The Pulitzer Blog

Shameless Self-Promotion

2011-04-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hey there, fellow readers—I just wanted to take this opportunity to shamelessly self promote my new blog "A Table In the Corner of the Cafe." Feel free to pull up a chair and join me at the table by clicking on the picture below. If you're a coffee lover like I am, you should subscribe and tell your friends!

Entry 40: "Lamb In His Bosom" by Caroline Miller (1934)

2011-04-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

Now that I've read it, I really wish I would've put a little more effort into reading Caroline Miller's 1934 Pulitzer-winning novel, Lamb In His Bosom, during National Women's History Month, in March. I especially wish I would have read it immediately proceeding Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1937).

I shall forever rue my lack of ambition that month.

Despite the fact that these two novels won the Prize a mere three years apart from each other and Joshua and I are trying as best as we can to read novels that are spaced out a little more than that, these two novels would have gone together as a companion piece perfectly. Both of them were written by women, both of them take place in Georgia before and after the Civil War, both of them feature strong-willed, independent women and their equally strong-willed, independent men as their protagonists, both of them have a strong Irish influence... It's almost as though the two novels were meant to be paired together.

And perhaps that's a reason the Pulitzer committee selected the two of them to win the Prize.

Lamb In His Bosom is a beautifully written account of a handful of families and their experiences in rural, pre-Civil War Georgia. Caroline Miller's writing is genuine and poetic; whether describing the landscape, or narrating any particular scene, or developing her characters—giving them their personalities, their quirks, their charms, their appearances—, she does so with a keen perception of the significance of her own words. What I mean is, not a single word she uses is taken for granted. Each is perfectly and, I'm sure, painstakingly placed by Miller to such a degree that the novel seems much more important and significant than the story of it actually is.

And herein lays my complaint.

While I very much appreciated Miller's obvious talent for the written word, I'm not sure how much less I could have cared for the story. Don't get me wrong—it wasn't that it's a poorly written story, or even a bad story by any means; it just wasn't really my cup of tea. The simplest way to describe the plot of this novel is to say that it's more of a character study than it is The Great American Novel. There wasn't a whole lot of action, there wasn't a whole lot of plot. But there sure was an awful lot of character development.

The best way to tell what happens in this novel would be to write a stem and flow chart—BOX: we meet Cean; stem; BOX: then this happens; stem; BOX: then that happened, etc. Unfortunately, I'll just have to use prose: we meet Cean and Lonzo; they have a baby; we meet Lias and Margot; they have a baby; then Cean has another couple babies; then Margot has a baby; then Cean has another baby; then Lonzo dies; then Margot marries again; then Cean meets Dermid; then Cean has another baby; then Dermid goes off to War; then Dermid comes back; the end.

Every couple of chapters, one of the female characters was having a baby. And, honestly, after a while, I just gave up caring about the book all together. I was so bored by the lack of action, the lack of really intense drama, the overabundance of narration. I was so bored, in fact, that I started spending most of my time reading pondering who the "lamb" was and whose "bosom" that lamb was in!

However, in the last couple chapters of the novel, there is a scene that was so powerful it almost moved me to tears; and not only did this scene provide me the answer to my ponderings, it also gave me a fresh appreciation for the novel: Lonzo has died, and Cean is grieving his death and her life; she can't get used to life on her own, raising four or five children (I lost count by this point) with a minimal amount of help, and no support. She feels the pressures of her life closing in on her and she confesses to Dermid O'Connor (the Irish priest she later falls in love with):

'God's forgot that I ever lived... He's forgot... and He never cared, nohow.'
He smoothed her brown, rough-palmed hand; he held her hands to keep her from jerking herself away from his admonishing:
'Oh, 'tis not true, the words yere a-sayin', Cean Smith; and well ye know it. Never does He forget a child o' His'n. 'Tis His children that forget that He is rememberin'. Get on yere knees and climn on them up to the shelter o' His arms. Knock on His ears with yere prayers. Creep into His arms, Cean Smith, and lay yere head on His bosom, and He'll hold ye closer than inny man ye ever love can ever hold ye. He'll lay His hand on yere head and ye'll stop yere restless fightin' against His will. He'll shut yere pitiful little mouth from complainin' against Him. Ye'll hush and be comforted....'

That scene was so powerful, so moving, so authentic. And it was after that scene that I realized that the novel actually had very little to do with plot, and rising action, and climax, and resolution; this story was really meant to be a study of everyday life—life in the face of overwhelming circumstances.

This novel was written during the Great Depression—a time when not a single person in America wasn't touched by misfortune, a time of overwhelming circumstances. It could very well be that Miller wasn't as concerned with writing a best-seller, or even an attention gripping page turner. Rather, she wrote a reminder to her fellow Americans that, despite the incredible amount of odds against them, there is hope. Because after that powerful scene with the Irish priest, God suddenly becomes a major part of Miller's writing, whereas throughout the course of the novel leading up to that scene, He wasn't. And this scene was really the turning point—everything proceeding it is a walk among the roses compared to everything preceding it.

And that message, nearly 70 years later, still rings true for Miller's audience. I can't tell you the number of times I have uttered those words: "God forgot about me, and He never cared anyway."

When will I ever learn? When will I learn to trust Him as the Shepherd, and learn to accept my role as a terrified lamb that needs to climb into His arms when the wolves bare their teeth at me?

Entry 39: "Tinkers" by Paul Harding (2010)

2011-04-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Monday's Pulitzer-recipient announcement (congratulations, again, to Jennifer Egan for her prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad), Joshua and I agreed to win last year's surprise winner, Tinkers, by Paul Harding.

Last year, I posted an article to this blog detailing why this novel's winning the Pulitzer was such a big deal at the time, so I'm going to post it again now:

Tinkers, a debut novel by Paul Harding, a former drummer for the rock group Cold Water Flat, was the surprise winner Monday of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

A lyrical, 191-page account of a man's dying days and his relationship with his father, Tinkers got great reviews but is published by Bellevue Literary Press, a small, 3-year-old, non-profit publisher affiliated with New York University's School of Medicine.

Editorial director Erika Goldman says Tinkers has sold 15,000 copies since its publication in January 2009. That's a hit for a small press but nothing by commercial standards. Bellevue plans to reprint more copies but hasn't decided how many.

The last time a small publisher won the fiction Pulitzer was in 1981, for John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, released by Louisiana University Press.

Harding, 42, says he's "stunned. It was a little book from a little publisher that was hand-sold from start to finish." The Pulitzer's "imprimatur," he says, adds "a sense of freedom. I can afford to continue doing what I love to do."

Of all 85 novels on our list, I've been looking forward to reading this book most of all for the past year—a full 365 days. It was worth the wait.

There have been very few books along this journey that were written so exquisitely that they took my breath away. There have been some, though; Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren, Now In November, by Josephine Johnson, and Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, come to mind. And, now, I can very confidently add Paul Harding's Tinkers to this list.

Harding's writing, on several occasions, is so sweepingly grand and majestic—in one paragraph, the reader sails on its wings, up, up, up above the clouds, through the cosmos, and follows the tails of comets before crashlanding back on Earth at the onset of the next paragraph. The words he strings togethers, the phrases he conjures up, the story he tells, are so dizzying and euphoric that as a reader, you can't help but be in awe of their affect upon you. At least a few times, I was sitting on the couch with Ashley and I'd read a section that was so other-worldly that I let out a great sigh and exclaimed, "What was that!?" Then I'd read the section again, again, again, sometimes out loud to her and revel in its beauty. The sections where Harding compares the inner workings of clocks to the inner workings of the entire universe, another labeled "Cometa Borealis," and the final couple paragraphs when George's father comes to his house immediately come to mind.

There was something ironic about his writing, though—it inspired me to write. Typically, when I come across amazing writing, I think to myself "You know... I don't even like writing that much. I think I'll just give it up—I'll let Robert Penn Warren say it all." The same goes for whenever I hear great songwriting: "Glen Hansard seems to have it covered... I'll let him write the songs." Tinkers, on the other hand—I don't know quite how to describe it. For as epic, and grandiose, and important as Harding's writing was, there was something accessible about it. It wasn't so soaring that I couldn't reach up and grab onto its tail as it flew overhead. This was the first novel I've read since Gilead, a couple years ago, that really inspired me.

And, honestly, Tinkers is a truly inspiring novel. I really connected with it on a profoundly spiritual level. Harding takes four worlds, three planes of existance, into his scope and does a really tremendous job writing about each: the metaphysical world, Nature, mechacnics, and humanity, and the dynamics of each—how they function on their own, how they interact with each other.

His descriptions of walks in the woods (the flowers, the trees, the way the sun shines, the way water ripples, the way the earth sounds after each footstep), time and space (look no further than the aforementioned section, "Cometa Borealis"), the inner workings of a clock, the relationship between a husband and wife, or father and son, and the ways all four of these worlds aren't separate from each other, but are rather interlocked... His writing is so moving and emotional and, yes, spiritual, that, at times, it forces the reader to tears.

For a 42 year old rock drummer, Paul Harding writes with the wisdom of a much older man—his perceptions of the way the universe operates is so far beyond his years. Somehow, in a scant 191 pages, Paul Harding manages to tackle some of the most complex issues philosophers have ever grappled with and turn them into a lovely little novel that is not only a fantastic read, but, I feel, one of the most important reads of your life! Tinkers isn't just a moving story about a dying man who is recollecting his life, it is almost a manual for how to live.

"Goon Squad" Ushers In An Era Of New Perspectives, by Jonathan Bastian

2011-04-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

This is a very interesting article I found on NPR about this year's Pulitzer-winner, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad.

When Jennifer Egan decided to write A Visit From the Goon Squad, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, she made rules for herself.

But these weren't the kind of rules you would imagine a writer creating, like trying to write a certain number of pages per day or attempting to stick to a deadline.

Instead, Egan promised to write a novel in which every single chapter explored completely different characters, viewpoints and styles. In other words, nothing could be the same.

The result is a boisterous and diverse gathering of voices, ranging from a washed-up music producer who picks up teenagers to a young girl attempting to tell stories through PowerPoint presentations.

By creating this collage of a novel, with constantly shifting narrators and varied styles of writing, Egan is the one of the most recent and successful examples of a trend that has been steadily seeping into the world of contemporary literature.

Think of Colum McCann's novel Let The Great World Spin, which won the National Book Award in 2009. In many ways, it's the same idea. The narrators and characters that McCann creates couldn't be more different. In one chapter, we see the world from the perspective of a prostitute in the Bronx. In another, we're gazing through the eyes of a rich housewife living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

But the list doesn't end there. There's also David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and is told from the perspective of multiple characters living in different centuries. Not to mention the novels by Nicole Krauss, such as Great House, or Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies.

In each of these books, we're steadily saying goodbye to the bulk of traditional novels, in which a story has one narrator, and the reader learns about one relatively confined world. Instead we're now experiencing the collision of multiple different worlds from unusual vantage points, much like the film Crash, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2005.

Of course, there are pitfalls to this fragmented technique. The reader is forced to live in a discombobulated world and can many times feel lost in a sea of disconnected voices.

But when done at its best, like the case of Egan's Goon Squad, the reader becomes enwrapped in the various textures of life and begins to feel the commonalities that we all share.

And perhaps this is the reason that writers have migrated toward this style of writing: because more and more, we live in a world that echoes with a profound plurality of voices.

We're no longer confined to the same three channels on television, or the same few printed newspapers. The Internet and technology have torn open the world to create a new global forum, welcoming a wide range of voices.

And literature, as well as any other art, is keeping pace with these shifting times. Writers are not just inviting new characters to the table, but they're letting them tell their stories together, in the same book.

So in this way, there should be no surprise that Egan's book has taken home the grand prize. The style of writing that she has mastered represents not just where we are at this moment in time — but who we are.

The 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

2011-04-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was just announced a couple hours ago and The Pulitzer Blog extends its congratulations to Jennifer Egan, who won for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad (Alfred A. Knopf). To commemorate the occasion, Joshua and I have agreed to read last year's surprise winner, Tinkers, by Paul Harding.

I have to admit, I'm a little skeptical about this choice, even though I've yet to read it. Based on the reviews and the novel description alone, it just doesn't seem like the type of book that would ordinarily win. Then again, if we had been doing this project then, I probably would have the said the same of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao or John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.

That Pulitzer committe is just full of surprises.

Check out what they had to say about the novel: "Awarded to A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed."

Here's a brief description of A Visit from the Goon Squad, from Amazon.com:

Readers will be pleased to discover that the star-crossed marriage of lucid prose and expertly deployed postmodern switcheroos that helped shoot Egan to the top of the genre-bending new school is alive in well in this graceful yet wild novel. We begin in contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. By then, Egan has accrued tertiary characters, like Scotty Hausmann, Bennie's one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of society, and Alex, who goes on a date with Sasha and later witnesses the future of the music industry. Egan's overarching concerns are about how rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Or as one character asks, How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about? Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on, as this powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays the same. Critics loved Egan's newest novel, describing it as "audacious" and "extraordinary" (Philadelphia Inquirer). In the hands of a less-gifted writer, Egans's time-hopping narrative, unorthodox format, and motley cast of characters might have failed spectacularly. But it works here, primarily because each person shines within his or her individual chapter that offers a distinct voice and a fascinating backstory. A few reviewers mentioned the uneven nature of the chapters and the different stylistic experiments within them. Yet, hailed as "a frequently dazzling piece of layer-cake metafiction" (Entertainment Weekly), A Visit from the Goon Squad is a gutsy novel that succeeds on all levels.

I had originally predicted Jonathan Franzen's Freedom to be this year's big winner, but I stand corrected. It wasn't even a finalist.

"Nominated as finalists in this category were: “The Privileges,” by Jonathan Dee (Random House), a contemporary, wide ranging tale about an elite Manhattan family, moral bankruptcy and the long reach of wealth; and “The Surrendered,” by Chang-rae Lee (Riverhead Books), a haunting and often heartbreaking epic whose characters explore the deep reverberations of love, devotion and war(pulitzer.org)."

Entry 38: "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (2007)

2011-04-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

The Pulitzer Project—until Monday, anyway—is officially halfway over.

Since 1918, 84 novels have won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and, after reading Cormac McCarthy's brilliant 2007 prize-winning masterpiece, The Road, I have read 42 of them. Joshua took March off to focus on the goings-on of his personal life and I slowed my reading pace down a bit to focus on my new job, my new relationship, my new life.

To get himself back into the swing of this project, he decided to read The Road; he had kept that one as his “ace up the sleeve,” so to speak—in the event that he needed to regain some momentum along this intense reading journey, he wanted to have The Road to be the novel that served as the catalyst to his inspiration refill. In my case, I wanted to read a novel that was celebratory of the official half-point milestone. A novel that chronicled a long, hard journey shared by two people seemed most befitting. It also helped Joshua and I to share a novel that we could discuss upon completion. So, The Road, all around, was the best choice.

It was also coincidental that I read most of The Road while sitting in traffic jams on I-90 West, on my ways to and from work.

Since we started this project, Joshua and I have been eagerly looking forward to reading The Road. We had both read and heard so many rave reviews of it and nearly every reputable source considers The Road to be Cormac McCarthy's magnum opus. One of my friends, Jeremy—even when I had first started this project back in February—kept urging me to read it because he wanted to talk about it with me.

As it turned out, everyone was right—The Road is one of the most amazing novels I have ever read.

For those of you who haven't heard about the novel or seen the movie, the basic premise is that a father and his son are walking a road to the Eastern seaboard in post-apocalyptic America. The landscape is barren, desolate, ashen. McCarthy never reveals what happened to create the apocalypse (which frustrated me throughout my reading), but that only adds to the suspense that he so masterfully weaves page after page.

Over the course of their journey, the father and son (whose names are also never revealed) encounter hardships, toils, and snares that bring them all the way to the brink of the most hellish existence. Among their obstacles are starvation, thieves, desperadoes, murderers, sickness, and even cannibals. Yes—cannibals.

These deterrents, though, weren't the main focus of this novel. McCarthy wasn't writing a Sci-Fi or horror novel; he didn't intend for it to be an edge-of-your-seat, action packed page-turner as a means of pure entertainment. No, the focus of this novel was the relationship between a father and his son and the life-saving power of that bond. Their relationship was built on trust—it depended on trust. There were several scenes where the father told his son “stay here,” then explore an abandoned grocery store, or shipwreck, or house, to find supplies or food for survival. The boy had to trust that his father would return to keep him safe, and the father had to trust his son to stay put. And that trust is what kept them alive.

And so, despite the fact that McCarthy never divulges how the apocalypse began, the reader doesn't really miss out on anything. Because the apocalypse wasn't the point—the apocalypse was just the writer's foil to keep the story moving along; as were the thieves, the starvation, the sicknesses, and the cannibals. The messages of love and trust and redemption were the points of the novel. Those were the messages McCarthy conveyed to the reader.

I do have but one small complaint, however. And, honestly, my complaint isn't even that big of a deal.

Let me say this first: Cormac McCarthy is one of the best writers Joshua and I have encountered along this Pulitzer journey. His ability to tell a story, to write a sentence, to choose words to fit into a phrase is so phenomenal; his writing is truly breathtaking.

That being said, however, there are times when his writing is a little over the top. A little melodramatic. There were times (not many times—but, times) when I'd actually pull the book away after a paragraph of grandiose prose and sigh because it was all just a little too much. Like, “the silent sun circled the ashen earth like a mourning mother with a lamp” or “they huddled together on street curbs like failed sectarian suicides” (those aren't the exact phrases, but it's a lot like that). It reminded me of that movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula—there's a line in that movie where Count Dracula literally says, “I have crossed oceans of time to be with you.” There are just some times when a metaphor or a simile is so over the top that it's almost comical. And, despite his prowess as a wonderful wordsmith, there are certainly brief occasions when even the great Cormac McCarthy falls victim to over-sentimentalism.

The Road was an absolutely amazing novel—certainly Top 5 Pulitzer-Winning Novels material. It is the sort of novel that (speaking of over-sentimentalism) makes you believe in the magic of storytelling. McCarthy is a master storyteller—he keeps you on the edge of your seat, keeps you turning the pages, keeps your interest and holds it captive for the duration of the novel. Page after page of heartbreak and turmoil and anguish and even still, McCarthy does not let you—not even for a moment—put the book down to breathe.

And this novel, at this time, has propelled Joshua and I to officially start “finishing up” this project. We're halfway there, the end is in sight. We still have a long way to journey, but Cormac McCarthy has just given us a second wind to continue down “the road.”

Entry 37: "Foreign Affairs" by Alison Lurie (1985)

2011-03-31T16:42:00.000-07:00

Going against my original plan, I decided to wrap up March with a novel that wasn't The Color Purple or Lamb In His Bosom. Why? Well, on March 21, I celebrated my 26th birthday. So, as a means to make my reading journey as thematic as possible, I decided to go with a novel that not only was written by a woman (in keeping with National Women's History Month), but the novel that won the Pulitzer Prize a few short weeks after I was born in 1985.

The only novel that fit the bill on both accounts was Alison Lurie's Foreign Affairs.

When Joshua and I first set out on this journey and were collecting the winning books, we both assumed that this particular book was a romance novel. We didn't have much evidence to make that claim other than the facts that the word "affairs" appears in the title and there's a broken heart on the cover. I was more than pleasantly surprised to discover that we were both wrong.

While Foreign Affairs does deal with love and romance, it doesn't specifically revolve around romantic relationships; rather, it broadens its scope to encompass human relationships at their most basic level—a common association shared between two or more people. In this novel the dynamics of acquaintances, friendships, lovers, marriages, families, enemies, and professional relationships are all explored at least briefly.

And over the course of its pages, Foreign Affairs simultaneously warms and breaks our hearts with its all-too-real portrayal of relationships.

Foreign Affairs simultaneously follows the sordid lives of two American professors on sabbatical in England: Vinne Miner, a middle-aged woman who is researching children's folklore, and Fred Turner, a twentysomething man who is writing a book about the poet John Gay. Lurie alternatively tells their stories in each story, sometimes making their paths cross in unusual circumstances, sometimes in hokey and trite circumstances (I'll explain this a bit more later).

Vinnie is a recent divorcee who has never cared much for love and love has never much cared for her. She is jaded and cynical and, as a result of past casual romances, has decided to live the life of, more or less, a hermit. She travels to England to do her work, and that is all—she's not there to take in the sights, to make friends, to mingle. No. She's strictly business. But her world is turned upside down by a dapper, albeit awkward and clumsy, Southern gentleman named Chuck Mumpson—a true blue all-American good ol' boy who is on holiday to research his genealogy. Though she does her best to avoid him at the onset of their relationship, she eventually gives into his charm and genteelness and comes to find that she actually has affections for him. Unfortunately, their romance is cut short when he suffers a major heart attack and passes away, leaving Vinnie, once again, alone and cynical.

Then, there's Fred.

Fred is a married man whose marriage is falling apart because of jealousy, suspicion, and resentment and is finding England to be a safe place away from the wreckage of his home in America. That is, until he gets swept up in a whirlwind romance with an English television actress who is every bit as eccentric as his current wife. Over the course of their relationship, she puts him through every wringer that his wife does and makes him emotionally crazy by the end of their foray. That is, of course, until his wife apologizes for their misunderstanding and informs him that she wants to keep trying to make their marriage work.

In the end though, despite what should have been life-altering experiences, both characters end up the same way they began. And as much as that bothered me when I finished reading the novel, upon further reflection, I think I've actually come to appreciate the ending more.

Because more often than not, especially when it comes to relationships, we don't learn from our mistakes. We keep repeating and repeating them, forever in a cycle of hurt. We get out of a really bad relationship and immediately jump into a similar one, or go back to the original to try again. Sometimes it works out for the better, but not as often as the reversal. On a personal note, I know from experience: most of the time it's best to just move on. Otherwise you will be forever entangled in a web of bad relationships and history will just keep repeating itself over and over.

And I think that's the point Lurie makes.

Okay, very quickly: some brief criticisms and praises of Foreign Affairs.

Despite the book's central theme revolving around relational dynamics, I feel like Lurie, at times, depended a little too much on them and forced them to become kind of a crutch. If you've followed my blog closely, you'll know that I am very critical of what I call the Magnolia Effect—the Magnolia Effect takes its names from the film Magnolia, where an ensemble cast of several characters have very different storylines that all intertwine by the story's end. While it is a nifty little literary device, it can all too often be abused, overused, or misused. Unfortunately, Lurie fell victim to its whims. There were a couple parts where characters from very different backgrounds, who have very different lives and very different stories came together in an all together miraculous and truly hokey fashion. It felt forced, contrived, and trite.

Now, for a praise: the thing I found most interesting about the book was Lurie's intermingling of literary devices in a literary fashion. Let me explain—as literary critics, we are taught to look for symbolism, foreshadowing, metaphors, et al. Not only does Lurie provide a literary critic's watchful eye with plenty of these things to keep us satisfied, she also uses these devices to tell her story (i.e., when Fred breaks up with Rosemary, his English actress girlfriend, Lurie likens it to the Revolutionary War—America quarreling with England). However, Lurie doesn't do this in a fashion that makes the reader feel stupid for not picking up on it, and she doesn't make the reader feel like we think she thinks we're stupid; rather, she uses these devices almost as if they were the professors' inner thoughts, as if they were the narrators and they were explaining their lives the way they would read their own stories.

