Linda Robinson's Reviews > Lost for Words

A recurring discussion with friends is the tendency in films, in writing to look out the corner of an eye at a cultural meme that we could do without anyway. Including a wink*wink in a scene that clearly says "yeah, we know this is sexist, but doesn't the fact that we know we know get us a pass? And isn't that hil-ar-i-ous!" No, it's not. St. Aubyn is skewering the Man Booker Prize, which is already cheeky and feels too personal. The Prize deserves a poke from anyone with a reading brain, but putting 3 women on his committee to review the Elysian Prize, one of whom I have a suspicion will continue to wink*wink/hint sleep her way to the top, and one with the name Penny Feathers - all of whom St. Aubyn dismisses as political, or old girlfriend or not worthy "what in God's name are you doing on MY committee?" The women are not qualified, yet the narrator has his secretary read the books with an eye toward subjects that are interesting only to him. Aargh. I think the Man Booker Prize (with awardees like "The Sense of an Ending") is a sexist cauldron, and satirizing it with more sexism is...unreadable.