few people around who would understand what a good paragraph is.” [Link]

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Quickie book review – I’m-on-the-road edition

Kiran Desai’s new book, The Inheritance Of Loss, soft-launched last month, and I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble. It’s a good tale with a globalization undercurrent connecting IndiaŽs Nepal border with New York City.

Her previous book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was a well-written magically realist vignette on the line between a novel and a novella. Despite the fruitarian title, it was excellent. Her new one is far more ambitious. Rushdie has a highly complimentary but generic blurb on the back of the new one, which I take to mean he hasn’t read the new one yet. Only having read her mom Anita Desai’s Booker-nominated work Fasting, Feasting so far, IÂ’d say I enjoy her writing more than her motherÂ’s (whose work I also enjoy).

She also gets in a bunch of wicked jabs at non-vegetarians, Brits, upper-class New Yorkers, 2nd genners and so on, sheÂ’s not playing safe here. ItÂ’s mutinous that way, just like The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories by Lavanya Sankaran.

(Desai is a far better show-not-tell writer — I liked Carpet because itÂ’s sassy, and I could completely relate to all the jabs at 2nd gen dating; itŽs like an American version of Life IsnÂ’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee. Also, sheŽs an ex-WSJer and seems to be a conservative, which I mention only to boost sales in the Vinod – Razib segment. SankaranŽs biggest f*-you goes out to Mumbaikars who look down on Bangalore, but sheŽs riding the outsourcing publicity wave, so it isn’t quite the declaration of independence it seems.)

My complaints:

• The usual gender one — I often like male authors better, they move plot faster (Vikram Chandra, Rushdie); this book lacks motion, and is sometimes PG-rated where it should be R (a scene where an auntie receives the mildest of insults from a guerilla chieftain) and R where it should be PG (explicit booger jokes)
• Like just about all American 2nd genners, the thrust of the story focuses on the motherland on the assumption that thatÂ’s the biggest market; sheÂ’s borderline 1-1.5 gen, so she has a small excuse
• Which editor allowed through the hundreds of sequential question marks and exclamation points???!!! Makes the editing look amateur and is a pain to read.

Otherwise, highly recommended. Flippant, funny and mutinous as all hell. Sometimes a treatise rather than a novel, but much less so than Carpet, and that makes it all the more entertaining– frankly, there’s a lot to be said.

Desai is reading in Manhattan Feb. 1 at the Rubin Museum of Art, a major Himalayan art collection (via SAJA). Continue reading →