Sometimes Feelings of Inadequacy Contain Useful Information

I spent nine hours on Saturday in a conference room in New York with fellow members of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, discussing last year's titles and voting on the lists of finalists. It was a spirited and at times very contentious process. I served on three committees covering various categories, plus chairing the one for the Balakian. Nobody gets paid for serving on the NBCC board and it demands a tremendous amount of work. We have two marathon argument meetings a year. Of course I don't agree with all of the results. But it's worth it, for some reason I can't quite put into words.

Then again it isn't necessary to do so, because I see that one blogger has figured it all out:

The finalists for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced Saturday night in New York. Once again, the titles that made NBCC's final cut seem to comprise a list more intended to make a small group of people feel erudite rather than making a large group feel passionate about books and reading.

Man, it's like she was a fly on the wall! That is all we ever talk about.

We spend months and months looking for books to make ourselves feel erudite, of course, but that's the easy part. Then we have to make sure no titles get through that might make someone feel passionate about books and reading.  That happened one year and the whole board felt just terrible about it.

Making sure that mistake is not repeated is not easy. At the face-to-face meetings, it brings out the worst in us. Things get ugly at times.

"I can't believe you want to nominate something that will make a large group feel passionate about books and reading!" someone will hiss, between sips of tea and bites of crumpet. "What are you, Oprah?" Sometimes, in response, crumpets and tea cups are thrown. By the time announcements were made on Saturday night, three people were limping from shrapnel; one lost the use of her right eye. (I believe this was the worst year on record for casualties.)

But keeping "a large group from feeling passionate about books and reading" is a struggle, and you know when you enlist that you might not survive every battle.

On reflection, I'm not sure I should publish this; someone will take it literally.

For the record: The arguments over books during the meetings I have attended never address the response of the public at all. They are always about the qualities of the books as such. That is what makes the debates so intense. It is hard to make comparative assessments in the first place, let alone to respond to challenges to how adequately you've characterized a given book -- and all of it while the clock is ticking.

Maybe we should try to get a reality TV show out of this.

PS. Note that the blogger offers no grounds whatsoever for implying that the NBCC finalists would not appeal to "a large group" of readers. The logic here (if you want to call it one) is that since the titles don't spark immediate recognition in one person's mind, they must have been selected by a cultural elite to snub the hoi polloi. This is the literary equivalent of Palinism.(How's that for an oxymoron?)