This year is a particularly contentious one, with the panel chairwoman, Dame Stella Rimington (a former director of MI5 and author of spy novels), announcing that the judges prioritized accessibility: “We want people to buy these books and read them, not buy them and admire them.” Another judge said a book had to “zip along” to make the cut. Like the typical NBA short list, the 2011 Booker shortlist includes mostly little-known titles, but this time the complaint is that the criteria used were too “populist” and that more “challenging” titles by bigger names were neglected. (On Wednesday, Julian Barnes won for his novel “The Sense of an Ending.”)

To make the dispute even more confusing, the “challenging” title most often noted as an omission from the Booker shortlist, Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child,” has been shortlisted for the Galaxy Prize, which is dedicated to “books with wide popular appeal, critical acclaim and commercial success.” Furthermore, in response to what they regard as the creeping lowbrowism of the Booker, a group of malcontents, led by literary agent Andrew Kidd, is floating the idea of an alternative, to be called the Literature Prize, for novels that are “unsurpassed in their quality and ambition” without regard to popular appeal.

So it’s no wonder that all of this (and a commentary I wrote last week on the NBA shortlist) prompted author and academic Anne Trubek to write a blog post complaining that no one sufficiently explains “upon which criteria are the novels being judged … What makes a masterpiece? Are there objective grounds or is it relative? What role do race, gender, etc. etc. play in which literary works are elevated to the ranks of the great? Who gets to make those decisions? Which formal attributes are lionized over others? (difficulty = good; sentimentality = bad).”

Trubek then goes on to recall a conversation with a friend on the board of the National Book Critics Circle who was ruminating over a possible nominee for that organization’s annual fiction prize. The friend ultimately decided against the book because it lacked memorable characters, which Trubek immediately seized upon (at last!) as a definite criterion. If we all agreed that what distinguishes a great novel is great characters, she writes, we could really get down to work. (Although without Trubek, who notes, “memorable characters do not, for me, make a great novel.”)

Of course, not all novels are about character — take, for example, David Markson’s “Reader’s Block,” a book we put on Salon’s best-of-the-year list back in 1996. It has no characters — at least no conventional characters — since it’s made up of discrete anecdotes, quotations and epigrams, each one no more than a few sentences long. It went on our list because I, for one, was impressed that a work so fragmented could seize my interest so entirely that I couldn’t resist reading it while walking down the street (not a good idea in my neighborhood).

So that’s an example of my criteria, but the ability to fascinate one particular literary critic is not the basis for judging a national prize, which is a reason why these awards use panels of judges. The space between the poles of personal preference and the notion of objective merit is where the electricity of literary prizes is generated. We can all agree on how to measure the tallest building or the fastest car, but on the question of how to determine the best novel we will be arguing ’til the end of time.

Trubek is right, though, that we should more clearly state the criteria we bring to that argument. All judges say, “We just picked the best books,” when controversy arises around their choices, but shrouding their deliberations in mystery only invites more speculation. Like Trubek, I’m a fan of the the Morning News’ annual Tournament of Books precisely because its judges are asked to explain in detail why they prefer one book over another.

Talking about the standards we apply would at the very least make the discussion a lot more interesting. Whatever the merits of their shortlist, this year’s Booker judges have succeeded in getting their fellow countrymen to talk about what constitutes a “great” book. That people want to argue with those choices isn’t, in my opinion, a sign of dysfunction. Instead, it shows that we care not only about our literary culture but about the idea of sharing it with a world full of fellow readers.

Further reading:

Website for the Man Booker Prize

The article in the Guardian newspaper in which Stella Rimington describes the criteria used in judging this year’s Booker Prize

Also in the Guardian, former poet laureate and Booker chairman Andrew Motion questions the premise that “readability” and literary quality are mutually exclusive

The Galaxy National Book Awards website, announcing the shortlisting of, among others, Alan Hollinghurst

Anne Trubek asks for more clarity about the criteria for excellence in discussions of literary prizes

Last year’s Tournament of Books at the Morning News website

Transtromer has been a perennial favorite for the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award, and in recent years Swedish journalists have waited outside his apartment in Stockholm on the day the literature prize was announced.

Transtromer’s most famous works include the 1966 “Windows and Stones,” in which he depicts themes from his many travels and “Baltics” from 1974.

His works have been translated into more than 50 languages and influenced poets around the globe, particularly in North America.