It's actually quite clever.

Relationships are difficult. It's cliche to say, but nobody knows that better than me. I've had my fair share of relationships—romantic or otherwise—go sour. Even as I am currently venturing into a new romantic relationship and am filled to the brim with all of the excitement new romances bring, there will always be a part of me that is forever looking back at old loves and wondering what might have been had things been even remotely different. I've been hurt by a lot of people, and I've done my share of hurting others. And every time I enter into another romance, I bring along my bag of burdens, my scars, my catalog of regrets...

That's the way it is for everyone, though. No matter the circumstances, we're always looking for that special someone to help us hobble through life and, if at all possible, lick our wounds for us. And that's why Foreign Affairs is such a universal novel—we all intimately know the pains, the hurts, the joys, the elation that Alison Lurie so powerfully and effectively demonstrates page after page.

Entry 36: "Beloved" by Toni Morrison (1988)

2011-03-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

Toni Morrison—one of America's most beloved (no pun intended) and celebrated female authors; winner of the Novel Peace Prize; winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for her incredible novel, Beloved. Being that March is National Women's History Month, I decided that Toni Morrison's instant classic was the book for me.

And, now, a new novel has entered my all-time top ten.

Going into this one, I was expecting another slavery novel along the lines of March, another Pulitzer-winner by Geraldine Brooks. Instead, I got what I referred to as a "ghost-baby story." Beloved, by far, is one of the strangest, weirdest, most gruesome, most graphic, and, yet, most eloquently and beautifully told stories I have ever read in my life. Everything in it caught me totally by surprise.

Explaining this novel is a little difficult without making it sound completely crazy. On the other hand, I have to admit, this novel is completely crazy. Here's the basic premise: a former slave woman named Sethe and her family are haunted by the ghost of her baby who she brutally killed in the days before the Civil War, and are then visited by the flesh-incarnate manifestation of that baby—a girl named Beloved.

Murder, beatings, hauntings, exorcisms, rapes—it's all here.

Of course, this is just what's visible to the naked eye. A writer as prolific as Toni Morrison wouldn't tell a mere ghost story without making a grand metaphor of it. What the family in this novel is dealing with (and what African-Americans were and are still dealing with) is their reconciliation with slavery.

The ghost baby that haunts Sethe and her daughted, Denver, in the beginning of the novel is representative of Sethe's refusal to move forward with life; when Paul D. comes back into Sethe's life, he performs a makeshift exorcism in her room and gets rid of the ghost, which is symbolic of the family attempting to move forward; the ghost baby puts on flesh and returns to 124 (Sethe's home) to make a residence for herself and the family takes her in, nurtures her, embraces her—this is symbolic of the family coming to terms with their past; in the end, Beloved leaves 124 and Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. begin to embrace the evolving American societal landscape—symbolizing their eventual reconciliation with their pasts.

What surprised me more than the storyline was Toni Morrison's exquisite prose. I confess, I've never read anything by her before and after having read Beloved, I'm only disappointed with myself. She is such a wonderful and gifted author—the writing in this novel was on the same level as Virginia Woolf, or Oscar Wilde as she weaved an incredibly complex stream of consciousness narrative akin to To the Lighthouse, and a story even more demented than The Portrait of Dorian Grey (respectively).

With this novel, Morrison not only tells the story of a generation, but the story of an entire people. With this novel, it seems as though Toni Morrison (a social activist) was attempting to speak to the African-American community she is a part of words of reconciliation with their pasts.

It is no secret that American slavery was an atrocity, and the black community has certainly (and rightfully so) had a very rough time letting go of that burden, that grudge against whites. Morrison, on the other hand—a pacifist—, with this novel, urges her brothers and sisters to move on! Not to forget the past, not to ignore the past; but to embrace it, nurture it, learn to forgive, and move on with their lives. Beloved is not meant to be a novel written by a black woman to make white people feel bad about themselves—it's a novel for everyone who has a secret, or a burden, or a hurt, and wants to move on.

This novel is not meant to divide, but to unite. To to speak anger, but to speak love. Not to wound, but to heal.

Entry 35.2: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell (1937)

2011-03-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

There's really nothing I can say that hasn't already been said about Margaret Mitchell's 1937 Pulitzer-winning novel, Gone with the Wind. It is a fantastic work of fiction—a soaring and mesmerizing novel with bigger than life characters that are so unbelievably believable human beings.

I have to be honest—I honestly didn't think I was going to enjoy Gone with the Wind. I really didn't. In fact, I was actually kind of dreading it (which, besides its length, is one of the reasons Joshua and I chose it to be a monthly reading challenge book). A soap opera set in the South against the backdrop of the Civil War—? Please. Spare me.

However, St. Joseph Pulitzer—once again—proved me wrong; I really enjoyed this one.

That being said, I must say, I wasn't a big fan of the storyline. That is my one complaint of the novel. It's not that the story isn't engaging, or not well told, or not well written, or boring, or anything like that—it is all of those things. It just wasn't my cup of tea, that's all.

And if my one complaint of a 1000+ page novel is that the genre isn't my favorite, that's really not much of a complaint. So, on with the praises!

With this novel, Margaret Mitchell has two things really going for her: 1) her writing style, and 2) her characters. Mitchell is an absolutely wonderful novelist who really knows her way around great long form literary construction. As I said, this story wasn't really up my alley—it's, in essence, a soap opera. It's a romance novel, but with a lot more intrigue and conflict going on. That conflict, namely, is the American Civil War.

Mitchell did a really good job of walking the delicate line between romance novel and war novel for the better half of Gone with the Wind. In the hands of a lesser writer, the story would have been unbalanced—but Mitchell is an expert literary craftswoman. She was able to write her love story long enough to keep the romantics interested, and, at the same time, writes about the Civil War in extremely factual detail long enough to keep history buffs interested. I was very engaged with the novel until the war ended, actually. Once the North won, and life returned to "normal" at Tara, I became a little disinterested. I was even more bored once Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler get married, but Mitchell brings it all the excitement back at the novel's conclusion with an intense encounter between Scarlett and Rhett.

Which brings me to my next point—the characters in this novel are among the most interesting I have ever encountered. And the most realistic, or true to life. There are so many novels that have characters that just seem to be caricatures of real people—somewhat believable people that have one dominating personality trait that puts them a little over the edge of realism. Then, of course, there are characters that are entirely unbelievable (i.e., almost everyone in Lonesome Dove). In Gone with the Wind, however, the characters are developed so well that you almost forget you're reading a fictional work.

This was particularly true of Scarlett and Rhett.

Rhett is the archetype of a Southerner, in my opinion. He's smooth, genteel, debonair, charming, handsome, and a little bit narcissistic. But for all the good-boy qualities he possesses, there's that bit of daring-do and mischief in him that makes you wonder if you could ever really trust him. He's the man every girl wants to bring home to their parents, and the man that inspires every parent to lock their daughters up. But, really, for all his mischief and (literal) rebel-rousing, deep down, he just wants the love and affection of Scarlett. And when he finally obtains it, and when Scarlett beats his character to a pulp, he becomes an empty shell of a man. He loses his personality, his renegade good looks, his boyish charm.

And Scarlett... Scarlett is the fictional embodiment of my own mother. This is the only thing that made the book difficult to get through—I could not, for the life of me, separate Scarlett from my mother; fiction from reality. When I read Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge (2009), I thought that Olive was the most original character I had ever read. Now, after reading Gone with the Wind, I have to give that award to Scarlett O'Hara. She is at once the most good-natured and the most ill-intending; the most well-meaning and the most malevolent; the most beautiful and the ugliest; the strongest and the fragilest; brutally honest and hideously manipulative. In her times, Scarlett was the most revolutionary of women—she was strong, courageous, bold, and fiercely independent. She knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it (namely, wealth and men, respectively). She was a capitalist entrepreneur in a time when women were just above slaves in social ranking. These traits made her wildly different from her female counterparts. However, at the same time, she was weak, lonely, fragile. She acted like a big strong woman, but really she was just a scared little girl putting on a facade to protect herself.

And, at the end of the novel, we find that these two characters—after getting everything they wanted (Scarlett, for Rhett; power, for Scarlett) and after going through life together—we find that these two never really changed. In the end, Rhett gives up on Scarlett and Scarlett, after spurning his love, begins plotting a plan to win him back.

As a side note, I must say, the conclusion of this novel perfectly summarizes Scarlett O'Hara—she finally realizes how awful she's been to Rhett and all but throws herself at him to convince him that she really does love him, and when he turns her back on her and calls for a divorce, she immediately begins devising a plan to win him back. In one swift motion, Mitchell shows the reader Scarlett as the scared little girl who is terrified of being alone and the manipulative femme fatale who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Gone with the Wind is an incredible novel that I will recommend to anybody. It doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man, a hopeless romantic or a cynical pessimist, etc., etc., etc.—you will love this book. Like I said before, it has a little bit of something for everyone and Mitchell writes it in a fashion that will keep you turning the pages. Despite its 1000+ page heft, I managed to finish the book in about a week because it really is engaging.

As far as its relevance to National Women's History Month goes, Margaret Mitchell was a top-notch female author that truly deserved to win the Pulitzer Prize for this novel. And Scarlett O'Hara, whether you love her or hate her, is every woman you've ever known and truly original.

Gone with the Wind is one of the defining moments in women's literature.

National Women's History Month

2011-03-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

March is National Women's History Month. And to celebrate, I am going to be nothing but female Pulitzer-winners.

Currently, I'm making my through Margaret Mitchell's 1937 Pulitzer-winning novel, Gone with the Wind, and really enjoying it. Next, I'll be tackling Toni Morrison's 1988 Pulitzer winner Beloved, followed by Willa Cather's 1923 winner, One of Ours.

The goal is to at least finish these three novels. If I finish them with some of March left over, I'll also be reading Caroline Miller's 1934 winner, Lamb In His Bosom.

Interesting side note: of the 84 Pulitzer-winning novels, only 27 of them were written by women.

Entry 35.1: March Reading Challenge: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell (1937)

2011-03-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

February has passed and March is now upon us. That can only mean one thing for Joshua and me: the March Reading Challenge is officially here.

So far, these reading challenges haven't fared so well for Joshua as he lost in January, when we read The Travels of Jamie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor, and in February, when we read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. He's already made good on his first defeat by making me a steak dinner, and once this Project is finished, he'll be reading Larry McMurtry's timeless classic, Terms of Endearment.

Now that it is March, Joshua and I will be racing each other to the last page of Margaret Mitchell's 1937 Pulitzer-winning novel, Gone with the Wind.

Here's the deal for this month: the loser of this month's challenge has to read the sequel to Gone with the Wind, Scarlett, written by Alexandra Ripley in 1991, and post a review of it on his blog. I found a summary of the novel:

The timeless tale continues... The most popular and beloved American historical novel ever written, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind is unparalleled in its portrayal of men and women at once larger than life but as real as ourselves. Now bestselling writer Alexandra Ripley brings us back to Tara and reintroduces us to the characters we remember so well: Rhett, Ashley, Mammy, Suellen, Aunt Pittypat, and, of course, Scarlett. As the classic story, first told over half a century ago, moves forward, the greatest love affair in all fiction is reignited; amidst heartbreak and joy, the endless, consuming passion between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler reaches its startling culmination. Rich with surprises at every turn and new emotional, breathtaking adventures, Scarlett satisfies our longing to reenter the world of Gone With the Wind, and like its predecessor, Scarlett will find an eternal place in our hearts.

Let the Pulitzer Project March Reading Challenge commence! Good luck, Mr. Riley—you're going to need it.

Entry 34: "The Stories of John Cheever" (1979)

2011-02-28T23:01:00.000-08:00

The Stories of John Cheever—I've been working on finishing this book for the past five or so months, trudging my way through the 60 plus stories that comprise it. And I've got to be honest, here: I couldn't stand it. I almost hated it. Story after story left me beyond frustrated with Cheever.

But, last night, after months of struggling to maintain interest, struggling to make time to squeeze a story or even two into my days, struggling to figure out why I should care about any of these stories, I finally finished it.

Then, today at work, while I served gourmet coffee to incredibly rich, incredibly obnoxious, incredibly white people—the self-righteous, over-privileged upper crust of middle class Suburbia—for twelve hours, I suddenly got it: these are the people Cheever was railing against.

And that's about the time I gained a sense of respect for John Cheever.

Let's get something straight—I was not born into privilege. I didn't come into this world with a silver spoon in my mouth. Nobody in my family is wealthy; in fact, we're all fairly poor. As if that wasn't hard enough to believe, I'm not middle-aged, I'm not upper-middle-class, and, for the most part, my life isn't falling to pieces. Here are some other things that set me apart from the characters in John Cheever's stories—I've never murdered my brother; I've never hired a personal assistant, had sex with her, then immediately fired her; I've never accidentally killed my husband; I've never cheated on my wife; I've never cheated on my wife who was cheating on me at the same time; and I've never gotten drunk and gone swimming in every swimming pool at every party I've gone to, only to return home to find that my entire family had abandoned me.

So, needless to say, I didn't really connect with anything he had to say while I was reading through his stories. I didn't identify with them.

Another reason I couldn't identify with these stories was because of how depressing they all were. How insanely, incredibly, indescribably depressing they all were. Cheever, in every single story, does not convey any glimmer of hope, any note of positivity—instead, Cheever paints a portrait of "family values" coming apart at the seams. And, in the process, he paints a portrait of the American family as it really is—bewildered, dysfunctional, and, when it comes right down to it, corrupt.

There are a couple of things that need to be understood first to understand why The Stories of John Cheever was such a great success (it won the Pulitzer, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the same year, the only book in history to do so): first of all, John Cheever was a very active closet homosexual who was battling alcoholism and depression. He felt trapped by a world he didn't feel a part of:

I think of the enormous contribution Verdi made to the life of the planet and the enormous cooperation he was given by orchestras and singers... And I think of what an enormous opportunity is to be a live on this planet. having myself been cold and hungry and terribly alone I think I still feel the excitement of that opportunity. The sense of being with some sleeping person—one's child or one's lover—and seeming to taste the privilege of living, of being alive. Since I know so much about incarceration and addiction why can't I write about it? All I seem to be able to do is howl; let out... I am both a prisoner and an addict. - from The Journals of John Cheever

His stories, it is plain to tell, are merely an extension of his personal life. The reason his writing is so irrevocably depressing is because it's so real—these weren't purely fictional stories, they were pages from his real life.

The second important thing that needs to be understood to understand the reason The Stories of John Cheever was so influential is the time during which these stories were written: from the 1950's to the 1970's. Nowadays, we look back on the 1950's as the time of pink sweaters and poodle skirts, Leave It to Beaver and Andy Griffith, and mothers railing against Elvis Presley and his gyrating hips. This post-war society brought family values to the forefront, but as we now know, this was mostly a facade to hide the fear and paranoia brought on by the Cold War. The American glory days that were the 1950's were nothing more than an elaborate show that masked society.

Cheever, on the other hand, was unmasking that society and exposing it for what it really was. Besides J.D. Salinger, nobody else was doing this at the time. Furthermore, Cheever was in a class all his own, because even though Salinger had written The Catcher In the Rye, he didn't achieve nearly the success with it that Cheever was having with his short stories that were being published on a very regular basis in The New Yorker. Not only was Cheever running an exposé of real life American culture—which must have been a complete shock to his readership (come on—you can't tell me that a generation of parents who were freaking out over Elvis Presley's hips on The Ed Sullivan Show weren't being completely shell-shocked by stories of murder, rape, alcoholism, and infidelity)—but he was even having success doing it!

This, of course, is a testament to John Cheever's unique ability as a writer—he slapped you in the face, but he did so in a way that made you respect him as an artist.

Now, as much as I have to say about this collection of short stories, I really don't feel like anything I could say could really equate with this review by Jason Pettus that I found on the website for the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. Pettus also tweeted his progress through The Stories at goodreads.com with mini-reviews that I found enlightening.

So, instead, to close out, I'm going to simply list the stories that I enjoyed the most:

"Goodbye, My Brother"
"The Enormous Radio"
"Clancy In the Tower of Babel"
"Another Story"
"The Death of Justina"
"Artemis, the Honest Well Digger"

One final word on this collection—be sure to spread the stories apart while reading them. As I've made clear, they are incredibly depressing, but Cheever's writing is also very dense. It is really easy to feel overwhelmed by both of these factors and give up on the collection all together. But don't let the girth of this book deter you—you may resent the journey of reading every story, but you'll be thankful for the accomplishment of having reached your destination.

Pie Chart Progress

2011-02-28T07:51:00.000-08:00

We have come to the end of February and, with my five finished books this month, I decided to take a look at my overall progress via a pie chart. Here's what I've done and what I still have left to do.

Almost to the halfway point!

Entry 33: "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham (1999)

2011-02-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

I had today off of work, and not much to do to fill all 24 hours it offered me. I woke up at 8:30, finished up Ernest Poole's His Family until almost noon, ate some lunch, fixed my futon, watched some television, wrote a blog, played a game, caught up with some friends and family, took two showers, listened to a lot of music, and, in the midst of all this activity, I decided that I wanted to read a whole book in one day. So, once again, I consulted the literary oracle that is Joshua Riley and requested a suggestion.

At his behest, I took Michael Cunningham's 1999 Pulitzer-winning novel, The Hours, off the shelf. He had just finished it, had really enjoyed it, and told me that, at a scant 226 pages, I could very well finish it in one day.

And, you know something? I did finish it one day. In fact, I finished it in a couple of hours. And, after I finished it, I actually wanted to read it again.

It was simply a marvelous novel.

Let me first say this—Michael Cunningham is a great writer. Now, let me say this—Michael Cunningham knows that Michael Cunningham is a great writer. Despite the fact that The Hours is a fantastically written novel, it is, overall, an overwritten novel; and, unfortunately, this does more to distract the reader than engage the reader.

The novel follows three separate stories—the lives of Clarissa, Laura, and Virginia; Virginia Woolf, that is. And these three separate stories all merge in communality between the three women at the end of the novel. Scattered throughout are themes and nuances and symbolism that hint at the outcome of the novel. And, I have to be honest here, I found this literary approach incredibly trite and entirely too predictable. In fact, at one point very early in the novel, I even sent Joshua a text message that said, "So are Laura's 'Richie' and Clarissa's 'Richard' the same person?"

They were.

However, there were so many little subtleties in this novel that Cunningham must have poured so much effort into so painstakingly crafting. There are themes and symbolism that are almost completely obscure to even the most well-trained literary eye. Cunningham, I'm sure, really wanted The Hours to be a completely perfect novel. And, even though it isn't a completely perfect novel, it's a good novel.

A damn good novel.

I was a really big fan of the drama Cunningham so effortlessly creates in each storyline. In fact, the conflicts of the novel are so subtly written, that I hardly even noticed them—even as they were occurring. Even though there was very little "going on," very little "action," there's a certain amount of tension around these frivolous goings on that compelled me to continue reading, just to figure out what was going to happen next.

But I was more impressed with the background story that he wrote for Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Even if the story was entirely contrived, it offered a really great glimpse of Michael Cunningham's feminist critique of the book. I was actually more interested in the biographical aspect than I was in the rest of the story. In fact, even though I really don't like Virginia Woolf as an author, I was so intrigued by Cunningham's background that I'd really like to investigate her life a bit more.

Entry 32: "His Family" by Ernest Poole (1918)

2011-02-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

Joshua made a random decision to read the very first novel to win a Pulitzer Prize—Ernest Poole's His Family (1918)—and he was so impressed by it, and was speaking so highly of it that I decided that I'd read it too. My original intention was to save this one until the end of the Pulitzer Project and read it alongside whatever the most winner would be—until 2011 came, the most recent winner would have been Paul Harding's Tinkers. However, I don't think I'm going to be able to read the next 46 Pulitzer novels by the time the next winner is announced in April.

But since Joshua was praising it so, how could I in good conscience pass it up? Particularly in light of one of the novels I had just finished (McMurtry's Lonesome Dove) and a collection of short stories that I am still tiredly plowing my way through (The Stories of John Cheever). I had just gotten done reading Jhumpa Lahiri's fabulous Interpreter of Maladies and, after getting the taste of great writing back in my mouth, I wanted more.

I wasn't disappointed.

I have to be honest—I really wasn't as excited at the prospect of reading His Family, but much like Josephine Johnson's Now In November, I was exceptionally surprised at how much I loved it. From every description I had heard of the book, I was expecting yet another early Pulitzer-winning pseudo-Victorian work of rubbish. Of all the early winners I've read so far (like The Magnificent Ambersons, The Age of Innocence (even while The Age of Innocence's conclusion was wonderful, the rest of the novel was entirely unbearable), Alice Adams, and Early Autumn), I have not been impressed at all. His Family just seemed to be another novel set in Old New York and it seemed to be about an aging man's struggle to maintain his family's Victorian dignity in the face of the changing times. I was surprised, and pleased, to find that this novel had very little to do with that. Rather, the focus was an aging man's struggle to keep his family knit together.

Even more impressive than the story was Poole's writing. I'd like to compose a list of writing styles that I've been most impressed with along this journey—certainly Robert Penn Warren, Jhumpa Lahiri, Josephine Johnson, Elizabeth Strout, and Marilynne Robinson come to mind—, for Ernest Poole will quickly make his way into that list. His writing is so fluid, so poetic, so image-driven, so heartbreaking, so positive, so hopeful—much like Robert Penn Warren's. There were paragraphs that I actually had to re-read just because I was enamored with them.

What I'd really like to know about this novel, though, is why it won the Pulitzer Prize. Don't get me wrong—it absolutely deserved the Prize; it's an incredible novel. But there are so many things working against it. For one thing, it's not at all pseudo-Victorian like the rest of the early winners. In fact, it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the early winners. Secondly, Ernest Poole was a Socialist and His Family is especially pro-socialism (and, from what I've read, this is even more true of another novel of his, The Harbor). During a time when Americans feared socialism (who am I kidding—if there's one thing we've learned from Obama's presidency, Americans still aren't over that fear), a socialist-sympathizing Ernest Poole wrote a pro-socialism novel that won the Pulitzer Prize!

I'd really like to look more into Poole once this project is over. I want to learn more about this Chicago-born socialist that won America's highest literature accolade, the Pulitzer Prize (and, moreover, the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded).

New Look!

2011-02-24T23:47:00.000-08:00

There's a new look here at The Pulitzer Blog. Much more functional, much more aesthetically pleasing.

Entry 31: "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)

2011-02-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

After the monumental headache that was Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, I needed the taste of really great writing in my mouth again. So, after much coaxing from Joshua—who said this book would "change my life," "break my heart," and "make [me] believe in the magic of storytelling"—I went to the bookshelf and picked up Jhumpa Lahiri's 2000 Pulitzer-winner, Interpreter of Maladies.

And, after sobbing at the conclusion of the very first story in the collection, I knew then that Joshua was probably right—this was going to be the greatest collection of stories I have ever read.

It was.

