from Ishiguro ... to Lipsyte

The Morning News: Ishiguro beats Doyen
Never Let Me Go is a devastating story told in immaculate prose. Ishiguro’s subtle and refined style perfectly suits an overwhelming, profound subject matter and leaves you pondering the idea of what it means to be human. The emotional impact of this book cannot be overstated. It is tremendous.
...to reiterate, these two books probably should not be compared. I feel bad for criticizing Doyon’s work, for it is spirited. What it isn’t, is art. And Ishiguro is an artist of the highest caliber.

The Morning News: Lipsyte beats Ishiguro
When I first received word that my match-up for this year’s Tournament of Books was going to be Sam Lipsyte’s Home Land versus Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, my initial reaction was “You bastards.” Because here are two novelists I admire—two novelists who could not be more different in voice and style. And although I’d read Home Land and touted it as a Recommended Title at my blog, The Elegant Variation, Never Let Me Go was a Booker shortlist that has garnered some of the best reviews of Ishiguro’s career, including a love letter from James Wood in the New Republic. It promised great things. As it turned out, the choice was considerably easier than I expected.
Home Land is a profane, hilarious, and wise look at misfired aspirations as seen through the eyes of one Lewis “Teabag” Miner. His declaration on the book’s first page—“I did not pan out”—sets the tone for all that follows. The book consists of Miner’s dispatches to his alumni newsletter—none of which are ever actually published. It’s a wicked, heartfelt delight, and you’ll read it in a sitting if you have an ounce of soul.
..Kathy’s voice is flat and bland, and so one essentially endures it, along with chapter after chapter of faux-cliffhanger endings...Ishiguro has a clear purpose in mind that he executes faultlessly, so in the end it’s a book one can admire—but is unlikely to love.
Home Land is a messy, unpredictable, loose cannon of a book, alive and vital on every page. Never Let Me Go is a virtuoso display of icy control but is finally as flat as the voice that narrates it.

Click here to read Kevin Guilfoile & John Warner’s commentary on this match from the booth! :
GUILFOILE: Not to bias these proceedings but Home Land and Never Let Me Go were the best two books I read last year.

so... Home Land ...?
Andrew Womack judges Zadie Smith vs. Sam Lipsyte
Did I love Home Land? Oh, yes, I did, though I have a major complaint about it. All this “Catamounts” business? It’s a pretense about how the narrator is sending off-color updates to his high school alma mater’s newsletter. It’s irksome every time Lipsyte summons it, and the book would have been far stronger without it. I for one can’t wait for some specially abridged edition.But what happens between the bumps is utterly uproarious. ..Everybody in Home Land is an anomaly in an everyday setting. So normal are these surroundings that it’s easy enough to feel like Lipsyte is drawing you right into the novel: Maybe none of us pan out?And so, despite my complaints, I’ll go so far as to trust Lipsyte to know better than I do when it comes to high school newsletters and mountain cats. He wants me to believe in his world, and that’s too good an offer to turn down—especially when the other novelist vying for my attention appears to have so little regard for it. mm.
Click here to read Kevin Guilfoile & John Warner’s commentary on this match from the booth! :
Perhaps it’s time to recap the improbable journey taken by Sam Lipsyte’s book from unpublished manuscript all the way to the Tournament of Books final. For those who don’t know the now familiar story, Home Land was rejected by publishers 11,417 times. It was rejected by all the major publishers, then all the small houses, the university presses, HR newsletters, skateboard zines, and Pennysaver classifieds. At one point a Ritalin addict working the night shift at the Court Street Kinko’s even refused to make a copy of it. heehee.