Since the 1950′s, Transtromer has had a close friendship with American poet Robert Bly, who translated many of his works into English. In 2001, Transtromer’s Swedish publishing house Bonniers published the correspondence between the two writers in the book “Air Mail.”

Earlier this year, publishing house Bonniers released a collection of his works between 1954 and 2004 to celebrate the poet’s 80th birthday.

Born in Stockholm in 1931, Transtromer grew up alone with his teacher mother after she divorced his father — a journalist. He started writing poetry while studying at the Sodra Latin school in Stockholm and debuted with the collection “Seventeen Poems” at age 23.

He received a degree in psychology from Stockholm University and later divided his time between poetry and his work as a psychologist.

It took Callil a few days to present a fuller explanation. In the meantime, it was fascinating to watch various commenters respond to the kerfuffle. “I’m discouraged by what I assume is her ideologically inspired illiteracy,” Wendy Kaminer assumed for the Atlantic Online. “Is there a terrible scar of monotonous male sexuality in these inventions that limits their power or makes Roth deserve Callil’s dismissal?” fulminated Jonathan Jones in the Guardian. “To claim that,” he went on, “is to misunderstand what a novel is.” Eileen Battersby, in the Irish Times, sniffed, “The sexism and ego of Roth can certainly offend, and obviously bothers the irate Booker judge Carmen Callil.”

Not so obviously, in fact. Nothing in Callil’s initial statements about the affair indicated that her opposition to Roth’s work had anything to do with sexism or raunch. When she published a full account of her objections in the Guardian on Saturday, she expanded on a complaint that she’d mentioned from the start: Roth is the second North American (after Alice Munro) to receive the prize in its four-year history. Given that this variation on the Booker Prize is labeled “International,” and that it provides an additional grant that the winner may use to fund further English-language translations of his or her work, Callil had hoped that it would go to a less usual suspect.

She also doesn’t like Roth’s work very much, as she made abundantly clear. For the record, while I’m more or less in Callil’s camp when it comes to Roth’s fiction (particularly the face-sitting bit), her first remarks were thoughtless and high-handed. Perhaps Callil believed she was acting in the hallowed tradition of British literary prize judges who have aired their dirty laundry in the press, but insulting an author (any author) by name in such a context is uncalled for. There are enough readers who love Roth’s work to make him a reasonable choice for an important award, even if Callil can’t personally endorse that choice.

However, the really interesting aspect of the story is the straw woman erected by pro-Roth commenters like Kaminer, Jones and Battersby (among others) before Callil explained herself at length: the dour feminist scold who’s incapable of separating art from “ideology.” Instead, it turned out that Callil finds Roth’s fiction “narrow. Not in the Austen, Bellow or Updike sense, because they use a narrow canvas to convey the widest concepts and ideas. Roth digs brilliantly into himself, but little else is there. His self-involvement and self-regard restrict him as a novelist.”

These are legitimate aesthetic reservations, even if not everyone agrees with them. Yet if you do agree with them, and you happen to be a woman, chances are excellent that — no matter what you say — Roth proponents will assume your aversion is based in politics. This is as frustrating as telling the chef you don’t care for lamb chops and getting a self-righteous lecture on his supplier’s humane farming practices.

As recently as 30 years ago, subjecting a work of art to a political litmus test — is it racist, sexist, classist, homophobic? — was considered the supreme critical method, but fortunately times have changed. Unfortunately, they have changed with a vengeance. Now, in many circles, critiques that can be labeled as “politically correct” can also be summarily dismissed as “not literary arguments but emotional or ideological ones,” to quote Kaminer.

Presumably, literary arguments can also sometimes be emotional and ideological (this one certainly is!), but the point seems to be that if you’re a female reader who hates Roth novels, you must be motivated by (irrational) passion and doctrinaire political animus, whether you realize it or not. Your taste could not possibly arise from anything but “illiteracy” and an inability to understand “what a novel is.” Patronizing? You bet. Why, it’s enough to turn a girl into a feminist.

Further reading

Judge withdraws over Philip Roth’s Booker win: The initial story in the Guardian

Wendy Kaminer’s appreciation of Philip Roth in the Atlantic Online

Jonathan Jones on why Philip Roth deserves the Man Booker International Prize

Eileen Battersby defends Philip Roth in the Irish Times

Carmen Callil on why she resigned from the Man Booker International panel

Breaking news reporting: No award. Finalists: Chicago Tribune staff for coverage of the deaths of two Chicago firefighters killed while searching for squatters in an abandoned burning building; The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, a joint staff entry, for coverage of the Haitian earthquake, often working under extreme conditions; and the Staff of The Tennessean, Nashville, for coverage of the most devastating flood in the area’s history.

