With my review of These Days, I’ve finished the shortlist for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. So, it’s time for my feature in which I decide whether the judges got it right.
This time, the decision is difficult, because there are no books that stood out for me and also because it has been several years since I read some of the books. With the Walter Scott Prize, in particular, I often have to wait a while before the books become available in my library, if that ever happens. In this case, I finally was able to check out the last hold-out just recently.
Let’s start with the books I liked least. I am really not a fan of Simon Mawer. I always feel a great distance from his characters, plus I do not appreciate his apparent compulsion to mention certain female parts in every single book. This time, I found Ancestry, about his own ancestors, a little more interesting in subject matter, but I still noticed those same issues.
As for Adrian Duncan’s The Geometer Lobachevsky, about a Russian surveyor in 1950s Ireland who decides not to return to the Soviet Union, I acknowledged the book’s descriptive passages but said I felt meh about it. It doesn’t really have much of a plot but is more about day-to-day existence and the details of work.
I really didn’t like any of the characters in Robert Harris’s Act of Oblivion, about the hunt that begins after the Restoration for two men who signed the death warrant for Charles I. Harris’s recounting of brutal acts of war on both sides made me lose my usual preference for the Royalists. This book was interesting in its portrayal of the wildness of New England in the 17th century, though, as that’s where the two men go, with their pursuer behind them.
I found it hard to follow which narrator was speaking in I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnanbalam. This book was about one of Paul Gauguin’s teenage Polynesian wives, not a very willing partner. Yes, I said one. Although I found some things in this book confusing and the viewpoint really foreign to me, it was more interesting to me than some of the others.
I think I liked the next two books about the same. They were both interesting and beautifully written. The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane is about a community searching for a lost boy in the 19th century Australian Outback. These Days by Lucy Caldwell is about a family caught up in the Belfast Blitz. It is the actual winner for 2023, and it’s a compelling read.
Although again, I didn’t think there were any stand-outs this year, the novel I liked best was The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry, about the grief and guilt of Thomas Hardy after the death of his wife. Hardy has been oblivious to his wife’s unhappiness until he discovers her diary after her death.
This novel just runs better with my own interests as an admirer of Hardy’s work. So, I pick The Chosen. Nevertheless, These Days was my second-to-best choice, so the judges were at least in the ballpark.
What? Me Read? 