Introducing students to stimulating literature
New Jersey students exposed to Man Booker Prize fiction
Richard Trama is a literature and writing professor at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
During the first days of the Fall 2009 semester, one of my students asked, "What's the deal with this Man Booker? I see this Booker advertisement on the covers of the novels that we are reading and I'm thinking you must work for them or something?"
No, I explained, I did not "work" for them. But, as a literature and writing professor at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, I like to expose students to modern and contemporary works of fiction that I feel they otherwise would not encounter. My hope in doing so is that students' interest and curiosity would be piqued, that they would go out and find other pieces of fiction that are intriguing, works that address a wide variety of subjects, thus, stimulating thought, discussion, and reaction.
Then, on the day that the shortlist was announced, I received a message from Lyndsey Fair, of Colman Getty Consultancy, graciously inviting me to attend the 2009 Man Booker Award Ceremony. Without thinking twice, I gratefully accepted.
You see, for the past decade I have used the novels - winning, shortlisted, and even longlisted novels when they became public in 2001 - of the Man Booker in my literature and writing courses. In the past I have had students form groups and play judges, having them read the shortlisted titles of a given year, allowing them to simulate what the Man Booker judges go through in deciding which title earns the award. Sometimes the awarded novel was the same as the original winner; often, the outcome was different. Regardless, the students had a chance to grapple with the difficult, but engaging process that is the evaluation of "what is literature?"
In other courses, I have students read Man Booker titles in a thematically linked curriculum. Like St. Andrews University, this year the freshman seminar committee at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey chose The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Moshin Hamid as its required title for the incoming freshman class, The theme for the freshman class is power. Two of my present courses are reading Hamid's novel, along with Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K, Jones's Mister Pip, and Adiga's The White Tiger. Another one of my classes will read Hamid's novel and Coetzee's Disgrace among other long- and shortlisted authors. A colleague who teaches upperlevel literature will be teaching a course on the Modern British novel using the winners of the Man Booker from the past ten years.
So, attending the award ceremony (in 2009) became a part of my process in following the importance and influence of the Man Booker Award to the field of literature. And the ability to report to my students that this process is not merely an abstract concept in the minds of intellectuals, but a tangible process that expects the participation of many individuals beyond the world of publishing is no small expectation. I commented to students and colleagues, family and friends, that often, when expectations for an event or opportunity are so high, the realty of the experience never lives up to those expectations. However, in respect to the 2009 Man Booker Prize ceremony, the experience far exceeded any of my expectations. Certainly the company at my table was dynamic; the venue was beautiful, awe-inspiring, and humbling; and, the knowledge that in the Guildhall were the movers and shakers of the British publishing industry and the authors that help shape the literary landscape was exciting. But, the speech given by James Naughtie, Chairman of Judges for the 2009 Man Booker Award, was a particularly memorable part of the ceremony. He not only reminded the participants very pointedly and very lyrically that it was the literature that brought us together there at the Guildhall, but he also he kept us riveted to what he was saying right up to the final announcement of Ms Mantel's name as winner for the 2009 Man Booker Award.
So back I went to my institution and students, bringing the tangibility of a process in which they, too participate. For if the Man Booker is a "literary thermometer," then that thermometer reads the temperature of individuals and participants as far reaching as across many mountains and ponds. And I will continue to do my part in reading those temperatures.
