"Judging the Booker prize has made me wonder how worthwhile it take second, and third, literary looks" by Stuart Kelly   I had an awkward moment during this year's deliberations over the ManBooker prize.  We had just trudged through 151 novels (I actually read a few more than that – 183 in all to be precise – but that's a tale for a different time) and we began the process of re-reading the longlist.  As I re-cracked a spine, like some kind of literary Bane, it struck me that I don't re-read that often.  I re-read classics most:  Scott and Dickens, Eliot and Woolf, Melville and Zola most often.  I've read Ulysses more times than I can remember (but sometimes just sections), and Perec's Life:  A User's Manual certainly more than thrice.  But contemporary novels?  It was an embarrassing blank.  I've certainly read Midnight's Children more than once, and I've read Golding's Rites Of Passage and Byatt's Possession twice.  Occasionally, with a cold, I've re-read The Mouse And His Child by Russell Hoban.  I've dipped back into many books, from Finnegans Wake to The Recognitions by William Gaddis to Christine Brooke-Rose's Textermination.  But actually re-reading?  Less than a handful of modern novels.  The Man Booker judges are always in a strange situation, provided they do the work as assigned.  We will have read the winner more frequently and more stringently than the so-called average reader.  I should, for the record, say that no reader is average.  Each has a unique engagement with a text, and every one of those responses is valid, if not right.  But let's face it, not many of the slightly fictitious reading public are going to read any Man Booker winner three times.  When we came to re-re-read the shortlist, certain things became evident.  A crime novel would have to be more than just a crime novel to survive the second "re".  It might be impressive first time round, and the second time one could be impressed by the precision with which the solution had been placed and patterned.  Third time?  A comic novel will struggle too:  is there any joke that's funny the third time you hear or read it?  I lovedSteve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole, and have recommended it to many people, but haven't actually re-read it (even though bits of it, in memory alone, make me laugh).  http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/31/re-reading-rereading-man-booker

The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. Eleanor Catton was announced as the winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize for her novel The Luminaries on Tuesday 15 October.  Find this year's nominees and judges at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/man-booker-prize-2013

Parodies  Derek Flint is a fictional world adventurer and master spy featured in a series of movies and comic books.  Flint is a parody of James Bond and Doc Savage.  Derek Flint is an agent for ZOWIE.  ZOWIE stands for the Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage.  In 1965, 20th Century Fox presented its own version of a master spy to take on United Artist's popular James Bond franchise.  The first three James Bond movies had already made considerable money for that studio so Fox decided to try for itself.  Their hero was wholly a celluloid creation, however, not a transfer from a book series.  Derek Flint was the creation of Hal Fimberg, whose writing credentials, though sparse, did go back quite a few years.  Whether it was in keeping with a growing trend to try to 'out-Bond Bond' or, more likely, to spoof the very macho Double-0 agent, Flint was the best at whatever he did and he did a lot.  The abilities and achievements of Derek Flint include a black belt in Judo, Olympic medals in at least 5 different events, degrees from 17 different universities, creation of highly prized paintings, and the ability to speak fluently in 45 various languages and dialects.  Flint was parodied in Eurospy films where Raimondo Vianello played "Derek Flit" in Il vostro super agente Flit (1966) and Italian comic book artist Franco Bonvicini played "Derek Flit" in Franco and Ciccio's Come rubammo la bomba atomica (1967)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Flint 

The Librarian films with Noel Wyle as librarian/explorer Flynn Carsen were parodies on the adventure genre, especially Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford.  "In the fictional world of The Librarian, a series of made-for-TV movies from TNT, there exists a secret society of Librarians who are the guardians of a wide range of magical and mythical relics.”   See The World of the Librarian franchise at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_The_Librarian_franchise

An individual’s genotype is the genetic code they carry in their cells that provides information for a particular trait.  Their phenotype is the visible, expressed trait, such as hair color.  The phenotype depends upon the genotype but can also be influenced by environmental factors.  http://www.diffen.com/difference/Genotype_vs_Phenotype  See also Genotype versus Phenotype including pictures at  http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIA1Genotypevsphenotype.shtml and Genotype and Phenotype at http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/ahp/BioInfo/SD.Geno.HP.html

 

Rodents are mammals of the order Rodentia, characterised by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws that must be kept short by gnawing.  About 40% of mammal species are rodents, and they are found in vast numbers on all continents other than Antarctica.  Common rodents include mice, rats, squirrels, porcupines, beavers, guinea pigs, and hamsters.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodent 

The Mustelidae (from Latin mustela, weasel), are a family of carnivorous mammals, including the otters, badgers, weasels, martens and wolverines.  Mustelids are diverse and the largest family in the order Carnivora.  The internal classification still seems to be rather unsettled, with rival proposals containing between two and eight subfamilies.  Mustelids vary greatly in size and behaviour.  The least weasel is not much larger than a mouse, while the giant otter can measure up to 2.4 m (7.9 ft) in length and sea otters can exceed 45 kg (99 lb) in weight.  The wolverine can crush bones as thick as the femur of a moose to get at the marrow, and has been seen attempting to drive bears away from their kills.  The sea otter uses rocks to break open shellfish to eat. The marten is largely arboreal, while the badger digs extensive networks of tunnels, called setts.  Some mustelids have been domesticated: the ferret and the tayra are kept as pets (although the tayra requires a Dangerous Wild Animals licence in the UK), or as working animals for hunting or vermin control.  Others have been important in the fur trade—the mink is often raised for its fur.  As well as being one of the most species-rich families in the order Carnivora, the family Mustelidae is one of the oldest.  Mustelid-like forms first appeared about 40 million years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of rodents.  The direct ancestors of the modern mustelids first appeared about 15 million years ago.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustelidae 

The best laid schemes of mice and men means the most carefully prepared plans may go wrong.  From Robert Burns' poem To a Mouse, 1786.  It tells of how he, while ploughing a field, upturned a mouse's nest.  The resulting poem is an apology to the mouse: 

 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren't alone] In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promised joy.

 

The poem is of course the source for the title of John Steinbeck's 1937 novel - Of Mice and Men.   http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-best-laid-schemes-of-mice-and-men.html

Numerous works have referred to or parodied aspects of the Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, perhaps most notably the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, which often had one character asking another, à la Lon Chaney's characterization of Lennie, "which way did he go, George; which way did he go?"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men

Top 25 Films of 1939  "Considered the greatest year in motion pictures and it's hard to argue."    http://www.imdb.com/list/dcgWab8PEAU/  The best movies of 1939 (85 most notable)  Of Mice and Men is 17th  on the list http://www.films101.com/y1939r.htm