For the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize in the millennium, the Pulitzer committee made an interesting decision—they awarded it to a London-born Indian Hindu woman who was raised in the United States; they awarded it to a collection of short stories that all revolve around a theme of international, relational, and romantic transplantation. I have to believe that the Pulitzer committee had a double-intention when they awarded Interpreter of Maladies the Prize. For one thing, obviously, this book deserved to win—it is an amazing, awe-inspiring, incredibly eloquent book. Lahiri, even though she was only 33 when her collection of stories was published, writes with a wisdom and an understanding of human relationship dynamics and of the world around her that a much older woman would possess. I was actually very surprised when I learned that she was so young when these stories were written. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly in the selection process, Jhumpa Lahiri and her collection of stories embody the shift the literary world made from postmodernism to post-postmodernism.

Although it is this writer's opinion that post-postmodernism wasn't truly born until the second World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the late 1990's started signaling shifts in thinking and the way artists were interpreting and understanding the world around them. I think that the advent of the Internet and the introduction of the idea of the entire world being webbed together started deteriorating postmodernism, and 9/11 delivered its death blow. And from the rubble of the World Trade Centers, when every person in America—every person in the world—suddenly became a New Yorker, arose the Global Village.

It is this Global Village that Lahiri so eloquently describes in each story of Interpreter of Maladies.

Whether writing about the distance between two lovers and how truly the same that man and woman are ("A Temporary Matter"); two nationalities that become the same heritage under the distress of uncertainty ("When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine"); two religions that become intertwined and intermixed ("This Blessed House"); or overcoming the walls of nationality, gender, and generation ("The Third and Final Continent"), Lahiri's stories transcend barriers by writing beyond our conceptions of those barriers.

(just as a note, now that I have some examples to work with, here's the difference between postmodern and post-postmodern: if "A Temporary Matter" had been written in the 1960's, the author would have focused more on the distance of the man and the woman—their differences, but how their differences made them both totally unique, but both totally right in their own way; instead, under post-postmodernism, the author acknowledges the distance between the man and the woman, but instead focuses on the ties that draw and bind them together, instead of the differences that force them apart)

I really love the way this collection is described on the back of the book, and I don't think anything I could ever write could sum Interpreter of Maladies up as well as this does:

...this stunning debut collection unerringly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. "A writer of uncommon sensitivity and restraint...Ms. Lahiri expertly captures the out-of-context lives of immigrants, expatriates, and first-generation Americans" (Wall Street Journal). In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner.

I'm going to make a bold claim, here—it is with Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies that post-postmodernism was conceived. It hadn't been born yet—that would come later; but I really do believe that with this book, published in 1999, the seed had been planted. If literary critics and historians prove me right, that will make Interpreter of Maladies one of the most epochal books ever written, putting it in the company of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and James Joyce's Ulyssess.

But, of course, even if my claim doesn't ring true, and Interpreter of Maladies doesn't become the epochal novel that I'm describing it, one thing will always remain true of it—this is a fantastic collection of short stories that everybody needs to read.

Entry 30.3: February Challenge Results

2011-02-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems as though I have won the second monthly reading challenge by completing Larry McMurtry's grueling Lonesome Dove much earlier than both Joshua and I expected either of us would. As mentioned in Entry 30.1, whoever won this challenge got to pick another Larry McMurtry novel for the loser to read once the Pulitzer Project is over.

For my beleaguered friend, Joshua, I have chosen McMurtry's 1983 classic, Terms of Endearment.

Here's a brief synopsis of the novel, from Amazon.com:

In this acclaimed novel that inspired the Academy Award-winning motion picture, Larry McMurtry created two unforgettable characters who won the hearts of readers and moviegoers everywhere: Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma. Aurora is the kind of woman who makes the whole world orbit around her, including a string of devoted suitors. Widowed and overprotective of her daughter, Aurora adapts at her own pace until life sends two enormous challenges her way: Emma's hasty marriage and subsequent battle with cancer. Terms of Endearment is the Oscar-winning story of a memorable mother and her feisty daughter and their struggle to find the courage and humor to live through life's hazards -- and to love each other as never before.

Joshua and I have both agreed to take the month of March off from reading challenges so that we both may focus on the rest of these Pulitzers, but we'll return again in April to once again race for the prize!

Entry 30.2: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry (1986)

2011-02-11T22:37:00.000-08:00

Almost two full weeks into the month, the February reading challenge is finally over. It took everything in me to get through this book (and once he finishes, Joshua will tell you the same), but I finished Larry McMurtry's 1986 Pulitzer-winning novel, Lonesome Dove, at 11pm on Friday, February 11.

My edition of this novel was a long, grueling 821 pages that sprawled the distance from Southern Texas to Northern Montana and back again. And when I finished reading the last word, closed the book, and dropped it to the floor next to the couch I was laying on, I truly felt like I was the one who had made the treacherous journey there and back.

This book did nothing but exhaust me. All the way through, from beginning to end, I felt like a marathon runner that was perpetually hitting the proverbial wall—paragraph after paragraph, page after page. McMurtry annoyed me, angered me, infuriated me even. I cannot tell you how many times I called Joshua after finishing a chapter or two just to say, "Joshua. This is the dumbest book I have ever read." And, every single time, all he could do was agree.

I've got to be honest—I have no idea where to start with my criticisms of this novel. So, maybe I should start off this review with the things I enjoyed about the book.

So, let's see. Um.... Well. Ummmm.... This is even harder than figuring out where to start my criticisms.

Oh! I've got it.

The book didn't bore me to tears. Despite its heft, despite its length, despite the overwhelming "lull to action" ratio, and even despite McMurtry's absolutely horrendous writing, Lonesome Dove, at the very least, kept my interest. There were several points during it where I would've much rather been reading something else, but at least I wasn't bored to the point of putting the book away and accepting defeat.

Another thing I'll give Lonesome Dove is that it was a good story with really well-developed characters. In fact, the characters might have been a little too well-developed.

(Segues into criticisms)

McMurtry spent way too much time and invested way too many words into developing the story instead of telling the story. This novel was 821 pages, but could have easily been truncated into half that and the story wouldn't have suffered a great loss. In fact, the story probably would have been much more engaging that way. The story of this novel was basically this: a bunch of cowboys (led by Gus and Captain Call) decided to head from Lonesome Dove, Texas up to Montana to start up a cattle ranch, then headed there and encountered a bunch of trials and tribulations along the way, then Gus dies and wishes to be buried back in Lonesome Dove, so Call takes his dead body all the way back to honor his wishes.

In a nutshell, that's the story. Granted, there were a lot of sidebars to the story—a lot of love interests, and relationships gone awry. Be that as it may, it took me all of one sentence to recap the gist of the story.

In McMurtry's rendering, however, it takes 821 pages. In fact, it took McMurtry a whopping TWENTY SEVEN CHAPTERS to narrate the time it takes for the cowboys to decide to move to Montana to the time that they actually leave Lonesome Dove. TWENTY SEVEN CHAPTERS dedicated to nearly pointless dialogue, lengthy expository, character development, and back story. Now, I realize it takes time to fully develop a cast as numerous as this ensemble, but 27 chapters? Seriously? It was like reading Ayn Rand's classic example of all character development and no story, Atlas Shrugged, all over again. "All sizzle and no steak," as they say.

To make matters worse, some of the most important, action-packed scenes in the novel—like violent encounters with murderous Indians, barroom brawls, gunfights in the streets, and other disputes—are merely glossed over by McMurtry. There were times when I read a scene and had to go back and re-read it because I thought I had missed something; after 20 pages or so of describing how the landscape looked, or how the characters were feeling, McMurtry would detail a really tense run-in with Indians in a couple paragraphs, then go right back to focusing on the landscape for another ten pages. In the midst of a couple dozen pages, one of the main characters would wind up dead and I was so horribly fatigued by McMurtry's over-narration that I wouldn't even realize what had happened!

And maybe I'd feel differently about McMurtry's narrative if it were actually written well. Unfortunately (at least this is the case with this particular novel), McMurtry is absolute shite at writing prose. There were so many occasions where he was clearly attempting to be clever and poetic whilst describing the landscape or the look on a character's face, but every single time he fell flat on his face.

Don't even get me started on the dew...

Then, if that weren't bad enough, his voice would change throughout the novel! So the reader would be stuck with half-baked poetic prose, then a gem of a sentence like this one: "Roscoe was half asleep in his saddle when a bad thing happened." His prose didn't improve any with this little ditty: "She was sad."

Again, this is the only thing by McMurtry I've ever read (and the only thing by him I intend to ever read), so I can't let Lonesome Dove define my opinion of his overall writing abilities, but I can sure as hell tell you that this novel was one of the worst written books I've ever read.

It's almost as if McMurtry were participating in NaNoWriMo and, in a race against the calendar, was just writing for the sake of writing.

Another note on time-management—it is nearly impossible to figure out McMurtry's estimation of how much time it takes to do certain tasks (like a 27 chapter decision to move to Montana, or an 80-chapter trek across the country, or a 2-chapter trek back across the country). There were countless occasions where I had been reading and reading and reading for hours and the wagon train was still in the same damn place they were when I first started reading and I would literally cry out, "Seriously!? How long is this going to take??" Then, before I knew it, the wagon train was 500 more miles into their journey! Both McMurtry's time lapse and geographical locations made absolutely no sense.

Speaking of things not making sense, there was McMurtry's insistence on character overlapping. Somehow, every character in this book by the end of the novel knew each other, regardless of where they were from. This feature of the book is a bit hard to explain without giving away too much of the plot, but suffice it to say that the film Magnolia has absolutely nothing on this novel's "character interconnectedness."

Here's a magnificent example: Blue Duck, the villain, kidnaps Lorie, the "damsel in distress." Gus sets out to rescue her and in the middle of the wide-open Midwestern plains, he runs into July Johnson, a sheriff from Arkansas. Now, Johnson left Arkansas to track down Jake Spoon, a cowboy guilty of killing Johnson's brother in law, but he gave up on that chase when he learned that his wife had run away from home right after he left, so he decided to head to Nebraska to track her down instead. So, on his way to Nebraska, he suddenly, and for no reason, pops up in the middle of the Plains and runs into Gus and they fight Blue Duck's posse together. Now, here's the impossible part: if McMurtry was telling the story with any sort of consistency, Johnson had somehow backtracked some almost 500 miles to have this chance run-in with Gus in the middle of nowhere! Then, just as inexplicably as their chance encounter was, they parted ways only to have another couple run-ins with each other over the course of the next 60 chapters.

McMurtry does the impossible in this book and just strings the reader along, assuring us, "Trust me on this one. Just follow me and trust me." But, by that point (which is a little less than halfway through the novel, mind you), you are so completely disenfranchised with the story that you don't even care anymore. The only reason you're still reading is because you've already read 400 pages and you can't bring yourself to completely give up on that sort of time investment.

Obviously, I don't recommend this book to anyone. Unless you have a death wish. Then, by all means—go for it. But I cannot in good conscience ever recommend this book.

I have absolutely no idea how this novel managed to win a Pulitzer Prize. Seriously, my only guess is that politics were heavily involved. As Joshua and I are coming to find, the Pulitzer Prize is one of the most biased and political prizes in the arts and always has been (something that we will document when this project is finished) and I'm guessing that McMurtry was the benefactor of this.

The only other possibility that I can come up with is that it was merely awarded the Pulitzer Prize because it was the last Western novel that they were going to award the Prize to. Now, there may actually be something to this theory... Before its big win, a handful of Western novels won the Prize; since its win, none have. Furthermore, it was the last genre book to win the Pulitzer Prize—before it, most of the winners were either period pieces, war novels, Westerns, pioneer novels, political novels, or even romance; since its win, all of the winners have been genuine literary fiction. It is this reader's opinion that perhaps the Pulitzer committee figured that there would never be a Western novel as epic as Lonesome Dove, so they decided to award it the Prize as a last huzzah for Western novels. I only have two pieces of evidence for this suspicion: the first, of course, is that no Western has won since; the second is that none of Cormac McCarthy's incredible Border Trilogy (which consists of The Crossing, All the Pretty Horses, and No Country for Old Men) won the Prize.

Then again, there may be nothing to these claims at all.

It's funny—after reading it, I didn't think anything else in this Pulitzer Project would even compare in awfulness to Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons. But, now, I'm not so sure. It and Lonesome Dove are definitely duking it out for that top (or, bottom) spot. The Magnificent Ambersons does have one thing going for it—it's a respectable amount of pages for a crappy book. At least Tarkington doesn't force you to endure an awfully written novel for 821 pages. Lonesome Dove, on the other hand, is the length of five novels put together! For no apparent reason, to boot!

I have to admit that I almost feel bad tearing down Lonesome Dove as much as I have been, because I legitimately enjoyed the story. You know—once I managed to wade knee-deep through all of McMurtry's severely overwritten bullshit prose. If you can figure out a method to overlook that, Lonesome Dove will at least provide you a good story with a lot of human drama.

Entry 30.1: February Challenge Book: "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry (1986)

2011-02-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

February is now upon us, and that can only mean one thing—the latest incarnation of Joshua and Drew's Pulitzer reading challenge has been decided upon.

This month, we will be tackling one of the books that we have been dreading since we set out on this journey: Larry McMurtry's 1986 winner, Lonesome Dove. This novel stands at a formidable 821 pages and chronicles the Old West "as it really was" (at least that's the way its described on my edition's book flap).

So, 1) we've been quaking in our boots at the mere length of the novel, and 2) we've been apprehensive about reading Western novels this entire time, and 3) Larry McMurtry is so full of himself that we both think it's safe to assume this novel is probably incredibly over-written.

But I digress.

Here's the wager: the first one to finish this novel over the span of February gets to choose another McMurtry novel for the loser to read after the Pulitzer Project is over. I believe Joshua has chosen Dead Man Walking, and I think I might choose Terms of Endearment.

Let the challenge commence!

Entry 29: "The Able McLaughlins" by Margaret Wilson (1924)

2011-01-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

After a somewhat disappointing foray into the 1990's, I decided I should go back in time and pick up another, what I thought was, pioneer novel. I had so much fun reading The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, and if I'm being honest with myself, I don't think I was entirely ready to leave that world. So I pilfered through the giant box of Pulitzer novels sitting in the corner of my bedroom and scrounged up Chicago-native Margaret Wilson's 1924 winner, The Able McLaughlins.

This was the very last book I bought along this journey this past December, two days before the new year. Somehow, I couldn't find this book anywhere, not even in Chicago, despite Wilson being a Chicagoan. In December, though, my coffee shop had a secret Santa gift exchange and I received a $25 Borders gift card—which I used to purchase this book from the Internet.

Is that cheating...? I don't think so. Not in the state of desperation I was in to finally get my hands on it.

When I finally got it, I read the back of the book and was surprised to find that it didn't actually say anything much of what the book is about. It reads:

Originally published in 1923. Pulitzer Prize novel in 1924. The work is particularly successful in the deftness with which a variety of Scotch characters are drawn. It is a capital story: its characters are wholesome, lovable, well-rounded human beings, and the atmosphere of the whole book breathers of the fresh prairie winds and rugged hardships of the life it portrays. THIS IS THE STORY OF A SCOTCH COMMUNITY IN THE MIDDLE WEST DURING THE 1860'S. It is a story of the McWhees, the McNabs, the McNorkels, the Gillicuddies, the McElhineys, the McDowells, the Whannels, the McTaggerts, the Strutheres, the Stevensons, the McLaughlins and the Sprouts. It is also a story of Scotchmen who left their native land and settled on the incredible prairie; acres from which no frontiersman need ever cut a tree; acres in which a man might plow a furrow of rich black earth a mile long without striking a stump or stone. It is also a love story of Willy and Chirstie, set against the conflict of customs of the old world and the new. It is a triumphant story of love and live and of human frailties.

No, seriously—that's what it says on the back of the book.

The ironic thing here, though, is that in all of that nonsensical rambling, the only things that this book was actually about was that there are Scottish people in the book, and Wully and Chirstie being in love. But I digress.

I was exceptionally pleased with this novel. Note: pleased. I wasn't blown away, I wasn't amazed, I didn't fall in love with it. I was pleased. It's a pleasant little book with some pleasant little characters living pleasant little lives. Nothing to shout about here, nothing to shout at here. I must make mention, however, of how immensely relieved I was that this 1920's Pulitzer-winner wasn't at all another example of American pseudo-Victorianism, like Poole, Bromfield, Wharton, and Tarkington. For the most part, this book had very little to do with societal concern, had absolutely nothing to do with aristocracy, and everything to do with family dynamics and the ties that bind. I cannot tell you how satisfying it was to read a 1920's novel that wasn't about stuffy, rich white people griping about the way Old New York is devolving.

Now, despite the fact that I wasn't particularly amazed by this novel, I will say that it did captivate me. Margaret Wilson is a wonderful storyteller and she held my attention throughout the novel. In fact, I read the entirety of it in a mere two or three days—Joshua will tell you he had the same experience. She's terrific at pacing the story—speeding through unimportant details, and pumping the brakes at all the right times—, she has her own voice, and she has such a firm grip on human relational and familial dynamics. And, truly, the characters in this novel run the gambit of human emotions.

Entry 28: "Martin Dressler: the Tale of an American Dreamer" by Steven Millhauser (1997)

2011-01-24T19:01:00.000-08:00

Joshua and I were both absolutely mesmerized by the epic, grandiose, and sprawling Travels of Jaimie McPheeters—the tale of a boy and his father's dreams of fortune in the hills of San Francisco that send them on a perilous journey across the country. Even a week after finishing it, I am still reeling from the absolutely perfect ending Taylor provided for the novel; still left inspired by the spirit of hope.

In light of McPheeters, whereas Joshua decided to pursue the theme of Native Americans and finished Laughing Boy, I decided to pursue the theme of the American Dream and read Steven Millhauser's 1997 Pulitzer-winner, Martin Dressler: the Tale of an American Dreamer.

I sincerely wish this book would have left me half as inspired as The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters did.

However, I am now wondering if that was, after all, Millhauser's point...

I really struggled all the way through this novel. Even though it was only 300 pages, it took me the better part of a week to trudge through it. It wasn't that the story wasn't interesting—it was; it wasn't that Millhauser isn't a great writer—he is; it wasn't even that it was difficult reading—it wasn't. I have only two complaints about the novel, but these two details nearly entirely ruined the entire novel for me: 1) it was under-written, and 2) the main character was, for the most part, one-dimensional.

Now, before I get into unpacking these complaints, I feel like I should probably explain the basic premise of the novel a little bit: Martin Dressler, the titled character, starts off the novel as a teenager working as an assistant in his German immigrant father's cigar shop in turn-of-the-20th-century New York City. By the end of the novel, Dressler becomes a successful entrepreneur and businessman by working hard and staying dedicated to his dreams and belief that anything can be better, grander, more magnificent. He works his way up in the business world by becoming a bellboy at a New York hotel; then running his own cigar shop in the hotel's lobby; then becoming a supervisor; then a managerial assistant; then a manager; then opening his own chain of local restaurants; then building and owning a hotel; then building and owning a bigger, better hotel. At the novel's end, his illusory dreams of grandeur finally overshadow him and, when his third hotel—a hotel that was built to match the magnificence of the entire world—goes belly-up, he is left penniless and alone.

A classic rags to riches to rags tale.

Now, all of this should have provided for an incredibly interesting and entertaining story; however, to address my first complaint, Millhauser vastly under-wrote the story. The majority of the novel is written so matter-of-factly, that my summary provided above could almost get me sued for plagiarism. Of course, this is an exaggeration of the matter at hand, but I really don't believe it's too much of an exaggeration. While I have to praise Millhauser for his meticulous attention to detail and very elaborate imagery, particularly when describing Dressler's businesses and the landscape of Old New York, I also have to fault him for not providing a lot of, what I feel is, vital information for the reader.

For one thing, Millhauser doesn't tell the reader much about the daily goings on of Martin Dressler nor of the businesses he owns. There are wide gaps in time in a matter of a few sentences that are nothing short of jarring—gaps wide enough to drive buses through, to abuse an old cliche. Here, for example, is how Chapter 15 begins: "On the first of September Martin and Walter Dundee took over the lease of a restaurant on Columbus Avenue near the corner of Eighty-fourth Street, between a greengrocer's shop and a bakery. By mid-October the new lunchroom was ready for business." Seriously? Almost a full two months of business planning, building, decorating, and characters' personal growth passes in a matter of two sentences. I didn't even paraphrase—I directly quoted from this novel a month and a half's worth of activity and I didn't even need to block-quote it. In disbelief, I read this excerpt aloud to my coworker, Kelly, who wrinkled her nose and retorted, "But, a lot can happen in two months!" I nodded in agreement and replied, "But not in two sentences. Apparently."

Three quarters of the novel is written this way too. In one portion, a full two years passes without mention from the author. In fact, if memory serves correctly, Millhauser may have even wrote, "Two years later..." or something to that effect. However, Millhauser will ramble on and on for (sometimes) pages about things as frivolous as the decorations or architecture of one of Dressler's many businesses with little to no mention of Dressler himself.

And now I'm going to segues to my next complaint.

Martin Dressler is almost entirely one-dimensional. In only 300 pages, this novel covers almost 25 years of Martin Dressler's life. In Ulysses, it took James Joyce about three times that to write about one day! And during this time, Millhauser puts Dressler into some life-altering situations; like becoming a successful businessman, a husband, a playboy, an adulterer, and, arguably, a widower. However, in this novel's 28 chapters, only two make any mention at all of Dressler's psychological or emotional condition. And even in those two chapters, Dressler's character is only developed for a grand total of about ten pages. For the rest of the novel, Dressler is written as, for all intents and purposes, a robot—just an emotionless, thoughtless machine that builds and builds and builds and builds.

Millhauser does a far better job of detailing the personalities of buildings than he does that of his eponymous protagonist!

However, now that I have finished the novel and let the conclusion settle in for a couple hours, I am beginning to believe this was intentional on Millhauser's part.

In the final few pages, Martin Dressler suddenly comes to life. This revival comes only after his grandest scheme, The Grand Cosmo Hotel, is panned by critics and proves itself to be a commercial and financial disaster. I found it interesting that after Dressler's "American dream" withered and dies, Millhauser suddenly brought Dressler to life. Dressler suddenly became a human being with thoughts and emotions—incredibly complex thoughts and emotions too. I was all too relieved to finally see that come about, albeit 287 pages tardy. But that revival was a perfect ending to the novel. I have to give Millhauser credit for that, at least.

But the fact that Dressler suddenly put on flesh after becoming a failure only spits in the face of the American dream. And I believe that was what Millhauser was driving toward throughout the course of the novel.

Everything—business, media, professional sports, society at large, and even history textbooks—preaches that the so-called "American dream" brings happiness and contentment. All Americans are born and live their entire lives with the words "Life, love, and the pursuit of happiness" thrown at them from every imaginable outlet. We are taught believe that with a lot of hard work and dedication, anybody can achieve their personal "American dreams." And so we live our lives much like Martin Dressler: robots slaving away for our entire lives so we can have the house, the 2.5 kids, the dog, the white picket fence, the Prius in the driveway, the abundance of money in the savings account. Rather than human beings with thoughts and emotions and feelings, we metamorphose into worker bees, using all of resources for the betterment of our personal hives.

But what happens when our dreams die? What happens when our illusions of grandeur vanish?

