This year's sedate Booker shortlist, is, with the exception of the inclusion of the outstanding South African J.M. Coetzee for Disgrace - an extraordinary story about a serial philanderer who is finally destroyed by his ego - remarkable for its absentees. For much of the year it seemed set to be a two-book battle between Indian writers, the 1981 Booker winner and shortlist veteran, Salman Rushdie, with a characteristic display, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and Vikram Seth's likeable tale of doomed love, An Equal Music.
As the weeks passed, however, an increasing number of readers admitted to being unimpressed by a novel which has too many tones of Salman (yet again) Revisited, while the strength of the Seth lies in its description of the stress which the search for perfection places on musicians, but the love story itself fails to convince. Support had also gathered for the talented Scot, Al Kennedy, widely praised for her previous books and her new book, the lengthy Everything You Need, which exudes the confidence of a writer sure of her readers, seemed a likely bet. On publication weighing in at more than 500 pages, it proved too much.
Yesterday's shortlist included a Scot, but it was journalist Andrew O'Hagan with his powerful, often moving but admittedly oppressive tale of a man recounting his life as he lies on his deathbed. His pain is watched by his grandson. It is a family story but it is also the chronicle of a society in which issues of nationality, political and religious belief are dismantled against the forces of disillusion and change. Not a book for everyone, but this is a worthy, powerful and intelligent narrative in which its overwhelming intensity counters the predictability. Should a jury decide to go for profundity on a large scale, they could profitably glance this way.
Such has been the praise directed in recent weeks to Roddy Doyle's colourful version of the Rising, A Star Called Henry, it did seem possible that this previous winner could earn his third short-listing. But that didn't happen either.
It does no disservice to Colm Toibin to suggest that Doyle was more widely tipped, particularly as The Blackwater Lightship, Toibin's family drama concerning the ghosts raised by an impending and complicated death, is only recently published.
Toibin's fiction debut The South (1990) immediately established him as a writer with a soft, lyric voice and an ability to explore inner turmoil without hysterics or sentimentality, and often availing of an unsettling if curiously effective deadpan tone.
In a dull literary year in which much of the most exciting fiction has been in translation, the English establishment certainly backed the popular writer and playwright Michael Frayn's Head-long, a spirited social comedy told in the first person by Martin Clay, aspiring art historian and unpredictable husband who is driving his wife crazy.
It is fun, but despite its energy its place on the shortlist does not justify the omission of two excellent English novels by two previous Booker contenders, Jim Crace and Tim Parks. Crace's Being Dead, the story of a married middle-aged couple, both zoologists, is as original as anything he has done. Winner of the 1997 Whitebread Novel Award for his Booker runner-up Quarantine, Crace seemed set to challenge Coetzee, winner of the 1983 Booker with the beautiful parable Life & Times of Michael K. He is a writer of such undisputed artistry it has become pointless short-listing him for prizes.
As Crace has done with Being Dead, his countryman, Tim Parks, previously short-listed for Europa, wrote his finest novel to date this year with Destiny, in which a clever, unhappy man is poised to write a pretentious book about national types. Battling his depression, upset stomach, bowel troubles and increasingly wayward wife, he finally examines the agony of his son's suicide.
If justice can feature in a Booker shortlist, the inclusion of Indian Anita Desai twice previously short-listed, with Light of Day (1980) and In Custody (1984, the year Anita Brookner won) - this is that justice. This is a fine writer, as understated and underrated as Rushdie is the opposite. At times she has made effective use of her unusual cultural mix, that of Germany and India, and Fasting, Feasting sees her return to her theme of cultural contrast. It is heartening to see that graceful, observed fiction can still attract a Booker panel.
At the other end of the scale in terms of sheer size is the other woman on the list, Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif whose massive saga of Empire and Egypt The Map of Love is two stories separated by a century of chaotic history. It is a big, slow-moving, old-fashioned narrative. It is also ambitious and important. Soueif is a demanding writer in that her fictions are politically loaded, not just with the politics of colonialism but also with those of gender.
It looks as if the jury decided to bypass the fireworks and gymnastics of Rushdie for the more solid workmanlike vision of Soueif, whose book is valuable because of what it says.
Sexual politics and race are also central to Coetzee's book, which explores the absence of justice in relationships as well as the amorality of poetry and art. No novel looks a stronger contender. The genius of this novel lies in Coetzee's anger, sure instinct and magnificent prose. The winner will be known on October 25th.