In James English’s piece “Winning the Culture Game: Prizes, Awards, and the Rules of Art,” he starts by claiming the Booker Prize is somewhat of a fraud because it’s too cheap, too new, the criteria is too vague and the point of the prize is unclear. A quote that stood out to me was, “…that scandal, or the threat and promise of scandal, is constitutive of prizes as we know them … the prize can continue to occupy, discursively, the place of the illegitimate, the embarrassing, the scandalously middling institution of culture—a place with which no “serious” critic or artist wants to be too firmly associated—while securing in fact an even greater symbolic efficacy not only among the mass
consumers of art but among the most specialized producers, the serious (academic) critics and artists themselves” (pg 113). Essentially, English is trying to make the claim that the Booker Prize is essentially a joke that no serious writer or critic would want to be associated with. However, the idea of a scandal draws people into the prize, and the Booker even seems to welcome scandal. More scandal = more press. No press = bad press. Much like politics, when there are strong, disapproving views on a topic, there are typically die-hard advocators for the same idea. For example, if the Booker Prize is receiving intense criticism, there will always be those people who choose to go against the criticism and advocate for the prize. Overall, this article made me feel a little “weird” – for lack of a better word – about the Booker Prize. When I first started taking this class, I was incredibly excited to read award-worthy novels as I felt they had to be good if they were even nominated. However, this piece made me feel like this Prize is a bit of a joke and somehow that led me to feel like the novels were a joke. I still love Shuggie Bain and Burnt Sugar though!