In the case of Martin Dressler, it brings contentment:

Martin got up and brushed off the seat of his pants with his hat. He put his hat on his head and started back toward the path. For when you woke from a long dream, into the new morning, then try as you might you couldn't not hear, beyond your door, the sounds of the new day, the drawer opening in your father's bureau, the bang of a pot, you couldn't not see, through your trembling lashes, the stripe of light on the bedroom wall. Boys shouted in the park, on a sunny tree-root he saw a cigar band, red and gold. One of these days he might find something to do in a cigar store, after all he still knew his tobacco, you never forgot a thing like that. But not just yet. Boats moved on the river, somewhere a car horn sounded, on the path a piece of broken glass glowed in a patch of sun as if at any second it would burst into flame. Everything stood out sharply: the red stem of a green leaf, horse clops and the distant clatter of a pneumatic drill, a smell of riverwater and asphalt. Martin felt hungry: chops and beer in a little he remembered on Columbus Avenue. But not yet. For the time being he would just walk along, keeping a little out of the way of things, admiring the view. It was a warm day. He was in no hurry.

I think the message we are to take from this novel is that the American dream pales in comparison to the dream and the beauty of simply enjoying our lives. Why waste our lives as robots, working and working and working our ways to some mythical state of euphoria where our lives are completely perfect and shiny and "as they should be" when we could make the most of our lives now, no matter what Fortuna (to borrow a phrase from another Pulitzer) throws our way?

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream.

Entry 27: "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters" by Robert Lewis Taylor (1958)

2011-01-19T12:21:00.000-08:00

Joshua and I had an idea a little while ago: in 2011, why don't we pick little challenges for each other—in an effort to prod each other into reading our ways through this Pulitzer Project more fervently? We could pick a book and challenge each other to be the first one to read it in its entirety the quickest; or we could see who could read the most novels in one month, et the like.

For our first challenge, our January challenge, we decided to see who would be the first one to read their way through Robert Lewis Taylor's 1958 Pulitzer-winning novel, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters.

Both of our editions are well over 450 pages (mine being 478 and his being a little over 600), we both have been working more hours during the week as of late, and we both figured this novel would be a bit of a burden to get through (with regards to subject matter, mostly—neither of us had much interested in pioneer novels and we were both sort of dreading the prospect of reading this particular novel).

And to tell the truth, we were right—this novel was a bit burdensome to get through. That is, until we actually started reading it. It took both of us 18 days to finish it, but once we really delved into it, and were both mesmerized by it, neither of us could hardly put it down. Personally, it took me 14 days to read through the first 78 pages, and four to plow through the next 400.

In the end, though I won the challenge by about an hour and a half, both of us came away from this experience with a new favorite novel. Much like Josephine Johnson's Now In November, I wasn't expecting much from this book (as aforementioned, I was actually sort of dreading it); but Taylor surprised me and offered up a diamond in the rough.

Or, perhaps more appropriately, the genuine article in the midst of fool's gold.

The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters is the story of a boy's (and his father's) journey from Missouri to San Francisco in 1849 to seek their treasures during the California Gold Rush. Their journey, particularly Jaimie's, is wrought with pains, heartaches, toils, and hardships at every turn. It was honestly as though Taylor hated his protagonists—the amount of muck and mire they have to wade through just to get to California is almost unbearable, even for the reader! Another appropriate title for this novel could have very well been The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters: A Tale of Murphy's Law. For this poor boy, anything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong.

Here are just a few examples: he falls off a boat and nearly drowns in the Mississippi River, he is found and taken in by a couple farmers only to be turned into a slave, he escapes them only to be abducted by two highwaymen, he escapes them and reunites with his father only to get lost in a prairie and nearly killed by a tornado, he attempts to find his way back to camp only to wander into Pawnee territory, they hold him hostage and torture him, he escapes them only to be once again captured by them, he escapes them again only to have more run-ins with the two highwaymen, their wagon train is attacked three or four times by both Indians and Mormons (bizarrely enough), he accidentally almost kills his own father, they end up in California and strike it rich only to be conned out of all their money, his father relapses and turns to alcoholism, they end up penniless and homeless, begging in the streets of San Francisco... I could go on and on. The Universe conspired against this poor kid at almost every single turn.

And, as the reader, I cannot tell you how unbearably frustrating it was to get through it all. At one point, while I was on my lunch break at work, I even slammed the book shut and let out an exasperated "UGH!" In fact, I can tell you exactly when it was—Jaimie had just escaped the Pawnees with an Indian girl he had befriended, only to be duped by her and, once again, captured by the Pawnees. I wanted so badly for this kid to catch a lucky break and Taylor was just not supplying it.

However, after 465 or pages of these sorts of goings on, Taylor turned in one of the most beautiful, awe-inspiring conclusions to a novel I have ever had the good pleasure to read. I am not ashamed to tell you this—I cried a little. I was so captured and enthralled by the hope and the glory and the sheer beauty of this novel's ending.

I have to give credit where credit is due—Robert Lewis Taylor is a magnificent writer.

The thing about this sort of novel is that the conclusion is the most tender, fragile element of it. A lesser writer could have severely botched it up and offered either a trite and cliche "happily ever after" ending, or an equally trite and cliche tragic ending. Taylor, on the other hand, managed to combine an equal amount of hope and tragedy to create an altogether perfect ending. Upon reading it, I immediately recognized that this novel couldn't have ended so perfectly in any other way.

Entry 26: "A Summons to Memphis" by Peter Taylor (1987)

2011-01-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

I am thirty novels into this Pulitzer Project and one theme that has arisen, and is winding its way through most of these novels so far, is one of familial relationships and reconciliations, and the idea of going home. I'm starting to notice this theme as kind of a staple of Pulitzer-winning novels, such as in The Shipping News, The Keepers of the House, Now In November, The Good Earth, The Optimist's Daughter, A Death In the Family, American Pastoral, and Ironweed, just to name a few.

It seems to me that homecomings are a part of the stitching in the American quilt, as it were. For evidence of this, one need look no further than the great American institution that is High School. The high school football homecoming game and accompanying dance are just about as Americana as warm apple pie on Thanksgiving Day. Students and alumni gather together to cheer on their alma mater and later dance the night away, crowning the homecoming king and queen. There are even parades to celebrate; the king and queen sitting atop a giant float, waving to the gathering crowds as the parade winds its way down Main Street in Small Town, Anywhere. And let us not forget high school reunions, where ten, fifteen, twenty, fifty years later, alumni will get together once again to catch up on each others' lives and reminisce about "the old days."

High school reunions, holiday gatherings, family reunions—yes, "homecoming" is a thread that ties Americans together.

This could be a reason the Pulitzer committee is so eager to award novels that expound on the theme. This was certainly the case in 1987, when Peter Taylor won for his novel, A Summons to Memphis.

Taylor sets up his story in an interesting way—the reader is originally led to believe that the central conflict of the story is that Philip Carver's father is getting married to the dismay of his children, so Philip must travel to Memphis to confront his father. This conflict is set up in the very first chapter: Philip receives two phone calls from his sisters on a Sunday night while at his home in Manhattan, and they beg him to return to Memphis to help sort the situation out. However, that is nearly the last the reader hears of that conflict for the next eight or so chapters. This conflict merely serves as bookends for Taylor's narrative.

And, in Taylor's narrative, the true central conflict emerges. This is not a story about three middle-aged children attempting to convince their senior father out of marriage—it's everything in between that makes up the real story. While contemplating what he should do about his father, Philip spends the next several chapters revealing his family's past to the reader—from their roots in Nashville, to their move to Memphis, to his childhood friends, to his parents' relationship, to his mother's passing, to his father's "stepping out," to his sisters' becoming old spinsters, to his brother's death, to his moving to Manhattan, Carver regales the reader with tales about his life. These tales are meant to inform the reader of his fractured and, oftentimes, fractious relationship with his family—most notably, his father.

The real conflict of this novel is Carver's internal struggle with leaving his past behind for good, or attempting to repair his relationship with his father.

I recently had an internal struggle very similar to Philip Carver's.

Up until this past Christmas Day, I hadn't seen or even spoken to my grandparents in nearly six years. There was a big to-do in my mother's side of the family and split us in half. This feud has been going on ever since between my mother and her parents. Unfortunately, being her son, I was sort of resigned to take her side in the issue (though I felt and still feel that my grandparents were in the wrong).

Regardless, this Christmas I decided to extend the proverbial olive branch and drove over to my grandparents' home. Without even notifying them of my visit. I just showed up. I had been reminiscing a lot lately over my family's former self—the get-togethers and parties we used to have, the all-night music sessions. All of these memories came to a head when I wrote a personal essay about my grandmother's father, "Pa," a couple weeks ago entitled "Guitar Lessons."

So I went to their home, surprising myself that I remembered how to get there so perfectly considering I hadn't been there in almost ten years. Nothing had changed, the house and neighborhood looked exactly the way I remembered it. I sat in my car, in their driveway, for about 20 minutes, chain-smoking American Spirits, and rehearsing lines; figuring out ways to conduct my behavior in every possible scenario I could imagine. As it turned out, all my fretting was for nought.

My cousin, Katherine, greeted me at the door and I walked in, kicked the snow off my shoes and removed my coat and scarf. Made my way into the living room to find my grandparents where I remembered them—in their chairs by the reading lamp against the back wall. They looked up from their books and with an almost befuddled look on both of their faces, they both said, "Andrew. Hi there." I grinned a sheepish grin, suddenly realizing that I was happy to see both of them, and replied, simply, "Hi."

The next couple hours were a blur. It was as if nothing had ever happened between us. It was as if the last six years had been totally normal. My cousins, aunt, grandparents, and I sat around the kitchen table talking and laughing well into the wee hours of the morning. When everyone decided it was time for bed, my grandfather came out of his bedroom with a pair of pajamas and some blankets for me, told me he wanted me to spend the night since the roads were so awful. I obliged. As I was about to lay down on the sofa, he came into the living room and said, "Andrew. Come here." I followed him into the kitchen and he pulled out a chair for me. "Sit down. There," he said, pointing. Again, I obliged. "Are you hungry? I'll make you some dinner." It was two in the morning, but he made a ham sandwich, scooped some potato salad onto a plate and poured a glass of ginger ale for me. I thanked him and he sat down across from me, and talked and talked and talked for almost an hour straight about our family coming to Chicago from Ireland—the Brownes, the O'Dohertys, and the Flavins. He talked about being an eight year old Irish American kid, skipping Sunday Mass and heading to his aunt's house to play cards for two hours instead. He talked about shooting BB guns in his neighbor's backyard. How his uncle was the only person he'd ever known who wore a suit and tie at all times, even while mowing the lawn: "A true gentleman," he said. Then, at 3am, he arose, hugged me and said, "I'm glad you could make it here tonight Andrew. I thought I might never see you again." He began to get a little choked up, excused himself, and while walking to his bedroom said, "Feel free to help yourself to the ginger ale. We have plenty. Goodnight."

And when I fell asleep that night, I fell asleep content. Because I knew that our fences had finally been mended.

Entry 25: "The Shipping News" by E. Annie Proulx (1994)

2010-12-27T19:36:00.000-08:00

After an arguably failed attempt of reading William Faulkner's A Fable in one day and having my brain absolutely pummeled and my will to read anything else for the rest of my life almost beaten out of me, and with Christmas fast approaching, and with my checking account being overdrawn twice in two weeks, and with being kicked out of two places in one week, I decided to take it easy on myself with this project. I took a much-needed week off from reading anything at all, and, instead, indulged myself with YouTube, watching British and Irish sitcoms, like Father Ted and The IT Crowd.

Christmas is always a stressful time of year for me. Thanksgiving is bad enough, but the four weeks leading up to Christmas are like riding on a train that you know is going to crash into a ravine—I'm just waiting, waiting, bracing myself for December 25th. Then it comes, it's a mess, then it's over, and I come away from it relatively unscathed. This year, though, it's as if both The Universe and Fortuna, herself, were conspiring against me. 2010 was the year of the worst December ever.

But, I'm a fighter. And I'm a survivor. I had the courage and the strength to stand up to the winds (that are still blowing, if I'm being honest with myself) and I did not bow or break. I pressed forward, and even gathered the energy to read another book.

I needed to read another book from the 90's since I've been forsaking that decade lately, and at Joshua's suggestion, I wanted to read Robert Olen Butler's A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, but in my recent moves, I couldn't find it. Instead, I chose the first novel from the 90's I could find in my "Unread Pulitzer Books" box, E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, the novel that won a year after Butler, in 1994.

Close enough.

Now, I know that conflict is a catalyst to driving a novel forward and that a story without conflict, really, isn't a story at all. But a few chapters into The Shipping News, I almost started to regret picking this one up when I did. As I mentioned, life was putting me through the wringer for the entirety of December and I was plenty stressed out. I thought I had it rough losing two homes in one week.

The hell that Proulx puts her protagonist, Quoyle, through makes my life look like a cakewalk. And that stressed me out even more.

In the first half of this novel, Quoyle's parents commit suicide, his wife cheats on him with countless other men, then leaves him and takes their children, she sells his two daughters to a black market adoption agency, she then dies in a car wreck, he loses his job, his house, gets his kids back, but is forced to move to Newfoundland, where his family originated, to a home he could afford with the very little amount of money he had.

This character took a beating from his author of The Fixer magnitude.

In her acknowledgments, Proulx mentions The Ashley Book of Knots, a book that she found at a garage sale for a quarter and references in almost every chapter; her chapter titles, predominantly, are knot names and she offers an explanation of the knot by referencing the The Ashley Book of Knots. The first chapter, for example, is entitled "Quoyle;" the explanation Proulx provides from The Ashley Book of Knots states, "Quoyle: A coil of rope. A Flemish flake is a spiral coil of one layer only. It is made on deck, so that it may be walked on if necessary."

This explanation is a perfect summary of her main character's life. Quoyle is a one-layered man that gets walked on by the world surrounding him every single day. Just like me, more often than not. Coincidentally, Quoyle has Irish blood.

Go figure.

However, as the novel progresses into its second half, Quoyle's luck starts to turn around—he gets hired at a local newspaper, impresses his editor and is promoted twice, he makes friends in the community, falls in love with a woman who truly loves him in return, his relationship with his children improves, and he learns how to love himself and be happy with his life. He becomes more confident, more poised, more in control of his life. There is no central conflict to the novel upon first reading, which I found annoying, but upon completion, the reader realizes that Quoyle's central conflict was with himself all along.

The Shipping News is ultimately a redemption story. It is the story of a man who refuses to let his lot in life define his life and comes out on top. And that's the sort of story I think we're all hoping to live.

I certainly am.

Stage 1: Over

2010-12-27T12:12:00.000-08:00

The Pulitzer Project is now officially coming to a close. Now that I have Margaret Wilson's 1924 Pulitzer-winning novel, The Able McLaughlins, in my possession, and Joshua has H.L. Davis's 1936 winner,The Honey In the Horn, Joshua and I have finally, after a full year of searching, completed our Pulitzer collections and now comes the time to buckle in and read. The first of three stages has finished and the second is already well under way—reading all 84 (in a few short months, 85) novels. The third stage of this project, then, will be to either write a Pulitzer-winning novel of our own under a pseudonym (i.e. Alan Germain, or Joshua Andrews) or a memoir detailing the journey from inception to completion.

I can't wait to see what the rest of this journey has in store for these two wearying travelers.

Guitar Lessons

2010-12-14T17:29:00.000-08:00

I come from a family of musicians. On my mother's side, anyway—the members of my father's side of the family have trouble enough playing the radio, let alone any musical instruments. My mother and aunt dabbled with the piano when they were young; their mother has been playing jazz and boogie woogie piano semi-professionally for years; her younger brother played blues guitar; their youngest brother plays the blues on the mighty Hammond B-3 professionally; and their father, my great-grandfather, Pa, played bluegrass and skiffle on the banjo almost his entire life. These years of musicianship were passed down through the generations and have landed with me—an acoustic guitarist by trade. It's my hope to continue passing down my family's ear for music to my children, should that day ever come.

I first picked up the guitar when I was eleven. Just like everyone else who picked up the guitar for the first time, I had big dreams: songwriting, playing in a band, record deals, world tours, changing the world, and the face of rock and roll forever. And girls. Of course, there were the girls to consider. Even in the sixth grade, girls were flocking to boys who wore Led Zeppelin t-shirts and played electric guitars. The boys in my school could only run a few scales and maybe even play three chords (which, if we are to learn anything from the punk rock scene, that's really all you need), but girls loved them nonetheless.

The boys even brought their guitars to school. Sat around in the choir room during study hall, said to each other, “Hey, dude, check this out,” and would strum out “Louie, Louie.” The girls swooned and another boy would smirk, then retort, “Yeah, well check this out,” play the three same exact chords and mumble the words to “Wild Thing” or “La Bamba.”

This went on for years—all through middle school, all through high school. Boys attempting to impress girls, and even each other, with their guitars. Some people even made careers out of it. Their scales and chords got more complicated, their sense of rhythm and strumming patterns evolved, they started writing their own songs and incorporating other musical influences into their repertoires. Then, of course, as soon as the girls they were attempting to impress became disinterested in their guitars, so did they.

I was one of the few that never really cared much for rock music. At that time in my life, I was far more interested in the music my family listened to—American folk, jazz, and blues. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, George Gershwin, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan. While my friends in high school sat on Napster, illegally downloading Metallica MP3's then learning the songs by printing guitar tablature by the ream, I was sitting cross-legged on Pa's living room floor, listening to his old vinyl records through a pair of my uncle's old studio headphones, circa 1973. I learned the old songs on the acoustic guitar by slowing the record speed down and picking around on the fretboard until I found the note that sounded the same as the one Robert Johnson was playing.

That guy sold his soul to the devil at the intersection of two dusty country roads in the middle of Nowhere, Mississippi to learn blues guitar—my method seemed a much safer alternative.

My parents eventually enrolled me in guitar lessons. When I was 12 or so. Figured if I were going to become a serious guitarist, I should learn from a serious guitarist.

They enrolled me at a local guitar shop in Joliet and drove me there every Tuesday night for my lesson at 7pm; my teacher was Gustavo "Gus" Gutierrez, a sweet old Cuban man who was approaching his 70's. Every Tuesday night, he'd show up ten minutes late, wearing a white, V-neck undershirt, black slacks and sandals, his belly bulging over his waistband and his breath smelling of booze. Bursting through the door, semi-triumphantly, he'd stretch out his arms and proclaim, “Mi amigo! Que pasa, hombre?”

I'd exclaim, equally as enthusiastically, “Gus! Oye como va, mi profesor?” and he laughed because he knew I was trying to be clever. All the Spanish I knew came from Santana song titles.

He'd sit down in his chair, pop the buckles of his guitar case open, pull out his beautiful semi-hollow body guitar, its sunburst finish and always freshly polished silver frets glistening in the low light of the practice room. He'd close his eyes, and effortlessly run a few jazz scales. “A quick calamiento. Need to clear the cobwebs,” then wink at me. It was like being with family, watching him play.

And every week, he'd forget what we were practicing the week before.

So, because I had a more enjoyable time just listening to him play, I would lie to him: "Well, last week we finished this song,”—I'd wave a piece of sheet music in front of him—“and you said you were going to play this song for me this week," then I'd pull any random song out of his rusty filing cabinet.

“Ah, yes. I remember very clearly now. Que bonita un canción .”

In the 1950's and 60's, he was a rhythm guitarist for a jazz combo in Chicago and they'd play the standards; songs like "Unforgettable," "San Antonio Rose" and "You're Nobody ('Til Somebody Loves You)." Every week, he'd introduce the new song to me by explaining the first time he'd heard it, the first time he'd played it and the audience's reaction. He'd tell me the stories for ten, fifteen minutes while absentmindedly strumming his guitar. Then, without any pause, he'd immediately transition into the song, singing his old Cuban heart out, his voice cracking and warbling under the strain of years of smoking cigarettes in dive nightclubs. It was almost magical to watch his old fingers weaving mellow tones into the air. Watching him lose himself in the music of his yesterdays. Before we knew it, it was 7:35 and the shop manager would knock on the glass window of the door and indicate that some other kid was waiting for his lesson.

“Ay, ay, ay, chinga tu madre,” he'd say, and wave the manager away. “This kid that's coming in, Andres—he doesn't give a shit for the classics. He doesn't know how to make that guitar sing like we do. That's why the women will never sing for him. Am I right?” Another wink. “Now, you go home and practice this one,” and he'd gently place the sheet music for “Summertime” in my folder, hand it back to me. “You go home and play this canción and a beautiful woman will fall in love with you. Guaranteed.”

Wink.

One week, he just stopped showing up for lessons and I had to start taking lessons from another teacher who wasn't nearly as talented and wasn't nearly as passionate about music as Gus was. So I quit taking lessons after about three more weeks, having never really learned anything after almost a full two years of taking them.

I saw Gus almost two years later, in a grocery store, with what appeared to be his personal caretaker. Gus was wearing the same white V-neck undershirt, with sweat and food stains all over it, his hair was greasy and completely disheveled. Instead of his characteristic black slacks and sandals, he was walking around in boxers and slippers, buying cheap frozen pizzas and Ramen noodles.

Pa, although he was never a fan of the music I started learning after I graduated from my own school of folk, was very encouraging and always eager to listen to whatever I learned. I suppose he got his patience from parenting three musicians who played music that he didn't like, and grandparenting two musicians who'd tinker on his upright piano's keyboard until they go so frustrated with it that they both just gave up. I like to think that he suffered through my playing because he would have much rathered I play music he couldn't stand than giving up on music all together.

Even though the banjo was his instrument of choice, he had dabbled with the guitar in the early days too; and, in the corner of his living room, resting against the wall was his prized possession—a Gibson acoustic guitar from the 1930's. He told me that during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression, while living on a farm in Kentucky, he'd play that guitar to get through the day. It stayed with him his whole life—as far as I know, always resting in the corner of his living room.

He never let anyone touch it. His own children weren't hardly allowed to even look at it. When my cousins got anywhere near it, he'd shout “Scram!” and shake his cane at them. I, on the other hand, was given full access to it. I never knew why, but I never questioned it either.

At every family gathering—Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas—, when all of the family was in town, we'd meet at Pa's house for a party and dinner. And, at every family gathering, every musician in the family would pull out their respective instruments and we'd all play music together well into the evening. Pa played too, but as his progressed into his late 70's, and into his 80's, he became weaker and weaker, to the point where he couldn't play with us anymore. So he sat in his easy chair and tapped his fingernail on the wooden armrest, keeping time.

I knew not being able to pick at the banjo anymore killed him more than his advancing years did. No matter how much joy the music we played brought him, there was always that part of his heart slowly dying with each note.

During the Christmas of 1998, I ambled over to him with his guitar, sat down on the edge of the coffee table across from his easy chair, set the guitar down in front of him, “Teach me something, Pa.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, wrinkled up his weathered face, and admitted, “Aw, hell, I couldn't even pick up that damned thing let alone play it.”

I shrugged. I knew he was flattered at my request. And I knew his response, no matter callous it sounded coming from him, was humble.

“Eh, fine. I can show you something. You ever hear of harmonics?”

I shook my head, no, I hadn't.

