The narrative would become heavy and lifeless and refuse to move on until I took them out again.
In the early days I tried out names a few times, but the book wouldn’t stand for it. It lost power and atmosphere and turned into a lesser - or perhaps just a different - book. In an interview given before she won the prize (the first time a writer from Northern Ireland has done so), Burns said, “The book didn’t work with names. This is apparent from the start, when she chooses not to name her characters, but rather to identify them with telling soubriquets. Yet even among those distinguished writers, there is a uniqueness to Anna Burns. Nobody ever said Joyce, Woolf, Beckett, Mann, or James are for the faint of heart. (1972) to Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha(1993). And there’s a longlist (those judges are fond of long lists) of previous winners that have been challenging to read, from John Berger’s G. But last year’s Booker winner, George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, was no leisurely stroll through the cemetery, either. Yes, the overlong, extended paragraphs - sometimes unbroken for pages - might be difficult to read. They deemed it “baffling” and “experimental.” They suggested the book needed to be read aloud to be understood. The overriding, distinctive quality of the novel is its style. The novel is more a psychological and sociological study of a nameless 18-year-old girl than an overview of a significant historical period. Strip away what some may see as obfuscating language, and Milkman is basically a coming-of-age romance, a bildungsroman with the Irish Troubles of the 1970s as a backdrop.
Those who dislike it will dislike its style, its setting, its characters. Those who stay with it will admire its style, its setting, its characters. Milkman, Anna Burns’ 2018 Man Booker Prize-winning magnetic novel, is likely to divide readers.
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