Investigative reporting: Paige St. John of the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, for her examination of weaknesses in the murky property-insurance system vital to Florida homeowners, providing handy data to assess insurer reliability and stirring regulatory action. Finalists: Walt Bogdanich of The New York Times for his spotlighting of medical radiation errors that injure thousands of Americans, sparking national discussion and remedial steps; and Sam Roe and Jared S. Hopkins of the Chicago Tribune for their investigation, in print and online, of 13 deaths at a home for severely disabled children and young adults, resulting in closure of the facility.

Explanatory reporting: Mark Johnson, Kathleen Gallagher, Gary Porter, Lou Saldivar and Alison Sherwood of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for their lucid examination of an epic effort to use genetic technology to save a 4-year-old boy imperiled by a mysterious disease, told with words, graphics, videos and other images. Finalists: The Wall Street Journal Staff for its penetration of the shadowy world of fraud and abuse in Medicare, probing previously concealed government databases to identify millions of dollars in waste and corrupt practices; and The Washington Post staff for its exploration of how the military is using trauma surgery, brain science and other techniques both old and new to reduce fatalities among the wounded in warfare, telling the story with words, images and other tools.

Local reporting: Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times for their immersive documentation of violence in Chicago neighborhoods, probing the lives of victims, criminals and detectives as a widespread code of silence impedes solutions. Finalists: Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun for their compelling reports on patients who suffered preventable injuries and other harm during hospital care, taking advantage of print and digital tools to drive home their findings; and Stanley Nelson of the Concordia (La.) Sentinel, a weekly, for his courageous and determined efforts to unravel a long forgotten Ku Klux Klan murder during the Civil Rights era.

National reporting: Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica for their exposure of questionable practices on Wall Street that contributed to the nation’s economic meltdown, using digital tools to help explain the complex subject to lay readers. Finalists: David Evans of Bloomberg News for his revelations of how life insurance companies retained death benefits owed to families of military veterans and other Americans, leading to government investigations and remedial changes; and The Wall Street Journal Staff for its examination of the disastrous explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, using detailed reports to hold government and major corporations accountable.

International reporting: Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry of The New York Times for dogged reporting that put a human face on the faltering justice system in Russia, remarkably influencing the discussion inside the country. Finalists: Deborah Sontag of The New York Times for her coverage of the earthquake in Haiti, steadfastly telling poignant, wide-ranging stories with a lyrical touch and an impressive eye for detail; and The Wall Street Journal staff for its examination of the causes of Europe’s debt crisis, taking readers behind closed doors to meet pivotal characters while illuminating the wider economic, political and social reverberations.

Feature writing: Amy Ellis Nutt of The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J., for her deeply probing story of the mysterious sinking of a commercial fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean that drowned six men. Finalists: Tony Bartelme of The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C., for his engaging account of a South Carolina neurosurgeon’s quest to teach brain surgery in Tanzania, possibly providing a new model for health care in developing countries; and Michael M. Phillips, of The Wall Street Journal, for his portfolio of deftly written stories that provide war-weary readers with fresh perspective on the conflict in Afghanistan.

Commentary: David Leonhardt of The New York Times for his graceful penetration of America’s complicated economic questions, from the federal budget deficit to health care reform. Finalists: Phillip Morris of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, for his blend of local storytelling and unpredictable opinions, enlarging the discussion of controversial issues that stir a big city; and Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune for her versatile columns exploring life and the concerns of a metropolis with whimsy and poignancy.

Criticism: Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe for his vivid and exuberant writing about art, often bringing great works to life with love and appreciation. Finalists: Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly for his delightful, authoritative restaurant reviews, escorting readers through a city’s diverse food culture; and Nicolai Ouroussoff of The New York Times for his well-honed architectural criticism, highlighted by ambitious essays on the burst of architectural projects in oil-rich Middle East countries.

Editorial writing: Joseph Rago of The Wall Street Journal for his well-crafted, against-the-grain editorials challenging the health care reform advocated by President Barack Obama. Finalists: Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post for his insightful editorials on foreign affairs, marked by prescient pieces critical of America’s policy toward Egypt well before a revolution erupted there; and John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune for his relentless campaign to reform an unsustainable public pension system that threatens the economic future of Illinois.