So he reached out his shaking, fragile hand to mine, grabbed a hold of it, spread my fingers slightly apart, and guided my middle finger to the twelfth fret. "Like this," he directed. "Now pluck that top string." I did, and the guitar made the most pathetic sound I'd ever heard. It was just a muted pluck. The sound of dead weight.

“Like that...?”

“No, no, no, not like that, goddammit.” If I hadn't known the man for 13 years, if he hadn't been Pa, that man would have terrified me. He was in 80's, but had a fierce snarl and a rough, raspy voice that inspired fear in anyone he scolded. But his bark was worse than his bite.

“Well, what am I doing wrong? I did everything you said.”

His eyes widened with surprise. “The hell you did,” he scoffed. “I didn't tell ya to strangle the damn guitar's neck. You've gotta learn to be more gentle, Andrew. Don't force it. Just let the note be the note. You're just guiding it along.”

He grabbed my wrist again, pulled it away from the neck, gave it a shake. “There ya go. Now, relax,” as he guided it back, reset my middle finger at the twelfth fret. “Now, just lightly rest it there. Don't press it. Don't force it. Just lean on it a little. 'Til you're hardly even touching it at all.”

I did as he instructed, carefully eying the way the fleshy round of my finger sat on the E-string, making sure the skin didn't fold itself around it. When I plucked the string, the guitar sang out like a bell. The sound of overtones rising and falling, building and collapsing over themselves, the beautiful note's song wafting in the air between us. The wavelengths of the string, in half-time, stretching far back into his youth and far ahead into my unknown and momentarily tying the two of us together in a fleeting moment of mutual understanding.

He closed his eyes, grinned his toothless grin, sat back in his chair. I wanted to play the harmonic again, but didn't dare disturb the calm.

“Good. Good,” he finally affirmed. “Now ain't that the damned prettiest thing you've ever heard?”

It was.

“I don't expect you to understand this now. But someday you will. It's good and well to show off your strength and really press into these frets. The strings will discipline you. You'll build up callouses like this one here” and he tapped my fingertip. “Those callouses will help you. Makes you tough. Gives you hands like mine. Hell. He lifted his hand, worn and weathered, calloused and hardened by the years and scratched at his scraggly white beard. “But sometimes you need a more gentle touch.” He paused, possibly to consider what he was saying. “A more gentle touch, Andrew. That's when you really hear the beauty.” He looked past my shoulder at his wife of 60-plus years, Gwen; his wife who would pass a mere five months later.

“You'd be amazed at the beauty, my boy. You'd be amazed.”

The next Christmas was the last we spent at Pa's house. His wife passed in May of that year and Pa was slowly dying of heartache. I used to have my dad drive me over to his house for chats. We spent most of our time together talking about old music, old times, and his wife. I went there to spend time with him, to help him clean up, to help him haul firewood from the backyard to the fireplace in the dining room.
And I went for the occasional guitar lesson.

That Christmas, after dinner was drawing to a close, Pa hoisted himself up with his cane and excused himself from the table. My grandmother got up to help him to his feet and he protested, “Get the hell off, goddammit. I've been able to stand up on my own two goddamn feet for 80 years, I certainly don't need any help now,” then shuffled his way back into the living room. The family stayed at the table, gave each other exasperated glances of worry for dear old Pa. “He's not well,” “His heart is broken,” “I don't think he has much longer.”

I excused myself and followed him into the living room, found him sitting in his easy chair. He was hunched over a TV tray, examining a newspaper with a magnifying glass.

“Heya, Pa.”

He looked up, saw me squinting at the newspaper, trying to figure out what he was reading.

“What the hell's the matter with ya?” His customary greeting.

“Nothing, Pa. Full from dinner. Whatcha reading there?”

“Obituaries. I've outlasted all these poor bastards. Just look at me. I'm in the prime of my life!”

I laughed. “Yeah, I should say so. Hey, so I learned a new song I wanted to play for you. Want to hear it?”

“Aw, hell, can't you let me read for a minute?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, that's fine,” and started rifling through his old records, pulling out some of them and turning them over in my hands. “Oh! Pa! It's this one!” I held up an old Hank Williams record. One of his favorites.

“Aw, hell, go ahead and play yer damned song then.”

I knew he would say that.

So I made my way over to his guitar, picked it up, and assumed my regular position on the edge of the coffee table. Sat directly across from him, so he could see the chords. Gently and slowly I strummed a C, first the root, then the bass—an old country and western strumming pattern he had taught me. Switched to the F, to the G, then back to the C. First the root, then the bass, in ¾ time:

I heard the lonesome whippoorwill
he sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I sang the song, sweet and low, with my eyes closed, then ended it with a harmonic on the twelfth fret of the G-string. For good measure.

And as the overtone rose up and swelled in mid-air, I opened my eyes and looked up at Pa to see if my song had gotten his approval. I was surprised to see that his eyes were still closed—closed eyes and a blank, expressionless face. One tear streaked down his wrinkled face and was lost in his beard.

I had never seen Pa cry before. Not even at his wife's funeral, not even when we drove away from her grave. I was surprised at how little it bothered me. How little it bothered me to see this 84 year old man, who had always stood out to me as a pillar of manhood, who always kept his strength, who never showed weakness, sitting across from me and shedding his brazen exterior to reveal the man underneath it all. I was surprised, in the low light of his living room, with just the two of us—the oldest and the youngest man of the family—and his guitar in my lap, the only thing between us, at how beautiful it was. How beautiful it was to see this gentle spirit that I had never seen before, and in a month's time, never see again.

You'd be amazed at the beauty, my boy. You'd be amazed.

I'm still learning.

Entry 24: "A Fable" by William Faulkner (1955)

2010-12-07T23:09:00.000-08:00

Of all the books I could have chosen to read in one day, my only day off work this week, I just had to pick William Faulkner's 1955 Pulitzer-winner A Fable.

uiadfuihdasnjkasdjkfejifeahiofdanmkohi.

That's how my brain feels right now.

I struggled all the way through this book and I'm even finding it difficult coming up with the words to describe the experience reading it. The story is a good one, but is drowned in an ocean of language and stream and consciousness narrative and intentional ambiguity and paragraphs that last for pages and sentences that stretch over two or more pages with excessive commas, semicolons, and M-dashes to the point of the reader throwing the book against the wall in a fit of rage and in hopes of the book exploding in a flurry of pages flying everywhere, hitting themselves repetitively over the head with it until they pass out if the book's dizzying effect hasn't made them pass out on its own. *deep breath*

I like how one reviewer from Amazon put it: "...his stream of consciousness writing results in the reader becoming unconscious." That sums it up quite nicely.

Of course, this is all true to form for William Faulkner—very familiar territory. Faulkner, one of the most esteemed, prolific, and influential American writers of the 20th century, has oft been cited as the American Shakespeare (don't ask me by whom), but I'd like to offer that Faulkner is more like the American James Joyce. I've read quite a bit of Joyce, like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and even all of Ulysses, and Faulkner's novels The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and A Fable, apparently, prove themselves to be prototypical of the Joycean stylings. William Faulkner's novels are never for everyone, and that may be doubly true of A Fable. This novel is Faulkner being Faulkner at his most brilliant and complicated.

And, of course, I just had to pick the book that Faulkner lets his Faulkner flag in all of its complicated, convoluted glory to read in one day.

Based on all of the other reviews I read of this book, A Fable is apparently Faulkner's densest work. I even read another Pulitzer reader's blog—a reader whose goal was to read all of the Pulitzers in five years—and he admitted that A Fable is the novel that almost sunk him; he almost gave up the project entirely because of William Faulkner, and he had only gotten halfway through his journey! Another reviewer stated that he once did a comprehensive study of William Faulkner's work, and, while most of his novels took him about a week to finish, A Fable took him nearly a year of reading and re-reading.

I, on the other hand, committed myself to starting and finishing this book in one day. Because I'm an idiot.

Now, even though I managed to, somehow, do it, and even managed to, again, somehow, at least comprehend the main story, I will admit that I didn't devote to this novel nearly the attention it commands from its reader. In fact, as I described it to my friends at work (yes, I did go to Peet's on my day off just to read) while I was reading it, it seemed like so much less of a novel, and more like a psychological challenge—it was as if Faulkner didn't invite me into his home to tell me a story, so much as he dared me to follow him on a winding, unbeaten path in a dark, scary forest. A better analogy, I guess, is that he dared me to follow him into an unlit, underground tunnel; but the good news is that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Just like Joyce (with his Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, most notably), Faulkner really makes you earn his endings. It's an epic struggle making your way toward the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's well worth the struggle when you step into the sunlight. Just like most of his novels, a lot of the narrative in the beginning and middle don't really come together until the very end of the novel, sometimes not even until the last few pages. Unfortunately, because I wasn't giving A Fable the time it deserved, I didn't pick up on all of the little nuances that make a Faulkner novel a Faulkner novel—this is my own fault, but, when this Pulitzer Project is over and done with, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be revisiting this one with a pen and journal to take notes.

Unlike some of the other novels I've read along this journey, A Fable is not at all one that can be read passively. It takes a lot of focus, concentration, and even willpower to forge your way

The other thing that surprised me about this novel (besides how incredibly dense it was) was that it isn't set in Yoknapatawpha—the fictional county that Faulkner sets a lot of his works in. More surprisingly, this novel wasn't set in the American South, nor even America at all (though there is one flashback scene that does take place in the South)! Rather, it was an anti-war novel set in France during World War I.

On the surface, it is the story of a French corporal and twelve of his officers who "corrupt" a brigade of 3,000 soldiers into not attacking the enemy, rather, staying in their trench and not fighting at all—this mutiny, as it is declared, eventually leads to their being court marshaled and, ultimately, executed. The anti-war sentiments of this novel are displayed, not in the mutiny, but in the Germans' reaction to the mutiny—rather than charging the lines and obliterating the French mutineers, they lay down their arms and stay in their trenches as well. This bizarre event leads to the end of the war after four years of bloodshed and horror. Of course, the thing Faulkner is saying here is, "If there were no armies, there would be no war; and if there were no war, there would be no senseless killing."

However, as the title, A Fable, indicates, this novel is so much more than your everyday anti-war novel. In fact, it's a really thinly disguised allegory. The corporal and twelve officers (by no means an arbitrary number) who protested fighting by performing a "sit in," as it were, and were court marshaled, arrested, and executed are actually metaphorical for Jesus, his disciples, and the passion of the Christ—a man who died for the sins of society, and not for anything he did or didn't do. Faulkner even takes this metaphor down to every jot and tittle during the execution scene: Jesus was arrested, the corporal was arrested; Jesus was marched through the streets of Jerusalem, the corporal was marched through the streets of France; Jesus was spat at and mocked by onlookers, the corporal suffered the same; Jesus was nailed to a wooden cross, the corporal was tied to a wooden post; Jesus wore a crown of thorns, the corporal's head got wrapped in barbed wire; and Jesus was crucified between two thieves, the corporal was executed between two officers.

And, in the end, Faulkner leaves the reader with mixed reactions; on the one hand, it is an anti-war novel as it celebrates pacifism. However, the novel is sprinkled with quotes like this one that make it difficult to gauge what Faulkner is really saying: "Isn't the war over?" one of the men said. "The sergeant-major turned almost savagely. "But not the army," he said. "How do you expect peace to put an end to an army when even war can't?" Then, right before the corporal is executed, the Generalissimo tries to convince him that war can never be stopped because it is the essence of humanity (this, of course, is metaphorical of the devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness).

I'll be honest—I was actually really disappointed with this one; but, again, that's mostly of my own doing. Rather than devoting the time and energy the novel deserved, I went with my foolhardy decision to read an entire novel in one day. This practice is probably unhealthy for any of the novels I'll be reading along this journey, but it was especially true of this one. I probably couldn't even properly read this novel in one week, let alone one day.

However, and this was the most disappointing aspect for me, the only reason I chose to read Faulkner in the first place was because Josephine Johnson and Shirley Anne Grau had put me in the mood for Southern Gothic literature—I was so enchanted by their novels that I wasn't completely prepared to leave that place. So, knowing that Faulkner was one of the most prolific of Southern Gothic novelists, I chose to read his first Pulitzer-winner. As you can imagine, after about ten or so pages, about the point when I realized that this novel was going to be solely about World War I, I was pretty disappointed.

Even more frustratingly, I chose what will probably prove itself to be one of the most intellectually challenging novels to read of all the Pulitzers, and I chose to read it in one day—my day off. I set out thinking that today was going to be a great day to kick back with a Pulitzer and relax. Instead, it turned out to be an altogether too grueling battle between Faulkner's prose and me that left me irritable, on edge, and mentally exhausted. My mind was so brutally pummeled by A Fable, that it actually led to a headache that spread throughout my body, infecting every muscle, joint, and sinew. I had to take hour-long breaks from it just to recuperate! I'd set the book aside and smoke a cigarette, or watch a DVD, or play guitar, or even take a quick nap in order to restore just enough energy to last me another 50 or so pages.

However, despite the struggles, despite the turmoil, despite the headaches and heartaches, I can ironically say that I enjoyed this "fable" and am really looking forward to revisiting it after Joshua and I have reached our destination. The bottom line here is this: this novel is the epitome of Faulkner being Faulkner; however, the conclusion of A Fable is considerably worth the effort the story requires.

Entry 23: "The Keepers of the House" by Shirley Anne Grau (1965)

2010-12-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

I think I may have found my newest favorite form of literature: Southern Gothic. I am, of course, referring to the literary movement that is a subgenre of gothic fiction (with authors like Anne Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley) that is specific to the southern United States. Southern gothic literature got its start in the early 1900's, during the Modernist movement, and has blanketed authors like John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Tennesse Williams, Truman Capote, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, the infamous John Kennedy Toole, and, as I've recently discovered, Shirley Anne Grau.

I can't quite put my finger on one specific reason I've fallen so in love with this genre—there are so many things about it that absolutely enchant me.

There's a certain sense of mystery that prevails throughout the novels, an eerie suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat, a darkness that lurks in the woods surrounding the property, a ghost in the closet, an endless highway that stretches long into the night, the devil playing blues music on acoustic guitar at the corner of two dusty crossroads. The novels bring me into this dark, demented, spiritual place that terrifies me, but hypnotizes me; I don't want to be there, but I can't bring myself to ever leave (which is the reason why I'll be reading A Fable, by William Faulkner, next).

So far, every example of Southern Gothic I've read has been fantastic—Shirley Anne Grau's 1965 Pulitzer-winning The Keepers of the House is no exception.

I had pretty high expectations for this book going in because of the amount Joshua—who read this book at the outset of this project—hyped it up and I'm happy to report that I was not let down. It took me a while to get through it, just because I kept putting it off, but the only reason I kept putting it off was because I wanted the book to last longer. Normally, with a book like this (like Now In November and Gilead, for example), I love it so much that I race through it because I can't put it down. This time, I wanted to savor the book. I wanted it to last. I didn't want to leave the titled house that Grau invited me into. I had kicked off my shoes, reclined on the couch, and watched the family drama unfold from one generation to the next from that one place on the couch, and despite the discomfort that Grau put me in with her narrative, I felt obliged to be there.

The Keepers of the House is the story of a family through three generations and uses the family home as the pivot point of the novel—even though the story is epic in scope and far-reaching, telling story after story after story through these three generations, by keeping the house as the central "character" in the novel, the character that all of the stories and other characters revolve around, their stories, and the overall arc of the novel, are easy to follow and understand. This is a concept I earlier discussed in my review of Philip Roth's American Pastoral—the novel is even more epic than Grau's, but it's still accessible because of Roth's maintaining his focus on one specific family and the stories that surround them. The same is true of The Keepers of the House—in this novel, Grau confronts racism, interracial relationships, war, group violence, motherhood, fatherhood, family, religion, politics; she runs the gambit of hot topics of her day (this book was written just as the American Civil Rights Movement was gaining steam) and she does so in a really accessible, easy-to-follow fashion, never getting off track, never disinteresting the reader, and never getting preachy.

And, true to Southern Gothic fashion, she creates a world so full of mystery, so full of intrigue, so full of regrets and hopes, dreams and nightmares. This quote, from Wikipedia, really sums up quite nicely what Southern Gothic is and, after having read it, I can say now that The Keepers of the House is almost a prototypical representative for Southern Gothic literature—it has all of the basic elements:

One of the most notable features of the Southern Gothic is "the grotesque" - this includes situations, places, or stock characters that often possess some cringe-inducing qualities—typically racial bigotry and egotistical self-righteousness—but enough good traits that readers find themselves interested nevertheless. Southern Gothic authors commonly use deeply flawed, grotesque characters for greater narrative range and more opportunities to highlight unpleasant aspects of Southern culture, without being too literal or appearing to be overly moralistic. Tennessee Williams described Southern Gothic as a style that captured "an intuition, of an underlying dreadfulness in modern experience." However, the genre was itself open to criticism, even by its alleged practitioners. As Flannery O'Connor remarked, "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."

In this novel, Grau introduces the reader to some of the most twisted and perverted characters one will come across. The racism and bigotry that pervades this novel is almost overwhelming, and the racial tension keeps the reader in suspense all the way up until the culmination of the tension results in a near-deadly fire set by an angry mob at Abigail Howland's homestead. The ugliness of some of the events and characters in this book truly are grotesque.

Despite the grotesque, though, there's something quite moving about this novel. There's something to be said for the loyalty to family, for the coexistence of two races, for the ardent desire to be free from social norms and dictations. I really have discovered my new favorite subgenre and I want to stay in this place for a while.

1955's Pulitzer-winning novel, A Fable, by William Faulkner—you're next.

One. Last. Book.

2010-11-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

With nothing but thanks to my good friend and Pulitzer Project brother-in-arms, Joshua Riley, I am now one last book away from having a complete Pulitzer collection. Of course, so is my good friend and Pulitzer Project brother-in-arms, Joshua Riley. Just like I did with Honey In the Horn, Joshua used the Internet to find a first edition of Upton Sinclair's Dragon's Teeth in Mishawaka, Indiana. By some bizarre twist of fate, they also had a second copy of it, plus Ernest Poole's His Family!

In the meantime, I walked down the used bookstore a few blocks from my apartment, Howard's Books, and found an elegantly-bound edition of Margaret Ayer Barnes' Years of Grace. Then, I drove myself down to Printer's Row in the South Loop of Chicago and found a second copy of Years of Grace!

That's when a deal was struck: Joshua would buy Dragon's Teeth and His Family for me if I bought Years of Grace for him. So guess what happened next...

One. Last. Book.

Two Down, Four to Go

2010-11-25T00:08:00.000-08:00

I have finally found one of the white whales of this Pulitzer journey—Harold Davis' 1935 Pulitzer-winning novel, Honey In the Horn. It was quite the adventure to find it, but I found it. Thanks to this modern marvel known as the Internet, I was able to do a search of booksellers all around the world to find this novel; I really didn't want to resort to the Internet because there was a part of me that felt that it would be way too easy to find these books and, thus, take all of the adventure out of the project. However, after almost a full year of not being able to track down a couple of them, I decided it was time to up the ante.

After typing and clicking around on Google and eBay for the better part of an hour, I finally located a seller who had a copy of Honey In the Horn for ten dollars relatively close to me—in Omro, Wisconsin.

From Chicago, where I live, it took me about three and a half hours to get there—three and a half long hours of winding, hilly roads that took me through some of the most picturesque farmland you'll ever see.

Omro is a really small, sleepy town in central Wisconsin, a little outside of Oshkosh and about an hour southwest of Green Bay—a town so small that, if you're driving through it and blink, you'll probably miss it. As the flag in the upper left hand corner of this picture indicates, Omro is the epitome of Small Town, America—a perfect example of Americana. The downtown area lasts all of a few blocks and doesn't have much more than a bank, a gas station, a few bait shops, a corner grocer, and a drugstore—all of the businesses are one side of Main Street. The other side of the street is residential. These are smaller, nuclear-family homes that haven't been updated or remodeled since the 1950's. I can just picture the Omro High School marching band—with all 15-25 members—marching down Main Street on the Fourth of July while kids follow suit with their sparklers, senior citizens lining the sidewalks on their lawn chairs, blue skies and the July sun smiling down upon them all.

These are the kind of people I expected to find in this town when I rolled in—people who knew all of their neighbors and waved "hello" to everyone passing through. And when I rang the doorbell of this seller's house and was greeted by a tiny 80-plus year old woman who was every bit as delightful as I had imagined the townspeople would be, I felt safe and at home. She greeted me at the door and, in her quavering old voice, inquired, "May I help you, son?" "Yes," I replied, "I've come in from Chicago; I was supposed to meet someone at this address who was going to sell me a book?" "Oh, yes, do come in and I'll fetch him for you."

I walked in the door and was amazed at the interior of this house—it was obviously a storefront at one time, as it was located on Main Street on the commercial side. The exterior of the building even had the frame of an awning still in place. The interior of the building had a wide open space, a big room that was probably, at one time, a store of some kind—I could imagine it being a pharmacy or a bakery, where a counter would have been installed along the left wall. However, this building had been converted into a home and, over the course of a few decades, had been again converted into a storage space for a massive personal library. The main room was filled with books—books in piles, on shelves, in boxes, covering the floor, covering the walls, stacked to the ceiling... Thousands of books! I stood in the vestibule of their home and just stood there, mouth ajar, ogling all of the books before me.

The little old woman said, "Now, you wait here, I'll go find Joel for you," and she left me to dumbfoundedly gape at the massive collection.

After a minute or so, I heard the little old woman coming back with her son and I overheard her saying, "The boy from the Flatlands is here to see you." She turned the corner of the hallway and found me, introduced me to her son and then said, "I thought I heard a knocking on the door, but I wasn't sure. Anyhow, he knew to ring the doorbell, so he must be somewhat intelligent!" and gave me a big, toothy grin that had a certain air of superiority to it and, just like that, my ideas of Americana perfection were shattered. I gave a nervous laugh and attempted to play it off, but I knew what was going on.

See, Wisconsin and Illinois have a bit of a rivalry that runs deeper than merely football—the citizens of both states, for whatever reason, have an intense dislike for each other. We're like the Hatfields and the McCoys; the Kiwis and the Aussies; the Brits and the Micks. Wisconsinites call us Illinoisans "flat-landers" or "low-landers" and we refer to them as "cheeseheads"—no matter where you go in Wisconsin or Illinois, you'll find locals ribbing their neighbors with such juvenile taunts and I'm really not sure why. They hate the way we Chicagoans drive, and we Chicagoans hate their insane state roads; they hate our accents, and we hate theirs. Really, I think that Wisconsinites are just jealous of the fact that we have Chicago, the greatest city in America and, despite their proximity, they can't have it nearly as much as we can.

Regardless, I was far from home, a stranger in a strange land, and had suddenly become the victim of a geographical slur. The tiny old woman gave me that smug smile and waddled off into another part of the house and left me there with Joel, who gave me a firm handshake and invited me a few steps further into the house. Now, I kind of knew what to expect from this guy purely based on the couple of emails we had exchanged prior to this meeting: I sized him up to be kind of a blue-collar, tough guy. As it turned out, my estimation wasn't too far off—he greeted me wearing a pair of faded navy blue Dickies, construction boots and a ratty old sweater that was coming apart at the seams.

