It’s sometimes asked of writers – or aspiring writers – who they most admire as a writer or whose style they particularly like. I’ve thought about this from time to time and one writer who I personally find amazingly adept and skillful was J.G Farrell. He has appeared once more in the newsprint of the literary press this past month both for the publication of his letters and for winning the Lost Booker Prize with Troubles. (This was awarded due to a change in the qualification requirements creating an effective gap of one year, 1970, where books were not judged for the prize.)

I am a relative newcomer to Farrell having first read him last year when I found a rather lovely edition of The Siege of Krishnapur, itself also a Booker prize winner in 1973. The amazing thing about Farrell is the way he could meld so many elements together in his work; one moment you are aghast at the events in the siege ridden town and the next you’re laughing at the humour of another situation, one moment you despair at the events and the next you marvel at them. It strikes me that in his style Farrell captures life itself. Life is never all exciting nor all boring, it is never all happy nor all sad, all serious nor all funny; life is a mixture of many emotions and it is here that both the human condition and Farrell’s writing triumph. People can, in the most awful of situations, find solace in humour. It’s the final triumph over adversity when you can laugh at it. In Farrell’s work we see both the serious and the funny; we fear for the life of the collector at the same time as laughing at some other turn of events in the besieged residence. We see violence and love, fear and hope. It’s the skillful ability to apply to all ends of the spectrum the same adept skill with words.

In the Empire trilogy we are given a picture of the decline of empire that neither entirely condemns nor venerates; it observes both sides and it sees the idiosyncrasies of many of the circumstances thrown up by empire. He can make it so apparent that it is all a question of viewpoint and have the reader hoping for one resolution while at the same time understanding why others would hope for a different one. He brings wit, balance and great word skill to a defining era in our history and I hope that the publicity generated by the Lost Booker Prize will make many more people discover his work.