I saw a post early this week by Janice Harayda at One Minute Book Reviews that reminded me it is Pulitzer week.
I like her philosophy of book reviewing. In her post, Famous Pulitzer Losers – 10 Great Novels That Didn’t Win the Fiction Prize and Which Books Beat Them, Janice compares books that didn’t make the cut, to those who won.
Yet when I read her list, I have to scratch my head and think, “Are there really any losers?”
Here are a couple of samples:
1962
Loser: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Winner: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor
1952
Loser: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Winner: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1928
Loser: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Winner: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
She also did another recent post that caught my eye about John Cheever who won a Pulitzer in 1979. Remember reading his short stories last year in Taos along with Susan Cheever’s memoir, Home Before Dark?
You can see the rest of the Pulitzer winners at The Pulitzer Prizes. I don’t know if I feel better or worse knowing many classic books miss by a hair. But then, we can’t all be winners.
I wonder what Joseph would think?
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
I remember my American Short Story class in college when I challenged the instructor to answer why we spent so much time giving our reasons for the author’s plot, story line, setting or hidden meaning by asking if we are just deluding ourselves into believing we knew what the author’s “true intent” was in writing the story we were picking apart. I quantified my question with this clarification “how do we know that they put this story together because the rent was due, the baby was crying to be fed and writing was the answer”. How naive I was back then to think that F. Scott Fitzgerald threw together The Great Gatsby or Carson McCullers wrote Ballad Of The Sad Cafe to pay her rent.
I know that I am too naive to believe I know why a particular story won or didn’t win a Pulitzer. But I do believe that picking one winner must be one of the most difficult things for the panel to do because you leave behind so many other wonderful pieces of work that could have easily taken the place of the winner. As for Joseph, I think I will ask him that question some day but for now I have some more books to read because I know the losers are sometimes better than the winners.
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I remember Cheever’s collection of short stories because I almost stole the book out of the Taos Public Library. But then I found out I could check it out on a temporary basis as long as I left a $35 deposit. I checked out Cheever’s book and a collection of three or four James Baldwin short novels. I never returned the books, so I forfeited my deposit.
Winning the Pulitzer sure seems luck of the draw in terms of whether it’s a bumper crop year (i.e., anything more than one) or not for truly great books.
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R3,
Thanks for your insightful comment. Yes, the losers are sometimes better than the winners. Maybe many times, who can say? It’s strange with huge awards like the Grammy and Emmy awards, and the Pulitzers – by the time a person rises to that level in their craft, there absolutely ARE no losers.
I don’t think we can put a lot of stock in awards such as these. But they can inspire. I think they are most insightful in terms of looking back. Which is why Janice’s take at One-Minute Book Reviews really caught my eye.
If you check out the history of Joseph Pulitzer, it sheds a lot of insight on journalism and some of the history of writing. Pulitzer was involved in controversies with yellow journalism and standing his ground on Freedom of Speech issues.
One thing he said (you can read the whole account at the Pulitzer link in the piece above) that I find relevant to what’s going on in the media this week with Virginia Tech is:
In May 1904, writing in The North American Review in support of his proposal for the founding of a school of journalism, Pulitzer summarized his credo:
“Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.”
It really makes you think.
QM
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ybonesy,
I remember your library escapades in Taos. 8) I didn’t know you ended up with those books.
Yeah, luck of the draw. Maybe it’s more like American Idol than we think. 8) There are politics involved. And then, are they really choosing the person that can sing the best? Wouldn’t it be weird if American Idol was truly a microcosm for the way the higher ups actually operate? Scary thought.
I wanted to mention the categories for writing before heading off this topic:
•For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.
•For a distinguished book upon the history of the United States.
•For a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.
•For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author.
•For a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category.
They added poetry and non-fiction later in the game. They weren’t on the original list.
And now, of course, there is music and photography. I think there was a show at the Minnesota Historical Society last year on Pulitzer winning photographs. I missed it. But I bet it was amazing.
QM
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Oh, one more thing, Ray Bradbury won a Special Citation Pulitzer for his distinguished career as an author.
You know, he wrote one of the best books I’ve ever read on writing: Zen in the Art of Writing. Well worth the read.
One thing he says is that you have to write 1000 words a day until the process becomes automatic and the hand is no different from what it writes.
Wow.
QM
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[…] John Cheever lives on fine art of the short story distant memories […]
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