Apparently, in Omro, he's a bit of a local celebrity and professional fisherman—he owns his own ice fishing venture and rents out fishing equipment for a living. He's also appeared on ESPN and made a couple instructional fishing videos. He was a rough guy, which I also induced from our correspondence: the first time I wrote him, I told him all about the Pulitzer Project and the rules that Joshua and I have set up for ourselves and explained that I needed this book, but had to buy it in person. I asked him if he could help me out and he wrote back "Ummmm??? Sounds like you are either gonna have to lie and cheat your ass off by hitting the "buy it now" button -or- Drive a hell of a long way to come pick it up....."

Charming.

I wrote him a second time and told him that I'd be available to pick it up on Tuesday and he replied: "Sure, I'll be here with a good psychologist for you."

Fair enough.

He handed the book to me and a well of joy burst inside of me; I told him, "Joel, you have no idea how amazed I am to be holding this book right now." He chuckled and quipped, "Man, you are a fuckin' freak, dude!" Of course, I was a little taken aback by his completely inappropriate response, so I had to ask, "What makes you say that?" He replied, "Shit, man. You drove almost four fuckin' hours, out to the middle of fuckin' nowhere to buy a fuckin' book. You are a straight-up book FREAK!" and chuckled to himself again. I bit the bullet and admitted, "Yeah, I supposed you're right there. But I have to ask—how in the world did you end up with this book?? I have been searching for it this entire year and until last week, I had never even seen this guy's name in print!" "Huh," he replied, obviously uninterested. "I don't know, man. All of these fuckin' books are my parents' and my grandparents' shit. They've been collecting all these damned books for fuckin' years and years and I don't give two shits about readin' so I'm just selling them all online. I'm gettin' tired of packin' all this shit up and moving it all the time so I just want to see it go."

This made sense to me: the thousands of books that lined the walls, floor, and ceiling of the house had been collected by two generations of a family for the past hundred or so years. Most of the books were bought decades ago, read once, and have been sitting in boxes ever since. The copy of Honey In the Horn was printed in the 1960's and is in almost mint condition—it doesn't look like it's even been read! I was probably the first one to crack the binding of it since the day it was bought almost 50 years ago.

Joel told me that he needed to look something up online for it and invited me to his office so I asked him, "Is it cool if I look around? I need five other books and, from what I've seen so far, I think it's a fair assumption that you probably have a couple that I need in this massive collection of your's." He shot me a very serious look and replied, sternly, "No way dude. Nuh-uh. I can't let you do that." I thought he was kidding, so I laughed it off a bit, until he said, "No, really. I can't let you look at my books." Obviously I was dumbfounded and had to ask why. He said, very matter of factly, "Every now and then, I get a freak like you in my house, wanting to look at all my books. I used to let people do it but then it became a problem. I'd have people browsing around my house, looking at all these damn books like they're getting off on it and I'd have to kick them out because they'd just look around for a couple of hours. I don't want you fuckin' book weirdos in my house lookin' at my shit!"

I really couldn't believe the lack of respect I was being shown. This guy was ridiculing me right to my face and all I was doing was trying to give him money!

"You want some books?" he asked, in a smug way. "Here: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Haven't listed it yet. It's your's, free. Here have this one too," as he tossed to me an old Roald Dahl book. "The Honey book is ten bucks, but I should probably just give it to you for free, just for being such a fuckin' book freak, driving all the way up here from fuckin' Chicago!" At least he had courtesy enough to write down the titles of the last couple books I need so that he could browse his collection for me. "You're right," he said, "My folks have been collecting this shit for years, so they probably have whatever you need."

Before I knew it, I was back on the road, bewildered at the interaction I drove three and a half hours to have, but brimming with joy for being the proud new owner of Honey In the Horn. I drove alone, through the hilly farms of central Wisconsin to the sound of gunfire, echoing from the woods and fields, all around me. Old men in camouflage and bright orange vests toting shotguns around, firing at pheasant and turkey and flat-landers like me.

Since I was in Wisconsin anyway, and heading back to Chicago, I figured I might as well stop in Madison for an hour or so. When Joshua and I were in Iowa for the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, we were told a few different times that Madison, Wisconsin was a bibliophile's paradise, so it's been our goal throughout this journey to eventually make our way up there. Unfortunately that opportunity never came, so I took matters into my own hands and went by myself—an action that Joshua is still upset with me about.

I only went to three stores, since it was getting close to 6pm—a time that I've discovered is fairly characteristic for used book stores to close shop for the evening. The first, Avol's, while a great store, didn't have at all what I was needing. The second, Book Browser's (or something like that) was a really great store and I had two near misses with Ernest Poole and Upton Sinclair (as usual). The third, however, Paul's Book Store, provided me with my second find of the day...

After browsing around fruitlessly for about 20 minutes, I finally asked the owner if he could help. I told him the list of books that I need and he quickly replied, "All Pulitzer winners!" "Yeah, they are actually... How did you know that?" "Well, I recognized a few of the titles—a couple came here last week looking for all these same books, but we only had Willa Cather's One of Ours." As it turns out, the owner of the store is an incredibly knowledgeable gay man who teaches Best-Selling Literature at the University of Wisconsin, so he was very familiar a few of the winners.

The two of us couldn't find any of them on the shelves, but he informed that he had a basement full of old books that hadn't been priced and shelved yet, but that he'd go look for me. I perused the shelves and sipped at my coffee while I waited and about ten minutes later, he emerged from the basement with a first edition copy of T.S. Stribling's The Store. He handed it to me and said, "Does $12 sound fair?" I gave him $15 just for being amazing.

I now have only four books to find to complete my Pulitzer collection: His Family by Ernest Poole, The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson, Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes, and Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair. Joshua has three remaining: Dragon's Teeth, Years of Grace, and Honey In the Horn. These are our remaining white whales. However, after finding my copy of Honey In the Horn, and finally tracking down The Store, In This Our Life, and Guard of Honor, I'm finally feeling like we'll able to finish this collection before the end of the year.

Entry 22: "Now In November" by Josephine Johnson (1935)

2010-11-21T19:13:00.000-08:00

Now that November is drawing to a close, Joshua and I decided to tackle a novel that would hold up a mirror to our Pulitzer journey; what better novel to do exactly that with than Josephine Johnson's 1935 Pulitzer-winning Now In November? It's probably a trite and cliche decision on our parts, but I've never been more satisfied with being cheesy after having finished the novel. It took me all of a mere couple of hours to read it, but that isn't to say that I was just breezing through it for the sake of getting it done—the truth is that Johnson's writing invited me to enter a world that I didn't, for the life of me, want to ever leave, even in spite of the tragedy, heartache, and drama that pervades every single paragraph throughout. Much like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, I was left absolutely mesmerized at the end of each chapter and really should have stopped to catch my breath by the sheer beauty Johnson's words created in the ashes of her story, but I couldn't tear myself away from it. It was like being a marathon runner that hit the proverbial wall, but being so high on the thrill of the race, had to press forward without stopping to reflect on what I had already accomplished. I completely lost myself in Johnson's November, and am, even now, hoping and praying that December never comes.

To be honest, I didn't really have high expectations for this book. For one thing, I had never heard of Josephine Johnson and, so, had nothing in mind to form an opinion of her; secondly, this is a novel written in the 1930's, and, as I have made you well aware by now, most of the novels from the first 20 years of the Pulitzer Prize really haven't done anything for me. However, I am more than pleased to report that I have never been more surprised by a novel.

Joshua said it best: "This book wins the 'Diamond In the Rough Award.'"

Even a day after having finished it, I am still hypnotized by its raw beauty, its brutal honesty, and the hints of mystery and magic that wind their ways through its pages. When I finished the last paragraph, laying on my couch—my familiar reading position—, I closed the book, laid it on my chest, and just stared up at the ceiling, meditating on everything that I had just read, until I fell asleep, drunk on beauty.

Now In November is the story of a poor farm family in Anywhere, USA—the setting and time are never specified, but it is safe to assume that it is set in the Midwest during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. This family owns a farm that is wracked with debt and they are struggling to survive a massive drought that is destroying their land, their crops, their livestock, their farm, and even their family. The cracks in the hardened, clayey ground are indicative of the cracks growing between each member of the family. With all of the tension being imposed on the family by the threat of failing crops, foreclosure on their farm, homelessness, and even death, rather than coming closer together to lift each other up, they tear apart at the seams. It's almost unbearable to join them as they trudge through their lives, but with her intoxicating words, Johnson beckons you to come along so convincingly that you can't stand to turn down the invitation.

The novel is written in the first person from the perspective of Marget, the second-oldest of three daughters. It really seemed like Now In November is written less like a proper novel and more like a personal journal. The entries are short, concise, and written very "matter-of-factually," though contain these occasional bursts of sheer literary brilliance that are so magical, you almost have to stop reading to shake your head in disbelief: How is this woman coming up with such wonderful phrases? Johnson's novel is such a marvelous revelation.

"We have no reason to hope or believe, but do because we must, receiving peace in its sparse moments of surrender, and beauty in all its twisted forms, not pure, unadulterated, but mixed always with sour potato-peelings or an August sun."

I have a feeling this is mostly true. There have been so many days in the past several months that I felt like I was suffering through my own personal drought—I've felt so unbearably dry, cracked, and barren inside. It's been as if there haven't been any rains and my spirit has been slowly withering away. I've been parched, thirsting for something meaningful and promising in my life—something that will inspire me and bring me back to life. Josephine Johnson, with these words, reminded me that all is not lost—all is never lost. She reminded me that, in spite of all the difficult circumstances I've been through in my life; in spite of all the pain and tragedy that surrounds me, and all of us really, that even if we cannot find, hard as we may look for it, reason to hope or believe, we must press forward. At the end of every hard-earned day, we must find some reason to believe.

Now In November brings to mind a poem that I read several years ago that I have been in love with ever since—"Try to Praise the Mutilated World," by Adam Zagajewski:

Try to praise the mutilated world. 
Remember June's long days, 
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. 
The nettles that methodically overgrow 
the abandoned homesteads of exiles. 
You must praise the mutilated world. 
You watched the stylish yachts and ships; 
one of them had a long trip ahead of it, 
while salty oblivion awaited others. 
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere, 
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully. 
You should praise the mutilated world. 
Remember the moments when we were together 
in a white room and the curtain fluttered. 
Return in thought to the concert where music flared. 
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn 
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars. 
Praise the mutilated world 
and the grey feather a thrush lost, 
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes 
and returns.

A Ballad of Great Finds, Chance Encounters, and Near Misses

2010-11-19T14:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Joshua and I both had a much-needed day off of work, so we decided to thank the gods for the opportunity to catch our breath by setting out on the open road and heading downstate, to Champaign, Urbana, and Bloomington—three cities smack-dab in the middle of Illinois—to continue our search for the final few novels we each need to complete our Pulitzer Prize collections. He started the day off needing a mere three novels, and I needed eight; at the end of the day, Joshua hadn't found what he needed and I had come two novels closer to having a complete collection.

The story of our day together, however, would have made for a great story—even if neither of us hadn't found anything.

We headed out early, anticipating the nearly hour and a half drive ahead of us to get from Bradley to Champaign. We smoked some cigarettes, shared some laughs, discussed art and language and religion and literature (our usual conversational stomping grounds) as my tiny little car, weighted down with boxes upon boxes of books yet unpacked from my most recent move, ambled its way down Interstate 57 to the tunes of Tears for Fears (of all things). I had guessed that the day set before us was going to be absolutely ridiculous, and I couldn't have thought of a more ridiculous band to listen to in order to prepare ourselves for it.

The reason we set out in the first place was for one book—James Gould Cozzens' Guard of Honor, a World War II novel which won the Pulitzer in 1949. For some reason, in the eleven months that Joshua and I have been doing this project, I have not been able to find this book anywhere. One would think that living in Chicago, one of the country's greatest cities for used book stores with stores like Powell's and Myopic, that I would have had an easier time finding it—one would, in this case, be wrong. Although Joshua found it very early on in the journey, I didn't have any luck until a few days ago, when we haphazardly found it on ABEbooks.com. On this website, you can search for a specific used book and find sellers all over the world who have a copy of it that they are wanting to sell. A couple of days ago, Joshua was perusing this site and discovered that the nearest Guard of Honor was waiting for me at JBL Books in Champaign. We called the owner and learned that his business is based out of his home and he sells from his own private collection on the Internet; since the Net's inception, this trend is growing more and more popular. Booksellers no longer have to pay rent in a store front or have a payroll; rather, they can post their entire library on the Internet and let people shop their stock that way.

Sooner or later, I think this whole Internet thing is really going to catch on...

So we drive to his house, a humble, lovely little ranch style home in Suburbia and John, the seller, let us inside and led us up the stairs to his collection (which was impressive, albeit modest). He pulled Guard of Honor from the shelf, handed it to me, flashed a big toothy grin and said, "This must be for you." Though it sounds trite, cliche, and melodramatic, I am not ashamed to say that joy welled up in me to have finally found a copy of this book—this book that has, I feel, unnecessarily eluded me for eleven months. I attempted to explain how happy I was at finding this book, but couldn't really choose words that wouldn't make me sound crazy. "Well, you see, sir—I have set up a challenge, a challenge with absolutely ridiculous rules and regulations and guidelines that I have imposed upon myself, and, apparently, you are the only person in all of Illinois that has a copy of this damn book!"

The edition which he sold me is an elegant leather-bound edition of the novel, so he naturally asked me if I were looking specifically for rare editions of it, and felt like I seemed crazy enough when both Joshua and I tried to explain that we were, actually, looking for any copy of that particular book, as long as it was used. This, of course, led to our having to explain, in its entirety, The Pulitzer Project to him. He seemed rather impressed with our undertaking and informed us that he knew a lot of private booksellers in the area that might be able to help us; then, this sweet, kindly old man pulled out his rolodeck and phone book and made several phone calls to associates that he's met along his own book collecting journeys. Unfortunately, he couldn't get a hold of any of his contacts, though we were still appreciative of his efforts.

He did, however, inform of us a used book sale at Urbana Public Library that was going to be held from 5-8pm.

Since we were in the area anyway, and it was only 11am, we decided that we'd spend the rest of the day hunting in used book stores and antique shops; so we did a bit of research and came up with a pretty healthy list of places to visit. Say3 Books in Champaign was our next stop. We pulled in the parking lot, where we were greeted a giant neon green awning displaying the words Say3 Books, in Comic Sans font, over the front entrance. I turned to Joshua and said, "Josh—this place is not going to have what we're looking for." "You don't know that, man. Come on, let's go inside." When we walked in the front door, we were greeted by a middle-aged woman, the store's proprietor, and her tiny little Yorkshire Terrier. The walls were outlandlishly colored, adult-contemporary blues music was playing on a purple boombox, and the front display in the lobby was covered with dog books. I turned to Joshua again and have him the look. You know—the look that silently says, "I really don't think you're right about this one."

The owner asked us if we needed any help, so we told her what we were looking for; she replied, "So you're looking for, like, fiction books? I'm not sure if I have anything you're looking for, but you'll find some fiction books in this room, around this table, over here in this room, and in the back room. Let me know if you have any questions," and returned to her desk. We walked into the rooms that she pointed us to and were horrified at the lack of organization—there were piles upon piles of books everywhere, from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall. It was as if a giant truck, filled with books, backed up to the store, the roof were lifted, and these books were just dumped into the store.

We looked around for about 20 minutes, but obviously, this store did not have what we were looking for. However, all that being said, I don't mean to say that the store was by any means a bad place to shop for books—it just wasn't the type of place where we were going to find what we needed. They had a lot of really great books that, were it not for the task at hand, I would be very interested in. So, we piled back into the car and left the store behind. Our next stop would prove itself to be the second-greatest used book store in Illinois, and the greatest source of our frustration along this journey...

Jane Addams Book Shop, in downtown Champaign, is three floors of book-browsing magic, specializing in rare books. As soon as we walked inside the shop, and saw the neatly organized aisles and shelves, completely stocked with extremely old volumes, Joshua and I knew we had come to the right place to properly ensue our day's hunting.

We made our way over to the fiction section of the store and separated so that, in the unlikely event that one of us found something, we'd be able to beat the other person to it. Of course we're best friends, and are partners, traveling companions, along this journey, and of course we want each other to succeed, but it is also a matter of course that we are men—competitive men—and both of us want to be the lucky man that completes the journey first.

I was scouring the P section of the shelves for Poole's His Family, and my entire chest seized up when I actually say the name "Ernest Poole" gracing the spine of a novel. Then, to my horror, I discovered that the novel I found wasn't His Family at all, but his ironically more famous work, The Harbor. I almost refused to believe it, turning the book over in my hands and inspecting it, as if I might discover that the book had been tampered with and was actually His Family, but in a clever disguise! As I was doing this, I heard Joshua exclaim, very loudly, from the next aisle over, "Noooo!! Come on! You have got to be kidding me!," followed by a bunch of unintelligible, un-spell-able growls, and, possibly, a slur of profanities. I hustled around the corner of the long shelf, worried that something unspeakable might have happened, and found Joshua crumpled up on the floor, a wreck, clutching a first-edition copy of Margaret Ayer Barnes' Within This Present—a novel which, unlike another work of her's, 1930's Years of Grace, did not win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. My heart broke again, and I related to him that the same thing had just happened to me with Ernest Poole.

He looked up at me, with a sudden glimmer of hope in his eyes, and silently exclaimed, "Drew—this store has at least one of the books we're looking for. I can feel it." I smiled mischieviously and slowly replied, "Yeah... We are." He must have seen what I had in mind on my face when he said that, because he scrambled up to his feet and we both raced to the S section and frantically scanned the shelves for "Sinclair." Aha! There they were! Upton Sinclair's books! Oil!, no; The Jungle, no; A World to Win, no; Jimmie Higgins, no; World's End, no; Between Two Worlds, no; Wide Is the Gate, no; "Singer." Wait, what? That's it!? Where is Dragon's Teeth??

For the third time that day, we had been thwarted by a near miss and for the second time in as many weeks, we had come so close to finding Dragon's Teeth—the third book (and 1943 Pulitzer-winner) in Upton Sinclair's 11-novel "Lanny Budd" series—; the first near miss we had with this book came a week earlier at Ravenswood Used Books in Chicago when Joshua, while perusing a completely unorganized "classics" shelf, haphazardly stumbled across Dragon Harvest, the sixth book of the same series. After these two adventures, we have now seen five of the eleven books in the series, but not Dragon's Teeth, a book that hasn't even been printed since the 1960's. It's weird—as popular as Upton Sinclair is in 20th century American literature, I really didn't think his books would be too difficult to find; I figured Dragon's Teeth would be tough to find, just because neither Joshua nor I had even heard of it, but I've been shocked to find that the only three books we've been able to consistently find by him are Oil!, The Jungle, and A World to Win—especially when one considers that his body of work includes over 100 titles.

I couldn't dawdle in agony any longer blankly staring at the name "Sinclair" on the spines of books, so I ran over to "D" and once again cursed the sky when I found, not Honey In the Horn, Harold L. Davis's 1936 Pulitzer-winning novel, but Harold L. Davis's Land of a Thousand Harps. None of the three books Joshua needed were there, but I still needed to find a couple for myself, so I made my way over to "G" and, once again, had to bite my tongue to keep from swearing out loud when I found five Ellen Glasgow books—none of which being her 1942 Pulitzer-winning In This Our Life. The same fate, of course, awaited me when I returned to "S" to search for T.S. Stribling—rather than finding his most famous work, the 1933 Pulitzer-winning The Store, I found The Sound Wagon.

We were outraged—and rightfully so! I really can't recall a time in my life when I felt so completely and entirely ripped off. One of the store's owners, a younger lady, greeted us at the desk when, heads hung low, we shambled back to the door: "Any luck?" We recounted to her the fate that had just befallen us and she couldn't help but sympathize for us; then she suggested that maybe, just maybe, there is some other person out there who's doing the same thing Joshua and I are—collecting all of the Pulitzers. This, of course, makes a lot of sense: how could it be that a bookstore, specializing in rare books, has literally all of the authors that we are looking for—three of which we had never seen and were seriously starting to doubt if they even existed—, but not their most famous work? That is unless, of course, there is someone else out there doing this same project and beating us to the punch.

If you had told me what was going to happen next, I wouldn't have believed you. Even after experiencing it, I still can't hardly believe it happened...

We left Champaign, feeling a little deflated, but, in a strange way, inspired now that we had at least seen some of the author's names that we saw. We hopped on Interstate 74 and headed west to Bloomington, IL—our first stop as we entered the downtown area was a store that will, next month, be closing its doors for good: About Books.

This shop wasn't quite as prestigious as Jane Addams Book Shop, but not nearly as familiar as Say3 Books—it was somewhere in the middle of the two. It had its fair share of trade-size paperbacks, but it had a back room and basement with some real gems—some really rare gems too. The back room housed most of these books. Since the owner is retiring, she hasn't bothered to organize any of the books in the back room and they are scattered all over the place—on wooden racks, metal storage shelves, table tops, sawhorses... Everywhere. So Joshua and I, seeing that these books were really antiquated volumes, set out to scour through them in hopes that somehow, somewhere, we'd find something we needed. The fact that we were finding a lot of Tarkingtons, Bucks, Wouks, Wilders, and Ferbers was encouraging anyway.

Now, having the experience we had at Jane Addams Book Shop, where we found literally every single author we needed but none of the right books, was a total fluke. Neither of us had anticipated having that much (un)luck and both of us knew that experience was a once-in-a-lifetime thing that would never happen again.

Until it happened again.

Once again, three first-edition Ellen Glasgow books that weren't In This Our Time; a Margaret Ayer Barnes novel that wasn't Years of Grace; a Stribling novel that wasn't The Store; a Margaret Wilson book that wasn't The Able McLaughlins; an Ernest Pool novel that wasn't His Family; several Upton Sinclair novels that weren't Dragon's Teeth; and, most unbelievably, another Harold L. Davis novel that wasn't Honey In the Horn.

This was becoming increasingly infuriating.

The afternoon was plodding along and we had just time enough for one last store before we headed back to Champaign for the Urbana Public Library used book sale. So we headed into downtown Normal to pay a visit to Babbitt's Books—another store specializing in used, rare, and collectible books.

This store was very similar in selection and quality to Jane Addams Book Shop and other bookshops with this specialty that Joshua and I have been to over the course of our lives; and, I can freely admit, that Babbitt's Books is one of the better stores either of us have been to (and, between the two of us, we have been to several hundred used book stores—so this quite a feat on their part).

We didn't have quite as much bad luck with near misses as we did here as we did in the other stores, but our streak of finding wrong books by the right authors continued. Finally, after 20-30 minutes of searching, I decided to approach the front desk to ask if they had an inventory of their stock, where they could look up some titles for me. As it turned out they do, and I proceeded to rattle off all the titles to the young lady sitting at the computer, a pretty girl named Sarah. Every title I said out loud was followed by the click-click-click of her fingers on the computer's keyboard and a "Nope." When I got to title #7, I said, "Okay, well—I'm assuming you won't have this one either. But, it's Ellen Glasgow—the title is In This Our Life."

