What's in a Prize?

At a recent book discussion group we talked about Inheritance of Loss by Indian author Anita Desai. The book won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, the most coveted book award in the United Kingdom. But opinions about the book were mixed. One member of the group who especially disliked it wanted to know how it had won a major prize. This is a question I have been often asked; I suppose anyone who conducts a book discussion, or stands at a library circulation desk talking about literature with people has been asked the same question often.
For one thing, tastes differ. Even on the level of ‘literature,’ by which I mean writing that takes itself seriously as art – about one in a hundred book by my count – there are books that some people just don’t like. But with literary awards it goes beyond that.
Whether it’s the Pulitzer, the National Book Award or the Nobel Prize, there is as much politics that goes into each year’s selection as there is consideration of the merit of the work. Sure, Octavio Paz gets a Nobel Prize, and Nadine Gordimer and Czeslaw Milosz. But Elfriede Jelinek (Austria)? Imre Kertész (Hungary)? One can almost hear the discussions of whether it’s time to give the prize to a woman, or to someone from eastern Europe. It is almost impossible for literature, or anything else that is made in the real world and presented to the real world, to remove itself completely from political considerations and be judged solely on merit.
Get out an almanac sometime and read the list of books that have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. How many have you read? How many have you never even heard of? What seemed so well-done in, say, 1942 (Is This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow) or 1995 (The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields), may be less than compelling today. Moreover, nobody remembers the reason that particular author was thought to merit a major award that particular year.
I think literary awards are a great way to keep track of what people who appreciate literature are reading. I use them in selecting books for book discussions, and for my personal reading. But I don’t kid myself that because this book won this award this year, it’s the best book out there.