The literary world is at it again. This week, the Booker Prize was awarded to a novel that its supporters call a ‘bold culinary narrative’ and its detractors dismiss as a pretentious serving of style over substance. As a City man, I view this through the lens of market efficiency. The novel is a curious asset: high hype, low liquidity in terms of genuine cultural impact, and a volatility index that would make a gilt trader blanch.
The establishment has rallied, praising the book’s exploration of identity through food. But let’s be honest, when has the literary establishment ever met a narrative it didn’t want to slap with a ‘bold’ label? I’m reminded of the dot-com bubble: everyone piling in because the story is exciting, ignoring the fundamentals. The fundamentals of a novel are its prose, plot, and readability. This one apparently delivers on the first two but leaves the third undercooked.
The real story here is not the book itself but the capital flight into cultural products deemed worthy by a small elite. The Booker Prize is a central bank of literary opinion, and its rate hikes on certain themes create arbitrage opportunities for publishers. They know that a culinary narrative is now the hot ticket. Expect a wave of imitators: novels about fermenting sourdough, biographies of celebrity chefs, and perhaps a memoir about the ethical dilemmas of a vegan butcher.
Fiscal responsibility demands we question the yield on this investment. Will this book be read in a decade? Or will it be another derivative that defaulted when the cultural cycle turned? The market for literary fame is notoriously inefficient. The prize money is a subsidy to an industry that produces mostly loss-making assets. But as with quantitative easing, the short-term boost to sentiment can’t be ignored.
Inflation in literary criticism is rampant. Adjectives like ‘bold’ and ‘groundbreaking’ are being printed without backing. I advise readers to hedge their emotional exposure. Enjoy the book if you must, but don’t buy the hype. The bottom line: this is a novel of high concept, middling execution, and uncertain longevity. The City would call it a speculative-grade issue. Proceed with caution.