This title, however, was met with an excited shout from the other end of the counter, where I turned to find an older woman, Kathleen, jumping and exclaiming, with giddy excitement, "I have that one right here in this pile! It just came in this morning!" I turned to Joshua with the juvenile expression of a kid in a candy shop plastered to my countenance. He gave this sort-of half-grin and held out his hands, as if he were a butler escorting me into a giant castle; and, just as the juvenile expression I displayed suggested I would do, I eagerly reached out to Kathleen and she, ever so obliging, handed it off to me. There, in my hands, was the first edition of Ellen Glasgow's In This Our Life—my second find of the day, and the 78th of this journey.

Kathleen asked the two of us why we were searching for the Pulitzers, so we, for at least the fifth time that day, explained the entire story of the Pulitzer Project. However, this time, rather than being met with an almost insincere "Oh, neat," or "How interesting," our story was met with robust enthusiasm! Kathleen asked if we were going to write a book about the experience, and we told her we had planned on it originally, and she encouraged us to press forward with that idea; she asked us if we were blogging the experience, and we told her we are, so she wrote down our blogs' web addresses, and has even subscribed to both and is already actively directing her traffic to us; she even shared her blog with us and wrote up a little paragraph about the "two young men...in search of some of the hard-to-find Pulitzer Prize winning novels for a blog project they are doing together." If that weren't enough, she has even offered some career insight to me!

What a swell lady! The coolest aunt I never had.

We headed back to Champaign for the Urbana Public Library sale around 4:30pm with renewed energy, renewed hope, renewed ambition. We finally got back into around 5:30pm and discovered that the sale was only open to "Friends of the Library" and, in order to become a "Friend of the Library," a $10 entry fee for the book sale was required." I had already found two books, so I let Joshua be the one to go in while I perused the library itself and stole their Wi-Fi.

While perusing, a strange thought popped into my head: "I wonder if they have Dragon's Teeth here..." As I was about to go looking for it, Joshua called my phone and distracted me. "Hey man. Where are you?" "Oh, I'm upstairs looking around." "Okay. I need to show you something. Be right there." *click*

I thought he had found something... I thought his search was over... I thought maybe he had found some of the ones I needed... When he found me browsing all the aisles, I saw that he was empty-handed and my heart shrugged its shoulders Oh, well.

"Drew," he said in a short, curt manner. "I need to show you something." He turned and walked down one of the aisles and I followed eagerly behind as, soon, the author's last names on the book spines started being spelled with an "S." "Sa," "Se," "Sh," "Si," then, there it was—the 1942 first-edition of Upton Sinclair's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Dragon's Teeth. Even without its dust jacket, even with the coffee stains on the first few pages, even with the library card pasted inside, and the ragged edges of the hard binding, it was beautiful. It was everything I dreamed it would be. Euphoria washed over me when I held it.

At last, I thought. Here it is. Here it is in my hands. Now I know—a physical copy of this book really does exist.

Now, you may be thinking that this trip was kind of a loss. We did, after all, spend 12 hours on the road while never leaving the state; we did, after all, spend 12 hours on the road and over $80 on gas, food, and expenses while only actually finding two books. And all of that is true and, in a way, I guess it was kind of a loss.

But if you're going to set out on a journey with your best friend, you need to do it right. And we did yesterday right. We found two books, we found two amazing book stores, we met the sweetest kooky old lady we'll ever meet, and we pursued, even further, the Prize set before us.

This was a good day.

Entry 21: "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck (1932)

2010-11-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

Since moving to Evanston, my reading pace has slowed down considerably and this has become one of my greatest sources of frustration. Never mind the fact that I currently don't have an unpredictable living situation, am working full-time for the first time in almost two years, am still trying to get adjusted to a new life in a new town, still trying to develop a routine... In all these sweeping life changes, the thing that is plaguing me most is that I'm having difficulty finding time to read.

Does that make me a nerd? Probably.

Nevertheless, I am happy to report that I have just finished my 25th Pulitzer, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

How many times has this story been told?—a poor and humble man who lives his life in moral upstanding, then resorts to desperate measures to provide for his family during an economic crisis, then comes into a bit of money himself and rises in the community to a level of respect among his peers, only to let his new-found social and material wealth corrupt him. It's a rags to riches to rags story that has been told and time and time and time again, and will be continue to be told as long as there are storytellers. This particular story kind of story is one we all know too well, because it is a part of the fibers of our being—the human condition. We are born into nothing, we live our lives as prosperously as we can, we die, and we take nothing with us. The futility of this is what Jesus was talking about when he said, "What good is a man who gains the whole world and loses his soul?"

Wang Lung, the main character in The Good Earth, is a poor farmer who starts off this novel with a tract of land that brings him enough money to earn a bit of money. Over the course of the next few decades, he buys up a lot more land and makes even more money. By the end of his life, he becomes an incredibly wealthy man, with a family, and a palace all to himself; but, in the last couple pages of the book, when his sons decide that they're going to sell the land he owns once he dies, he falls to the ground in a fit of rage and takes up the soil in his hands, clutching it tightly, and shows his true nature—a man who has gained the whole world, but is still clinging tightly to nothing more than clods of dirt.

This is a pretty bleak view of the human experience, but it is pretty accurate.

What I found most interesting in this novel is Wang Lung's slow decline into immorality. When we first meet him, he is a good man—an honest, upright citizen. He marries and has children and works his farm so that he can provide for them. It is when a famine comes that his life gets way off track—he takes his family to a wealthy area in the south of China and they resort to begging so that they can eat. When that isn't enough, he haphazardly gets involved with a gang of bandits who loot a palace and he steals a healthy sum of money after threatening a man's life—Wang Lung's wife also steals jewelry from the palace. This event in his life is what sparks his downward spiral; from this point forward, he becomes a man who is obsessed with wealth and "image," he forsakes his wife and children, he gambles, he spends nights in whorehouses, he cheats on his wife, he beats his children, dabbles with opium—all the while, never once thinking that what he's doing might be wrong. His actions weren't deliberate outbursts of bad behavior—he actually just haphazardly walked into that sort of life.

It was as though he were a blind man, meandering down a path and getting further and further away from it.

This is a story that has been told time and time again, but Pearl S. Buck tells it well. Unlike a lot of the writing that came out of the 1920's and 30's that I've read so far, The Good Earth doesn't hide anything behind flowery language and pointless narrative. Buck just tells the story the way it is, and I cannot even begin to explain how refreshing this was for me. More than anything in this journey, I have been dreading books from the first 20 years of the Pulitzer Prize because some of the ones I've read thus far have been absolutely excruciating to get through.

I'm really hoping that Now In November, by Josephine Johnson—which I'm going to begin tonight—will follow suit.

Entry 20: "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole (1981)

2010-11-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

Please forgive the tardiness of this entry—the past three weeks have been an absolute blur in my life. I moved up to Evanston, IL from Bradley and have been struggling getting acclimated to my new environment, my new job, my new absence of social life, my new absence of community. In the midst of my several panic attacks that I endured, I probably should have been reading to calm myself down, but I just couldn't focus longer than a couple of pages at a time. So I spent a lot of the time I usually spend reading Pulitzers in prayer, in playing my guitar, in watching television, in nights of debauchery (a funny story, in retrospect), and in calling several different people on the phone on a daily basis.

However, once I got a little more settled in, and a little more settled down, I once again committed myself to reading and have finally produced a finished novel. Twenty-four novels down, sixty to go; and, as it turned out, I needed to read this book at this time in my life—if for no other reason, to cheer me up and keep me preoccupied.

I'd like to know why John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces won the Pulitzer for Fiction in 1981—this novel is quite unlike all of the other novels which have won since the Pulitzer's 1917 inception; in fact, it is quite unlike a lot any of the novels I have ever read. Whereas all of the Pulitzers I have read thus far on this journey are deeply serious and deal with the entirety of the human condition, with all its dramas, tragedies, and perplexities, A Confederacy of Dunces is romping comedic farce.

In fact, I daresay, I would go so far as to give it a label that my reading partner, Joshua, and I have never quite understood: this book is a "rollicking tour de force." I have read reviews of so many books where the reviewer actually used that phrase, and I have never been able to wrap my mind around it—it's just such a bizarre collection of words in one phrase; however, I can think of no other way to describe A Confederacy of Dunces. The reviews collected on the back of my edition are quite similar:

"A corker, an epic comedy, a rumbling, roaring avalanche of a book."—The Washington Post

"A Confederacy of Dunces is nothing less than a grand comic fugue."—The New York Times Book Review

"An astonishingly original and assured comic spree."—New York

"...the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures."—Chicago Sun-Times

I'd like to add "'A rollicking tour de force.'—Drew Moody" to that list of accolades.

Let me first say that this is the funniest work of fiction I have ever read. Of course, in my world of fiction, I can only really compare it to Nick Hornby or Christopher Moore; be that as it may, I cannot fathom a comedy out there that's funnier, nor more well written than John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. The dialogue in this book is so clever, so wrought with wit and hilarity, that it is nearly impossible not to actually laugh out loud at every turn of the page. With Olive Kitteridge and Gilead, I had to put the book down every couple pages because the drama was so intense I had to catch my breath; with A Confederacy of Dunces, I had to put the book down every couple of pages because I had to catch my breath from laughing so hard. In fact, Joshua just texted me a little while ago and told me he was having trouble reading the book while substitute teaching during study hall because he couldn't stop laughing.

Here's just a small collection of some of the lines that had me in stitches:

"I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
"'It smells terrible in here.' 'Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.'"
"Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today's employer is seeking."
"I suspect that I am the result of particularly weak conception on the part of my father. His sperm was probably emitted in a rather offhand manner."
"Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked."
"Apparently I am pushing a jinx about the streets. I am certain that I can do better with some other wagon. A new cart, a new start." (this said while being questioned why he hadn't sold any hotdogs in his new profession as a hotdog street vendor)
"... I tried to end our little duel. I called out pacifying words; I entreated; I finally surrendered. Still Clyde came, my pirate costume so great a success that it had apparently convinced him that we were back in the golden days of romantic old New Orleans when gentlemen decided matters of hot dog honor at twenty paces."
"Employers sense in me a denial of their values...they fear me. i suspect that they can see that i am forced to function in a century which i loathe."

Now, if you go back and re-read some of my previous entries in which I transcribe direct quotes from the novel which I was reading, you'll find that these lines are entirely unlike anything else I've read along this Pulitzer journey. All of the other books, although at times very different from each other, still possess enough similarities to each other that it's no wonder why those particular novels won. In one way or another, they all deal with Americana, heartache, tragedy, society, war, family values, politics, etc. A Confederacy of Dunces is nothing like that—while it does share a big focus on family dynamics with its Pulitzer counterparts, it is more about a big, fat, slobbering, oafish gargantuan of a man who can't hold down even the easiest of jobs, is wildly pigheaded, self-righteous, and, possibly, insane. Furthermore, rather than approaching his subject matter in a highly serious, almost reverent manner, Toole instead approached these subjects in a manner of high-octane comedic calamity.

So, then, I'd really like to know the reason why A Confederacy of Dunces won the highest accolade in American literature. Could it be that, in 1981, the Pulitzer committee ignored subject matter altogether and instead actually rewarded outstanding writing? As aforementioned, this book is extremely well-written and the dialogue, and even the narrative, is so fastidiously crafted that one can't help but marvel at the book's rich complexities. As a side note, I'd like to add that if you're looking to advance your personal daily lexicon, I highly recommend reading this novel and keeping it close by. While reading it, you may also want to have a dictionary or thesaurus readily available.

Now, if this book weren't interesting enough on its own, the stories surrounding the book certainly are...

The novel is autobiographical, in a sense, of John Kennedy Toole's life. Not all of the accounts are true to his life, but the characters in it, the emotions and attitudes, and the situations in which the characters find themselves are very similar to Toole's life. Ignatius J. Reilly, the protagonist of the novel, isn't quite a spitting image of John Kennedy Toole, but is similar enough for the reader to know they are meant to be one in the same. Even though the character was initially based on Toole's friend, Bob Byrne, even Byrne has admitted:

Ken Toole was a strange person. He was extroverted and private. And that's very difficult. He had a strong...desire to be recognized....but also a strong sense of alienation. That's what you have in Ignatius Reilly.

Toole was an interesting character in his own right—a university professor that was heralded and acclaimed by his students for his grandiose and comedic lectures, a wildly talented writer, by all appearances from an outsider's perspective, a fairly successful man. But his personal life was wrought with horror—he suffered from extreme paranoia and self-loathing, he was reclusive, and his interactions with the outside world were shrouded in mystery. Nobody quite understood the man and attempting to understand him was entirely futile.

Over the course of a few years, he had written A Confederacy of Dunces and submitted it to multiple publishers around the country, but never had any luck. Rejection after rejection were the result of his efforts to get his novel published, and these rejections only added to his paranoia and self-loathing. He was humiliated by rejection. All of the publishers were encouraging in their rejections, reminding Toole that he was very talented as a writer, and that the book showed a lot of promise, but none of them could consciously publish the original manuscript as it was. They all wanted him to revise and revise, and perhaps rewrite the book altogether, but Toole wouldn't hear of it.

All of these rejections eventually led to Toole's suicide in 1969 at the young age of 31. Suffering from depression and feelings of self-persecution, Toole left home on a journey around the country. He stopped in Mississipi to end his life by running a garden hose in from the exhaust of his car to the cabin.

Toole's mother, however, was not satisfied with the demise of her son (and justifiably so). During the two years following her son's death, she also suffered from depression, but then decided to once again having his manuscript published believing it would be a monument to her son's talent. She spent the next several years taking the manuscript to smaller publishing houses around the country and was met with the same rejection her son faced. However, she eventually found an interested person in the renowned novelist Walker Percy. Percy read the novel begrudgingly, only to get Mrs. Toole to stop constantly pestering him to read it. He was shocked to find that he actually loved it: "In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity; surely it was not possible that it was so good." Percy spent the next three years pitching it to agents and publishers before finally finding a publisher in Louisiana State University Press in 1980. John Kennedy Toole's single claim to fame finally came, eleven years after his suicide.

The first run of the book was only 2,500 copies and, at first, it generated very little interest with the public, despite the amount of the attention it was getting from the literary world. A year later, in 1981, Toole was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize—that's when A Confederacy of Dunces really came to life and became one of the most revered and popular books in Southern literature in recent memory, having sold more than 1.5 million copies and having been translated in 18 different languages.

This story's story doesn't end there, however...

After the novel started to become wildly popular, deals were slated to turn it into a feature film. Once a script had been drawn up, and a deal was reached with a certain studio, casting took place: for the role of Ignatius J. Reilly, John Belushi was cast; however, two days before the meeting with Universal executives to finalize the deal, Belushi died of a drug overdose. Interestingly enough, Richard Pryor was also initially cast to play Burma Jones, another character in the novel. Five months after Belushi's death, the woman who led the Louisiana State Film Commission was murdered by her husband, which brought the efforts to shoot the film in New Orleans—and the production itself—to a halt. A few years later, plans were made to attempt making the film again and John Candy was cast to play Reilly—he too died. A few years later the same fate met another actor cast as Reilly—Chris Farley. Once the 2000's came, and A Confederacy of Dunces had still not been made into a movie, the studio once again pulled it from the shelf to once again attempt making the film. Will Ferrel was a favorite to play Reilly, and all lights seemed green to go ahead with production; that is, until New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

There are those who believe the novel is "cursed," which is reason for concern for me. I've always had an unfounded superstition that I wouldn't live to see the age of 30. I don't know why—that's just how I've always felt for as long as I can remember. While reading this novel, bearing these stories in mind, every time I straddled the seat of my bicycle and rode to work, a delivery van or a CTA bus would swerve without signaling, coming within mere feet of flattening me and the thought "This is how it ends" would flash through my mind. In my adjustment to this new city, this new way of living, I have become a bit of a recluse, never venturing outside my apartment unless to go to work, just like John Kennedy Toole.

I'm probably reading way too much into this. But what if I'm not?

No... I'm reading way too much into this.

But what if...

Entry 19: "The Stone Diaries" by Carol Shields (1995)

2010-10-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while—the Internet at my house has been fiercely unreliable as of late, and I have been unable to post anything. However, I finished Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries (1995)—my 23rd completed Pulitzer novel—a couple days ago, and am here now to tell you all about my thoughts of it!

This project, I must confess, is becoming more and more grueling. Joshua and I couldn't sleep last night, so we took a midnight road trip up and down Route 50 in the dark of the evening hours. During the trip, we discussed the project and how we think we're doing and we both decided that we're getting really burnt out on reading. Both of us have only seriously pursued this project for four months, however we have both read nearly 20 of these books each—personally, I have read six of them in the last week and a half. We are completing these novels at breakneck speeds.

When I finished The Stone Diaries, I immediately went to my shelf, placed it back in its proper spot and grabbed the next novel, meandered back to my futon, laid down, and commenced reading. And after 20 or so pages, I suddenly realized that I am becoming a recluse. I am forsaking the great outdoors, my writing, my bicycle, my friends, my guitar, my God, and everything else that encompasses my daily existence.

The Pulitzer Project may very well turn into me an incredibly well-read connoisseur of American literature, but conversely, it may very well be the tipping point in my life that drives me toward insanity.

When I was a student at Northern Illinois University, I enrolled in a class titled "Introduction to Poetry"—the professor was nationally-acclaimed poet Dr. Amy Newman. The year before, I had taken an advanced creative writing class at Waubonsee Community College and my professor (and my peers) thought I was the bee's knees. Seriously, I could do no wrong in their eyes. Every poem I presented was met with praise. So, when I went to NIU, I really thought I had it going on in the poetry department. However, much to my surprise and chagrin, when I presented my first poem in Dr. Newman's class, she merely smirked and flippantly said, "Oh. That was nice, Drew."

A wave of humiliation swept over me and I made it my personal goal to impress Dr. Newman. I didn't really care if my poetry was actually good or not—I just wanted to impress her.

After every assignment, I read my poem to the class and everyone would discuss it, gauging whether it had any poetic merit or not. The students, lesser critics that they were, usually agreed that my writing was pretty good. Dr. Newman, on the other hand, would cringe at every recital of my poetry; and she had the same complaint every time: after my first poem, she told me, "Drew, I feel like you're wandering around in the desert, and you see a cliff off in the distance, but don't even dare to approach it;" the second time, she said, "Drew, I feel like you've seen a cliff off in the distance and you're walking towards it, but you're too afraid to really investigate it;" after the third poem, she said, "Drew, I feel like you've walked up to the edge of a cliff and you're inching your feet over the edge and just gazing down into a valley instead of taking the big leap;" after my final workshop poem, she said, "Drew! That was so much better, but you're not still there!" I finally asked, "Dr. Newman—what do you mean?? That was my best one yet!" She agreed, but then added, "It's like you've come up to the cliff and you've finally taken a giant leap, but, on the way down, you saw a tree root sticking out of the side of the cliff walls, grabbed it, and are now just hanging on for dear life!"

If I were to summarize how I felt about Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries, I'm afraid to report that's how I'd explain it. While the novel was well written, and while Shields did a wonderful job of telling a story, there was something missing from the novel—it just didn't grab me and hold my attention captive the way Gilead, Olive Kitteridge, or American Pastoral did. I felt like Shields had jumped off the proverbial cliff, but was whisked away to safety at the last minute by a giant bird that swooped in to her rescue.

The Stone Diaries tells the 80 year life of Daisy Goodwill. I have to give her credit—Shields really attempts to tell her story in an interesting, dynamic, and engaging way, but unfortunately falls just short. After I finished the novel in two sittings, I closed the book, thought "Huh—what should I read next?" Like I said before, Shields wrote a good story; I was genuinely interested in what would happen next in Daisy Goodwill's life. However, I wasn't really captivated by or enthralled with the novel. After finishing the novel and learning about all of the things that happened to Daisy Goodwill and things that she did, I suddenly realized that I, in no way, knew Daisy Goodwill as a character than I did when I was first introduced to her (which is unfortunate, because I really thought I would've come to like her). Even during the sections that are written from Daisy's perspective, in the first person, the reader is never told how Daisy thinks of certain situations, or how she feels about her life; and Shields certainly doesn't shed much light on the subject.

How unfortunate for the reader—even after being introduced to the main character and hearing her entire life's story, she is still very much a stranger.

However, all of that being said, I can't help but wonder if it was Carol Shields' intent to write Daisy that way. There are a several different places in the novel where other characters are discussing Daisy, and in almost every section, Daisy is described as a woman who didn't even really, truly exist. Here, for example, is a segment of dialogue between her two daughters following her death:

"I do remember that once she said she liked pansies at a funeral. Not those dumb pansies with faces. What she liked were the absolutely pure purple ones, those deep, deep velvety petals. That's the only thing I can remember her saying apropos to death."
"She just let her life happen to her."
"Well, why the hell not?"
"It was like...Like she was always going after some stray little thought with a needle and thread."
"Afraid to look inside herself. In case there was nothing there."

And on the last page of the novel, Shields writes: "'I am not at peace.' Daisy Goodwill's final (unspoken) words." Could it be that Shields intentionally wrote Daisy in a secluded way because Daisy was, herself, so secluded and cut off from being real?

Entry 18: "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout (2009)

2010-10-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

For my 21st book of this Pulitzer Project, I decided I wanted to read a book from the 21st Century. Also, since I've been pleasantly surprised at the last two books I've read,—two books that I was utterly dreading (Alice Adams and The Age of Innocence)—I also wanted to read another book that I was sort of dreading, but was hoping would pleasantly surprise me. I had no idea—no idea whatsoever—that when I chose this book to read, I had chosen a book that immediately pushed its way into my top ten novels of all time; possibly even my top five (bear in mind this list also includes A Farewell to Arms, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Gilead, and The Catcher In the Rye—I have a feeling that Elizabeth Strout's 2009 Pulitzer-winning novel, Olive Kitteridge, and The Great Gatsby will forever be duking it out for the fifth position).

Olive Kitteridge, I must admit, is probably the most emotionally draining novel I've read in quite some time—even more draining than Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, which also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005; this I didn't think was even remotely possible. After nearly every section in every chapter, I had to reach for my bookmark, place it between the pages, shut the book, lay it down next to me, exhale a long, deep sigh and just stare off into the distance, just contemplating the words I just read. Elizabeth Strout is an incredibly gifted writer that can string a handful of words together in such a way that they can absolutely break your heart and wreck your soul. I read the book in only two sittings, but it took me about six hours to finish the scant 270 pages that my edition is because I had to take so many breaks just to absorb the material.

My compatriot, Joshua, kept telling me, "Look man, I know this is a competition and all, but you need to slow down with that book! You don't want to breeze through something that's as good as you say that book is just because you want to finish it quickly." However, as much as I agree with him, I almost literally couldn't put it down. The stories are so engaging and the writing is so good that I couldn't bear the thought of putting it down—not even for a moment. Strout brought me into a cold and gloomy world that is being torn apart my scandals, deaths, affairs, and hurts that I couldn't tear myself away from.

I hated being in that place—I hated the hopelessness, the despair, the heartache on almost every page; but I could not, for the life of me, bring myself to leave that place.