Editorial cartooning: Mike Keefe of The Denver Post for his widely ranging cartoons that employ a loose, expressive style to send strong, witty messages. Finalists: Matt Davies for cartoons in The Journal News, Westchester County, N.Y., work notably original in concept and execution, offering sharp opinion without shrillness; and Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader, for provocative cartoons that often tackle controversial Kentucky issues, marked by a simple style and a passion for humanity.

Breaking news photography: Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti of The Washington Post for their up-close portrait of grief and desperation after a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti. Finalists: Daniel Berehulak and Paula Bronstein of Getty Images for their compelling portrayal of the human will to survive as historic floods engulfed regions of Pakistan; and Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times for her often haunting images of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, capturing the harsh reality of widespread devastation.

Feature photography: Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times for her intimate story of innocent victims trapped in the city’s crossfire of deadly gang violence. Finalists: Todd Heisler of The New York Times for his sensitive portrayal of a large Colombian clan carrying a genetic mutation that causes Alzheimer’s disease in early middle age; and Greg Kahn of The Naples (Fla.) Daily News for his pictures that show the mixed impact of the recession in Florida — loss of jobs and homes for some but profit for others.

——

ARTS

Fiction: “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf), an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed. Finalists: “The Privileges,” by Jonathan Dee (Random House), a contemporary, wide ranging tale about an elite Manhattan family, moral bankruptcy and the long reach of wealth; and “The Surrendered,” by Chang-Rae Lee (Riverhead Books), a haunting and often heartbreaking epic whose characters explore the deep reverberations of love, devotion and war.

Drama: “Clybourne Park,” by Bruce Norris, a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness. Finalists: “Detroit,” by Lisa D’Amour, a contemporary tragicomic play that depicts a slice of desperate life in a declining inner-ring suburb where hope is in foreclosure; and “A Free Man of Color,” by John Guare, an audacious play spread across a large historical canvas, dealing with serious subjects while retaining a playful intellectual buoyancy.

History: “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery,” by Eric Foner (W.W. Norton & Co.), a well-orchestrated examination of Lincoln’s changing views of slavery, bringing unforeseeable twists and a fresh sense of improbability to a familiar story. Finalists: “Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South,” by Stephanie McCurry (Harvard University Press), an insightful work analyzing the experience of disenfranchised white women and black slaves who were left when Confederate soldiers headed for the battlefield; and “Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston,” by Michael Rawson (Harvard University Press), an impressive selection of case studies that reveal how Boston helped shape the remarkable growth of American cities in the 19th century.

Biography: “Washington: A Life,” by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press), a sweeping, authoritative portrait of an iconic leader learning to master his private feelings in order to fulfill his public duties. Finalists: “The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century,” by Alan Brinkley (Alfred A. Knopf), a fresh, fair-minded assessment of a complicated man who transformed the news business and showed busy Americans new ways to see the world; and “Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon,” by Michael O’Brien (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), a graceful account of a remarkable journey by Louisa Catherine Adams, the wife of a future president, who traveled with a young son across a Europe still reeling from warfare.

Poetry: “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,” by Kay Ryan (Grove Press), a body of work spanning 45 years, witty, rebellious and yet tender, a treasure trove of an iconoclastic and joyful mind. Finalists: “The Common Man,” by Maurice Manning (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a rich, often poignant collection of poems rooted in a rural Kentucky experiencing change in its culture and landscape; and “Break the Glass,” by Jean Valentine (Copper Canyon Press), a collection of imaginative poems in which small details can accrue great power and a reader is never sure where any poem might lead.

General nonfiction: “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner), an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science. Finalists: “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain,” by Nicholas Carr (W.W. Norton & Co.), a thought-provoking exploration of the Internet’s physical and cultural consequences, rendering highly technical material intelligible to the general reader; and “Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History,” by S.C. Gwynne (Scribner), a memorable examination of the longest and most brutal of all the wars between European settlers and a single Indian tribe.

Music: Zhou Long for “Madame White Snake,” premiered Feb. 26, 2010, by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, a deeply expressive opera that draws on a Chinese folk tale to blend the musical traditions of the East and the West. Libretto by Cerise Lim Jacobs (Oxford University Press). Finalists: Fred Lerdahl for “Arches,” premiered Nov. 19, 2010, at Miller Theatre, Columbia University, a consistently original concerto that sustains an extraordinary level of sensuous invention as it evolves from one moment to the next; and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon for “Comala,” recording released in June 2010 by Bridge Records, an ambitious cantata that translates into music an influential work of Latin American literature, giving voice to two cultures that intersect within the term “America.”

