tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post112557034333691950..comments2024-03-29T07:15:11.234+00:00Comments on Grumpy Old Bookman: The (UK) National Short Story PrizeMichael Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11338398159818400930noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1144146768258549682006-04-04T11:32:00.000+01:002006-04-04T11:32:00.000+01:00Well, a minority of two... I tend to agree that if...Well, a minority of two... I tend to agree that if people are silly enough to go in to the arts rather than doing something useful they certainly shouldn't be rewarded by taxpayer's money. Getting away from literature for amoment, the two most subsidised forms of entertainment here in Australia are ballet and opera. Guess who goes to see ballet and opera? A clue: not poor people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1134097216440098112005-12-09T03:00:00.000+00:002005-12-09T03:00:00.000+00:00Thank you, very interesting!Thank you, very interesting!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1133064186309572382005-11-27T04:03:00.000+00:002005-11-27T04:03:00.000+00:00Thank you, very interesting!Thank you, very interesting!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126106297726157302005-09-07T16:18:00.000+01:002005-09-07T16:18:00.000+01:00A short story competition in which entries are not...A short story competition in which entries are not read anonymously? Spooky! (What’s the betting that the organisers will shortly announce that anonymity will indeed be enforced, and that any ‘confusion’ on the matter is attributable to their own regrettable failure to make this clear in the first instance?)<BR/><BR/>But I want to comment on the subject of state (or indeed, any) sponsorship of the arts. Far from being a new phenomenon, it is probably as old as art itself: I would guess that the cave painters of Lascaux, for example, got time off huntin’ ’n’ gatherin’ in order to do their work. And without sponsorship we would, to cite only two examples among many thousands, lack the music of Mozart and the art of Leonardo.<BR/><BR/>But times have changed. We now live in the affluent society, a society richer than our ancestors could even have imagined. As a result, <I>the arts no longer need to be sponsored</I>. Which means that the onus is on those who believe in sponsorship to justify it.<BR/><BR/>As it happens, for reasons many and varied, literature is the least sponsored of the arts, and where it is, the effects are mixed. It may be that some support is necessary for music and the visual arts (and if you think I am contradicting what I said in the previous paragraph, I can only say that you are an egregious pedant), but I doubt that any sponsorship of literature is justified at all. <BR/><BR/>Take the novel. The novel is popular art par excellence. Since its beginnings with Don Quixote –- please let’s not argue about it; for present purposes, it doesn’t really matter where you find its origins -– it has always paid its own way. What’s changed? I recently commented (GOB, August 17) that the health of the novel would be completely unaffected by the abolition of all creative writing courses. To this I now add my contention that it would not notice the disappearance of all sponsorship (except in so far as sales figures are affected -- distorted? -- which is enormously). I am prepared to bet that no Booker-winning novel would have gone unwritten had the Booker never existed.<BR/><BR/>Now poetry might be affected by the abolition of sponsorship . . . And a good thing too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126026982827314362005-09-06T18:16:00.000+01:002005-09-06T18:16:00.000+01:00So the scoundrel O. Henry would not be allowed...O...So the scoundrel O. Henry would not be allowed...<BR/><BR/>One must look at the conspirators involved, anyway, and I wouldn't believe them even if they claimed submissions were "anonymous." <BR/><BR/>Not for a minute.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1126000641120566782005-09-06T10:57:00.000+01:002005-09-06T10:57:00.000+01:00Absolutely agree with you that anonymity should b...Absolutely agree with you that anonymity should be enforced in the short story competition. <BR/><BR/>In the Romantic Novelists' Association we insist on it for our own Elizabeth Goudge Prize - and that has no money attached at all, just a silver cup that needs polishing and has to be given back after a year. We don't open the envelope containing the author's details until the judging is finished. (This year's winner was Eileen Ramsay, runner up Nicola Cornick; both popular and well respected authors, as it turned out.) <BR/><BR/>The problem, of course, is that blind tasting is high risk for the tasters. What if M Amis, I McEwan and J Barnes enter and yet the prize goes, say, to a member of the Crime Writers' Assocation? Even, God forfend, a Romantic Novelist? The Emperor's New Clothes would disappear in a puff of the proverbial followed by some serious lightly boiled to the visage.<BR/> <BR/>Damn good fun for the rest of us, of course. <BR/><BR/>Wonder if they dare risk it?<BR/><BR/>Jenny Haddon (er - Chairman of Romantic Novelists' Association)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com