J.G. FARRELL Troubles **(*)

When the Booker Prize rules were changed it meant that no book published in 1970 was eligible. This was rectified in 2010 by the awarding of the "Lost Man Booker Prize" to this book.

It wouldn't have got my vote.

In 1919 Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland - to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancee he's somehow acquired. The engagement doesn't last but his relationship with the decaying hotel is much more durable. He can't break away even when the independence struggle - 'the troubles' - erupt with increasing violence.

I found the allegory - the crumbling hotel as a symbol of the British presence in Ireland - really heavy-handed.

Another problem I had was that I just couldn't picture the hotel or understand how it could function at all.

A big disappointment.