Interstellar Ineptitude

The customary Booker Prize winner is, like the MFA novels battling for the laurel, a product of many compromises. On the one hand, the legacy institutions cling desperately to the remnants of their prestige during an era in which the very notion of prestige is as precarious as the production of literature itself: finding any book worthy enough to not further demean the reputation of the Prize by its bestowal is difficult enough; add to that the mutually hostile demand that it might be adored by the general public.