In 2023, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, were two Irish authors and their works. Paul Murray with his work ‘The Bee Sting’ and Paul Lynch with his work ‘Prophet Song’, the latter went on to win the prize.
As a person living in Ireland and entertaining desires of becoming a writer, of course I keep an eye on the world around and what is going on in the field of living writers.
I found it funny that two Irish Pauls were shortlisted for the Booker and promised myself that I will look into their books.
The first to come into my life was the Paul Lynch work. Excited to see what people liked so much that they awarded it a prize I set out to read it.
Sadly the style is incompatible with my short attention span. I did force myself to plough through trying to find that thing that the others saw.
I think I read more than one hundred pages forcing myself to keep at it hoping that at some point it will catch me, sadly it did not. I did think it is a simpler version of Joyce’s stream of consciousness with its word medley lacking spaces and punctuation.
Sadly, I could not finish it.
Disappointed by it I told to myself that if the winner is so hard to read then second place must be worse, so, although I did buy Paul Murray’s ‘The Bee Sting’, I added it to my library without ever opening it.
Recently, while fighting the worst flu I had in years, I was vegetating on my couch after reading yet another murder mystery, telling myself I need to broaden my horizon.
As I was sitting there looking at my library the yellow cover of Paul Murray’s book drew my attention. I must confess yellow is one of my favorite colors and I love bees. I am known to buy a book just because it is yellow and has bees on it (as is the case with Mad Honey).
Anyway, as I was sitting there I remembered about the two Pauls and their journey, maybe time had come to give the second Paul a chance.
I got up on a step ladder, brought the book down (yes they are stacked to the ceiling - one of my joys, my library-heart eyes) and started reading it.
Worlds apart! I find it utterly fascinating that two books that are so different were shortlisted for the same prize, I assume this goes to prove the variety of works considered for the Booker.
I haven’t finished ‘The Bee Sting’ but I am enjoying it tremendously. The writing, the words, the world building, the descriptions, and it is a book that stays with you when you close it and you look forward to get back to it to see what the characters did next.
It did take a bit to draw me in, but that might also be me, when it did succeed though it got me hooked. So, for me the second place Paul is the first when it comes to these two works.