The so-called ‘lost’ Booker prize (for 1970 when there was no prize awarded because of a change in the rules) has been won by J.G. Farrell for Troubles. Other contenders were Nina Bawden (The Birds on the Trees), Mary Renault (Fire From Heaven), Muriel Spark (The Driver’s Seat), and the ‘Aussies’: Patrick White (The Vivisector) and Shirley Hazzard (The Bay of Noon).
The prize was determined by popular vote on the Man Booker website from a shortlist chosen by three Gen X’ers born in 1970.
I find White and Hazard pretty unreadable but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have won. Peter Craven in the Sydney Morning Herald assessed the six novels and said there was “no finer piece of fiction on the list” than Spark’s The Driver’s Seat although Hazard’s novel, he wrote, “deserves a high place on [the] list”. He also rated Troubles highly – “a masterful novel that very slowly gathers momentum”. But he gave his vote to White’s The Vivisector, “a rich, all-encompassing novel full of passion, colour and the music of memory” which he read “some hot Christmas Day, a world ago, when I was young. How could I not give it my vote?” Indeed. Read Craven’s full piece here.