The Literary Review has admitted from the start that getting publicity for its journal is the motivation for the event. The Review’s co-founder, the late Auberon Waugh, said that originally he wanted to single out the best sex scene from the year’s crop of fiction but his fellow co-founder, Rachel Koenig, deemed this concept “too boring.” Koenig also told the Independent that Waugh had become tired of the whole thing shortly before he died in 2001, and herself referred to the award as “a pretty old T-shirt.”

So why not give it up? Or better yet, go back to Waugh’s original plan. It doesn’t take much nerve to stand up in front of a boozy crowd and read sex passages from other people’s books in a mocking tone of voice while everybody sneers and groans. No one raises an eyebrow if you talk about what doesn’t strike you as erotic. Doing the opposite, however, amounts to admitting that you’ve found something arousing, and thereby risking the British equivalent of the ninth circle of hell: embarrassment.

“Their attitude is: ‘Next time you think of writing about sex, don’t,’” said Susie Bright, who was the editor of the Best American Erotica anthology series for 15 years. “I can’t think of any other fundamental human experience that writers would be encouraged to keep to themselves.” Melissa Katsoulis, a literary reviewer for the Times of London, certainly seemed to conform to Bright’s impression when asked to comment on the award by the BBC: “Sex is a subject best avoided altogether,” she said. “If I was writing a novel, I wouldn’t attempt to write it except in the most Victorian and prim way, because it’s awful. It’s a cliché, but the moments of genuine frisson in books are when hardly anything happens.” Speak for yourself, missy.

Another frequent British complaint about literary sex scenes was voiced by former Man Booker Prize judge Lucasta Miller, who told the Independent, “A trap people fall into is an earnest anatomical description of sex. The difficulty with the anatomical is that it can read like a bit of a textbook.” Perhaps the required reading in English schools is a lot more exciting than the stuff we get here, but I can’t recall ever reading a sex scene in a novel (good or bad) that even remotely resembled a textbook. I suspect (but who can tell?) that what Miller is lamenting here is the use of such latinate terms as “penis” and “vagina”; in which case, why not embrace the old reliable Anglo-Saxon terminology? You are English, after all.

Perhaps terminology lies at the heart of the problem. The presenters of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award gleefully seize upon their targets’ most outlandish metaphors; Somerville compared a nipple to the “nose of the loveliest nocturnal animal, sniffing in the night.” Yet perfectly serviceable, if disreputable, four-letter words risk turning a scene, in the words of one commentator, into something “perilously close to erotica, with its cheapening effect of sexual arousal.” And we can’t have that, can we?

Well, why can’t we? Is there any reason why the literature that makes us laugh, cry and rage shouldn’t also, occasionally, turn us on? Bright’s anthologies — which included excerpts from literary works by such luminaries as Mary Gaitskill, Nathan Englander and Aimee Bender as well as purpose-built erotica of superior quality — repeatedly demonstrated that the distinction is blurry, if not outright irrelevant. Nevertheless, this year’s Booker chair, Andrew Motion, complained that there wasn’t much sex in the current crop of novels, and blamed (at least in part) ridicule from such vehicles as the Bad Sex in Fiction Award for inhibiting the Commonwealth’s authors.

The Bad Sex Award poses as a knowing blow against literary pretension while embodying the most retrograde prudery. How much more refreshing it is to hear novelist Lionel Shriver calmly announce in a recent NPR segment that she finds Maria McCann’s historical novel “As Meat Loves Salt” “one of the most erotic I have ever read.” Yes, the segment was part of a series called “My Guilty Pleasure,” but it’s hard to believe Shriver feels guilty about much of anything, let alone pleasure. Her own response certainly hasn’t “cheapened” her respect for McCann’s book.

This is the only antidote to the smirking crypto-priggishness of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award and its ilk: forthright praise for the literary sex writing that does work. I, for one, think Jane Smiley deserves more credit than she gets for this, with extra points for depicting wholesome, vanilla lovemaking that’s genuinely hot. (I recommend “Horse Heaven” and “Good Faith.”) Alan Hollinghurst’s descriptions of gay sex in “The Line of Beauty” are (to this reader) more exotic, but equally intoxicating. Readers, here’s your chance to strike a blow for literary libertinage: What are your favorites?

Referenced in this article

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award, 2010

Susie Bright’s Best America Erotica collections

Lionel Shriver on Maria McCann’s “As Meat Loves Salt”