{"id":75,"date":"2006-01-13T02:45:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-13T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=75"},"modified":"2006-01-13T02:45:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-13T10:45:00","slug":"publishers-toss-booker-winners-into-the-reject-pile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/publishers-toss-booker-winners-into-the-reject-pile\/","title":{"rendered":"Publishers toss Booker winners into the reject pile"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eric Mottram used to say that if T.S. Eliot submitted “The Waste Land” to Faber & Faber or any other commercial British press today, the poem would be instantly rejected. The same seems to hold true of writing not necessarily as essential as Eliot’s poem, as the following journalistic ‘coup’ (& the piece does smell a bit of scandal-mongering) from the 1 January edition of the London Sunday Times sugegsts. That VS Naipaul’s ms. gets rejected today could also be read as a hopeful sign \u2014 that the ponderous reactionary novel may no longer be the end-all of publishers and prize givers. Though what would take its place is not necessarily more interesting, only a fluffier lite version of that dead 19C genre, the novel.<\/div>\n

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The Sunday Times January 01, 2006<\/p>\n

Publishers toss Booker winners into the reject pile
Jonathan Calvert and Will Iredale<\/p>\n

THEY can\u2019t judge a book without its cover. 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 Britain\u2019s greatest living writers, who won the Nobel prize for literature.<\/p>\n

The exercise by The Sunday Times draws attention to concerns that the industry has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent.<\/p>\n

Typed manuscripts of the opening chapters of Naipaul\u2019s In a Free State and a second novel, Holiday, by Stanley Middleton, were sent to 20 publishers and agents.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Only Barbara Levy, a London literary agent, expressed an interest, and that was for Middleton\u2019s novel.<\/p>\n

She was unimpressed by Naipaul\u2019s book. She wrote: \u201cWe . . . thought it was quite original. In the end though I\u2019m afraid we just weren\u2019t quite enthusiastic enough to be able to offer to take things further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rejections for Middleton\u2019s book came from major publishing houses such as Bloomsbury and Time Warner as well as well-known agents such as Christopher Little, who discovered J K Rowling.<\/p>\n

The major literary agencies PFD, Blake Friedmann and Lucas Alexander Whitley all turned down V S Naipaul\u2019s book, which has received only a handful of replies.<\/p>\n

Critics say the publishing industry has become obsessed with celebrity authors and \u201cbright marketable young things\u201d at the expense of serious writers.<\/p>\n

Most large publishers no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts from first-time authors, leaving the literary agencies to discover new talent.<\/p>\n

Many of the agencies find it hard to cope with the volume of submissions. One said last week that she receives up to 50 manuscripts a day, but takes on a maximum of only six new writers a year.<\/p>\n

Last week, leading literary figures expressed surprise that Naipaul, in particular, had not been talent spotted. Doris Lessing, the author who was once rejected by her own publishers when she submitted a novel under a pseudonym, said: \u201cI\u2019m astounded as Naipaul is an absolutely wonderful writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, who teaches creative writing, said: \u201cIt is surprising that the people who read it (Naipaul\u2019s book) didn\u2019t recognise it. He is certainly up there as one of our greatest living writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

While arguing that the best books would still always find a publisher, he added: \u201cWe need to keep the publishers on their toes as good books are as rare as hens\u2019 teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Middleton, 86, whose books have a devoted following, wasn\u2019t surprised. \u201cPeople don\u2019t seem to know what a good novel is nowadays,\u201d he said. Naipaul, 73, said the \u201cworld had moved on\u201d since he wrote the novel. He added: \u201cTo see that something is well written and appetisingly written takes a lot of talent and there is not a great deal of that around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all the other forms of entertainment today there are very few people around who would understand what a good paragraph is.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Mottram used to say that if T.S. Eliot submitted “The Waste Land” to Faber & Faber or any other commercial British press today, the poem would be instantly rejected. The same seems to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}