The novel is written in much the same style as N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn (Pulitzer, 1969), though not as experimental, or postmodern, or however it may be described. The book, ultimately, is the story of an entire town, but Strout employs the titled character, Olive Kitteridge, as its epicenter. Strout focuses most of her attention on this woman, while narrating the story of the lives of those around her. In her narratives, we meet a wide variety of characters including: a lounge singer who's hung up on a past relationship, an emotionally wrecked young woman whose newly-wed husband is tragically killed by his best friend, a family that has no idea how to function as a cohesive unit, a married man and a widow who have an affair to deal with their loneliness, and a kleptomaniac who can't hold down a steady job.

Their stories—told over the course of forty-ish years—swirl around the story of Olive Kitteridge, a retired school teacher who is one of the most complicated fictional characters I have ever had the good pleasure to meet. From story to story, from scene to scene, her personality shifts from funny and charming, to bitter and angry; from comforting and understanding, to bitchy and confrontational; from warm and caring, to cold and callous. She is as capable of being extremely likable as she is of being extremely unlikable. She is easily the most dynamic and interesting literary character I have ever come across. Neither Holden Caulfield, nor Stephen Dedalus, nor Dr. House (who I truly do believe is the most complicated character in television history) hold a candle to this woman's level of complexity.

I do have one bone to pick with Elizabeth Strout, however...

Almost four years ago, I had this very same idea for a memoir. I wanted to write a memoir entitled Other People's Lives, and I wanted it to document the story of my lie by telling the stories of "other people's lives." For example, I wanted to write an essay about my coming back to my faith wholeheartedly by telling the story of my good friend, Joshua Riley; an essay about my struggle with loneliness by telling the stories of women I have known; etc., etc. I would merely be an extra in my own story—much like the concept of the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Now that I've read Olive Kitteridge—a novel that employs this very technique and does so exquisitely—I really don't think I could do anything that would even pale in comparison; my memoir wouldn't pale in comparison, it would be translucent in comparison.

Thank you, Elizabeth Strout, for deflating and destroying my burgeoning literary career.

Entry 17.2: "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton (1921)

2010-10-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is the second part of my review of Edith Wharton's 1921 Pulitzer-winning novel, The Age of Innocence.

Welcome back.

There was something I really wanted to address more in my last post, but I was way too tired to really delve into it, so I just barely introduced it. But I'd like to think that this book was a significant stride forward for women and the feminist movement. Like I said, this book was published in 1920—the same year that American women were granted the right to vote. I find it significant that the Pulitzer Prize committee not only awarded the highest prize in American literature to a woman the very next year, but awarded it to a novel that set two women as the story's protagonists (one of which was a rebellious, independent woman—a character who, at that time, would have been demonized in real life).

I also don't find it coincidental at all that Ellen Odeska, the independent woman, was the desire of Newland Archer—she was his forbidden fruit. He was attracted by her beauty, by her carefree lifestyle, by her disregard for societal customs, by her foreignness. Also, not surprisingly, she was the envy of almost every character in the novel. Sure, Old New York's aristocratic elitists had some things to say about the Countess Odeska and her foreign lifestyle, but everybody loved her. Ellen Odeska represents the new direction women are taking in life—the building blocks of feminism can be found in Ellen: she entertains single and married men in her quarters, she's a divorcee, she came to America specifically to get away from her husband, she's independent, she openly does not care about social conventions, she's strong, she's rebellious. She embodies everything foreign and exotic that Newland Archer was so attracted to.

May Welland, on the other hand, represents Old New York's dying aristocracy. She's bland, boring, snobbish, prudish, upright, aristocratic; she's far too hung up on what it means to be "civilized," far too hung up on what others perception of her is to truly enjoy life. Really, there are only two reasons Archer was so eager to marry her: 1) she was aristocracy and that was the life he desired to maintain, and 2) he was conflicted about having feelings for Ellen Odeska, so wanted to rush his marriage to May Welland (such bizarre logic, by the way). But Archer, really, doesn't want to be with May; he'd much rather be with Ellen. In fact, in a moment that, for this book, was so uncharacteristically dark that it jarred me, Archer actually fantasizes about his bride's death so that he'd be free to be with Ellen:

What if it were she who was dead! If she were going to die—to die soon—and leave him free! The sensation of standing there, in that warm familiar room, and looking at her, and wishing her dead, was so strange, so fascinating and overmastering, that its enormity did not immeditately strike him. He simply felt that chance had given him a new possibility to which his soul might cling. Yes, May might die—people did: young people, healthy people like herself: she might die, and set him suddenly free.

Later, in the novel, of course May Welland does eventually die, but simply because of (presumably) old age. And, of course, when she does die, Newland Archer hops all over the first chance he gets to fly to Paris to meet up with Ellen Odeska. What I did not see coming, however, is that Newland never meets up with Ellen—he goes to her apartment, sits on a park bench and watches her son go up to meet her first but promises to be up soon enough, then turns around and heads back to his hotel alone. Perhaps Newland finally realizes that Ellen is far better off without him. Or perhaps Newland is so entrenched in his old ways that he can't bear to leave them behind.

Regardless, it should come as no surprise that May Welland dies a miserable old woman and Ellen Odeska thrives on her own in Paris. This is a symbolic image of American feminism—the old, fuddy-duddy May Welland fades and rusts while Ellen Odeska still burns bright even in her older age. Things were changing in American society—women were just beginning to gain ground in being seen as individuals and equals. The Pulitzer Prize committee surely recognized this shift in the American landscape and that surely must have been at the forefront of their minds when they selected The Age of Innocence to win their award.

Entry 17.1: "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton (1921)

2010-10-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a mere week since my reading companion, Joshua, and I restarted our Pulitzer journey with renewed vigor, and I, having just finished Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, already find myself three novels closer to finishing the project. Of course, this means I still have another 63 to go, but that number looks a more pleasant prospect than 67.

As you may have well gathered by now, Josh and I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of reading all 84 of these books in one year; I don't think we stood much of a chance in the first place, to be perfectly honest. So we have revised the project a little bit, added another rule or two, and I think this slight detour in our journey will be much more rewarding—for one of us anyway.

So, before I go into my review of this novel, here's the new plan: rather than attempting to simultaneously finish all of the novels in one year, we are going to race each other to the finish. This may take us all the way up to next summer to do, but that is the new goal. As a reward, the winner gets to relish in the public humiliation of his counterpart.

Allow me to explain: I am an ardent Chicago Cubs fan, and Joshua is an ardent Boston Red Sox fan. Next summer, the Cubs will be playing the Red Sox in Boston, so Josh and I are going to make the road trip to Fenway Park to cheer on our favorite teams. Here's the catch: if I finish all of the books before he does, he has to wear a New York Yankees jersey at the game. If he wins, I have to wear a Chicago White Sox jersey at a Cubs game. Can you imagine the humility? Driving halfway across the country to watch your all-time favorite baseball team and having to wear their arch-rival's jersey? I'm afraid this will be a humiliation he'll have to endure, because Lord knows damn well that I am not going to desecrate the holy sanctuary that is Wrigley Field by wearing a White Sox jersey there.

This new challenge has reinvigorated both of us and has propelled us forward. This challenge may well be the reason I was so steadfast in finishing The Age of Innocence, a novel I probably wouldn't have otherwise been able to bear reading. Then again, perhaps the reason I was able to finish the novel in a mere three sittings was because I actually kind of enjoyed it.

If you've been following this blog, you know by now that I am not a fan of these books that deal with the upper crust of society. Unfortunately, The Age of Innocence is one of those books. However, despite its subject matter, I actually rather enjoyed the novel. Don't get me wrong—I had my fair share of qualms with Wharton throughout my reading, but it was nothing I couldn't overcome by the conclusion of the story. And, really, my qualms with Wharton had little to nothing to do with the story itself—they were more centered on trifling matters like language, symbolism, character development and pacing. I know these traits in a novel should be desirable ones, but I have read enough literature in my life to come to the conclusion that if the story is good and well-told, these issues are hardly issues at all. As I have with so many other novels before, I found this to be the case with The Age of Innocence.

There are a few things that Wharton is guilty of in this book: the biggest thing, which I really hope Joshua goes more into on his blog, is her overuse of symbolism—really obvious symbolism too. There were a handful of times when I read a phrase and had to put the book down just to gaze off into the distance and sometimes actually say out loud, "Really? Really, Edith Wharton?" Symbolism, in my opinion, should merely be used in a way that will make the reader question what he/she is reading and investigate further. Symbolism should be used as the catalyst that drives the reader to "read between the lines," if I may abuse an old cliche. Symbolism should never be used as a means of stating something that is obvious, or something that the reader could have inferred without the symbol's placement. Furthermore, symbolism should be sly and almost easy to miss—not heavy-handed, the way Wharton employed it in this novel. A really good example of heavy-handed symbolism can be found in Wes Anderson's film The Darjeeling Limited—at the end of the film, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman are running to catch a train, but their luggage is slowing them down. So they shed their bags to lighten their loads and are able to jump aboard the train. The symbolism here is that the bags belonged to their recently deceased father, a figure whose memory plagues the three brothers. So only by shedding their own personal baggage of their father's memory are they able to move on. Of course, the symbolism here is made even more heavy-handed by Wes Anderson's characteristic use of slow motion.

Secondly, and this is just a preference thing, but the language in this novel was so flowery and thick that I couldn't hardly stand it. It was a real labor to get through the first 20 or so chapters of the book because I was so distracted, so bogged down, by Wharton's insistence of using completely unnecessary wording. I would venture to estimate that if one were to remove all of the superfluous narrative that Wharton felt the need to foray into, my 298 page edition of this novel would only be about 100 or so pages. Honestly, I think that's a fair estimate too—two thirds of the book's content is completely and totally superfluous fluff. Only one third of the words she uses drive the actual plot. The rest of the words Wharton writes are adverbs for the people say things and adjectives for things that her characters have. She then has long narratives about side characters whom have no bearing on the actual story. The only thing I got out of this is that Edith Wharton really wants her readers to know what kind of people her three main characters associate themselves with.

All of that being said, I actually (surprisingly) quite enjoyed the story. The Age of Innocence documents a sordid love triangle in Old New York. Newland Archer, the protagonist of the story, is well-to-do man about town and he is betrothed to May Welland—this, of course, is a perfect match in their Old New York aristocracy: they are both wealthy, have associations in the same group of peers, and both of them have the sort-of same ambitions (namely, to be wealthy and well respected by their group of peers). This all changes for Newland Archer when he is introduced to, and thus enchanted by, Countess Ellen Odeska—a fiercely independent European woman who is obviously unfamiliar with societal customs in Old New York, but wouldn't adhere to them even if she were familiar with them. She comes to America to escape her abusive husband, files for divorce, spends a lot of her time with men alone, refuses to adhere to aristocratic customs and "rules of engagement," and even goes so far as to spark a love affair with an engaged man (Newland Archer)—all of these things that make Ellen Odeska who she is as a woman also make her an oddity in her new aristocratic setting. Furthermore, they make her a bit exotic, a bit refreshing, in the eyes of Newland Archer. So, then, the central conflict of this story is internal, and it lays in Archer's conflicting desires to live in the upper crust of Old New York and pursue a happy relationship with Ellen Odeska. Unfortunately, for him, these two desires are not compatible.

When we place this novel historically, it is no wonder it won a Pulitzer Prize. In fact, I would venture to say that it probably created a bit of controversy upon its release.

This novel won the Pulitzer—the greatest achievement in American literature— in 1921, a year after its publication. This was also the first Pulitzer-winning novel to have been written by a woman—Edith Wharton (preceding her were Ernest Poole and Booth Tarkington). Coincidentally, 1920 was the same year that Congress ratified women's suffrage in the United States. Women in the United States were starting to gain ground as valuable members of society at this time in history.

Now, although Newland Archer is the main character in this novel, thus making him the protagonist—he's not a very likable character. In fact, he's more of an antagonist than anything. He doesn't really contribute anything to society, he's just a rich playboy. The only thing in the story that he actually does is nearly destroy the lives of two different women by leading them on and playing with their emotions and their minds. The two women, May Welland and Ellen Odeska, represent the two extremes that Archer sways between—"proper society" and humanity, respectively. In any story, the main character is the protagonist that the reader is meant to ally his/herself with, get behind, cheer for, identify with, etc. In this story, however, the main character is just an idiot. It is the two women that we really feel for—it is they who we most want to overcome. And given its historical context, it is no wonder that it is the women (who, really, are each others exact polar opposite) that the reader is meant to align with. It is the alpha male that is made into the bewildered, almost accidental, antagonist.

Perhaps I'm reading a little bit too much into this, perhaps I was brainwashed at Northern Illinois University by Dr. Derosa into making extreme feminist critiques of everything I read; nevertheless, I don't find these items to be coincidental and it would take a really strong argument to convince me otherwise.

It is currently 2:35am and I am very sleepy. There are a few more things I'd like to say about The Age of Innocence, but I am going to save them for a second post (that I may write when I wake up in a few hours). And with this book behind me, the next step along my journey will be Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge.

Entry 16: "Alice Adams" by Booth Tarkington (1922)

2010-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

When, to my well-documented horror, I read Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons, only the second Pulitzer Prize to be awarded for fiction, I decided I was going to put off reading his second Pulitzer-winning novel, Alice Adams, as long as I possibly could. In fact, I was really hoping I could just forgo it entirely and merely pretending that I had read it, the way I did so often with some of the books I was assigned at university. One of my subscribers had written to me following my review of Ambersons and told me that while she hadn't read that particular novel, she rather liked Alice Adams—in fact, she really liked it. I almost didn't believe her. I was entirely sure that Booth Tarkington was, quite possibly, the worst writer I have ever read—I was hoping I was wrong, but I very much doubted it.

Now, of course, that I have successfully finished reading Alice Adams, I'm afraid I have to eat my words. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually really enjoyed this novel, and that Tarkington did a wonderful job of writing this story. This discovery, therefore, makes me wonder why I hated The Magnificent Ambersons so much. There is no one in this whole wide world that could ever convince me that it was a well-written novel, let alone a good story. His symbolism was overt, the story was entirely predictable, some of the events in the story were outlandish... It was just an all-around bad novel. I was under the impression that it was because Tarkington just wasn't a very good writer. Alice Adams, on the other hand, left me believing the opposite is true—that Tarkington was a good writer, and that maybe, just maybe, he knew exactly what he was doing in Ambersons.

Perhaps Tarkington intentionally wrote Ambersons the way he did to make a point (God only knows what that point could have possibly been)... Or, perhaps Tarkington got really, really lucky with the Pulitzer committee that particular year... Or, perhaps the Pulitzer committee begrudgingly awarded him the Prize, then awarded him again when Alice Adams was so much better of a novel... Or, perhaps I'm missing something entirely and I'm not nearly the literary connoisseur I thought I was.

Now that we've both read both of Tarkington's Pulitzer-winners and both of us have extremely conflicted opinions of his writing, Joshua and I have decided that the only way to truly determine what kind of writer Tarkington was is to read a third novel by him. That novel, which will be named later and after this Pulitzer journey is over, will be the tie-breaker as it were.

I'm sensing a theme in the early Pulitzer novels (though I have yet to complete all of the first decade's worth, I have a feeling I know the central conflict of these novels is)—social status. Tarkington, especially, seems to really relish in writing about this particular theme; as do Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and Louis Bromfield. The same is true of other Jazz Age writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, or Sinclair Lewis. So far, though, amongst Pulitzer-winning authors, it seems to be Tarkington that is championing the trend.

In The Magnificent Ambersons, for instance, the central conflict of the book is that of Georgie Minafer's slow decline into cultural insignificance. At the beginning of the novel, the Ambersons are truly "magnificent"—they own a lot of property, they own business ventures, they have old money, their home is decadent, they throw outlandish parties; but over time, their social status as the elite upper crust begins to fade away and the town they live in begins to change, thus changing the people that live in it. Alice Adams, similarly, chronicles the struggle of the Adams family, a family of middle class social outsiders, to fit in with their upper class peers.

As much as I was surprised to discover that I didn't hate Alice Adams, but in fact really liked it, I wasn't surprised at all when, midway through the novel, I "discovered" the theme of acting that Tarkington was working into the story. Now, there are two reasons I say that I wasn't surprised to find this theme: 1) I'm a trained reader and I'm adept to picking up literary themes, and 2) Tarkington was slapping me in the face with it throughout the novel. That sort of writing drives me absolutely crazy. I can appreciate when an author is trying to work with themes or symbolism or irony and drops little hints here and there that are sort of obvious, but still take some digging to really understand—that sort of writing makes reading fun, almost an adventure or a challenge. But when an author thinks that his or her audience is comprised of complete nincompoops and feels the urge to highlight these moments with flashing lights, I almost get a little offended!

Of the 434 pages that my edition of Alice Adams is, I'm estimating that Tarkington dedicated ten entire pages to "acting." Alice talks about wanting to be an actress on three different occasions; Mrs. Adams talks about the times when she was younger and wanted to be an actress and still, sometimes, even in her older age, thinks about acting; Alice explains to Mr. Russell her desire to act and how every girl secretly (or outwardly) wants to be an actress; Alice acts a scene from Romeo and Juliet; films and plays and the theater are discussed in several different scenes; Tarkington makes comparisons of his characters to fictional stage and film characters—when this theme is brought up every couple or so pages, it's hard to miss! It almost insults my literary intelligence!

And here's the kicker about this whole "acting" business—I believe the only reason Tarkington is so adamant about bringing it up over and over and over is because he doesn't think his readership could guess on their own that, when different members of the Adams family go to formal, upper-class dinners, or attempt to host their own versions of them, or dress the way that their upper-class peers dress, they are merely acting the part! Thank you, Mr. Tarkington—without your constantly drilling acting into my head, I would have never guessed that the Adams were merely role playing.

Furthermore, Tarkington is so clearly heavily influenced by Victorian literature that it's almost distracting—Alice Adams was so Austenian in language and subject matter that I almost forgot that it was written in the heart of the Modernist movement. And the ending—oh, Lord; the ending was so Dickensian, so happily wrapped up in pretty paper and a bow on top, I wanted to puke. It was so much like A Christmas Carol that I was half expecting old Ebeneezer himself to waltz into the Adams' home and jovially declare, "Behold! A goose! A Christmas goose!" All of the characters in the book would then gather 'round Mr. Adams sick-bed and embrace each other and Mr. Adams would quip, "God bless us, every one."

Blah.

Literary Snob Vent: over.

Don't get me wrong—I don't hate Booth Tarkington because of this little grievance of mine. The truth is, a lot of writers are guilty of being obvious. It's just that Tarkington was guilty this time. Despite it's obviousness, the novel was really, really enjoyable. I thought the story was well developed and well told, I really liked the way Tarkington created a tension between loyalty to family and desire to be something greater that all of the main characters faced, and I particularly liked the characters that he created.

The titled character, Alice, and I got off to a rocky start—in the first three chapters, I really thought she was just a snobby, snotty (if I may be entirely candid) bitch. I know that's harsh, but I really did not like her at all in those first three chapters. Now, it could have been that I was reading the novel through a negative lens because I was so sure I was going to hate it—maybe my own prejudice just prevented me from liking her right away. But over the course of the next 22 chapters, I absolutely fell in love with Alice. She's funny, she's quirky, she's perceptive, she's silly, she's flirty, she's beautiful, she's loyal; she's every woman that I've ever known and she's quite the catch.

As I mentioned before, it's plain to see that Tarkington was pretty influenced by Victorian literature—his characterization of Alice, especially, is almost something out of a Jane Austen novel. I would daresay that Alice Adams is almost a reincarnation of Elizabeth, from Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The only difference between the two is that Alice, unlike Elizabeth, wants to be part of the aristocracy that surrounds her, but only to a certain point. Inasmuch as she wants to be part of that scene, she refuses to betray her family, or put them through the wringer in order to do it. She's loyal to them. Therein lies the central conflict of the novel—Alice's internal struggle: the tension between desiring to be "somebody" and knowing the importance of being who you are; striving to be something extraordinary while still trying to be fruitful and functional in her ordinariness.

I have to give credit where credit is due—Tarkington masterfully developed that tension. When dealing with that sort of subject matter, it is incredibly easy to go either too far with it, or not far enough. If Tarkington were any less of an author (i.e., the author I thought he was before I read this novel), he could have either created a whiny, selfish, bratty, unlikeable Alice or an Alice that his readers could care less about one way or the other. However, Tarkington toed this line miraculously and created one of the most endearing characters I've ever had the good pleasure to read. In fact, I almost didn't want the novel to end—I was that in love with her character.

I also really liked Mr. Adams—an incredibly emotionally complicated character. Again, Tarkington had a thin line to toe with this character. Mr. Adams is an ill man that isn't upset about not earning what he's worth, but indifferent about it in not doing with his life what he's capable of. When he finally decides to take matters into his own hands and start generating some more money for his family, the whole venture blows up in his face and he is forced to deal with the futility of it. Again, Tarkington could have gone too far with this character or not far enough: he could have created an angry, bitter, cynical old man that the reader just despises, or he could have created just some guy that has some nondescript problems that he feels indifferent to that the reader doesn't really care about.

Then, of course, there's Mrs. Adams... Boy, did I hate this woman. I really dreaded every single time she opened her mouth. I found her to be pushy, arrogant, self-involved, and just altogether loathsome. I hated how she pushed her husband to be a man he clearly wasn't ready to be; I hated how she pushed her daughter into being the woman that she always wanted to be but never was; I hated how uncomfortable she made Mr. Russell; I hated how she treated her hired staff; I hated her melodrama, her overreactions, her snottiness, her attitude of entitlement. I absolutely hated everything she represented. Much like Tarkington's other loathsome character, Georgie Minafer, I really wanted her to get her (as Tarkington would say) "come-uppance."

So now that I have finished yet another Pulitzer novel, I have a dilemma—I don't know how to feel about Booth Tarkington anymore. Whereas I would advise everyone I know to never, ever, ever read The Magnificent Ambersons, I would advise every young woman out there to read Alice Adams rather than anything Jane Austen ever wrote. In fact, I'd advise men to read it too—I was that impressed with it. With this novel behind me, I am eager to read the other two authors who have won two Pulitzers—William Faulkner and John Updike. Why did these three men win two Pulitzers? More specifically, why did the novels they won for win? How are their two books similar? How are they different? Tarkington, in my mind anyway, certainly improved in storytelling and writing from one win to the other—is the same true of Faulkner and Updike? Time will tell.

Next stop: Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton.

Entry 15: "House Made of Dawn" by N. Scott Momaday (1969)

2010-09-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

It is 1969—two years after the Summer of Love, the year after the assassinations of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the year after the Democratic National Convention riots in Chicago, the year of Woodstock, the year of Charles Manson and his family, the year man walked on the moon. This was a year of tumult and chaos and confusion, and, from what I gathered reading N. Scott Momaday's 1969 Pulitzer-winning novel, House Made of Dawn, the same was true for Native Americans this time period.

This novel is the story of a Kiowa Indian named Abel. Abel grew up in the traditions and customs of his people on a reservation, went to fight the Japanese in World War II, came back home, and became an alcoholic, a peyote user, a degenerate, a fighter, a basket case. Abel's life, throughout the novel, spirals out of control and he descends into his own personal hell.

This novel gave voice to the plights of Native Americans during this time period, people who are very traditional culturally and are struggling to keep their identity in the 21st century. Those of us who live off the reservation have heard stories, we've heard about Indians who are alcoholics and gamblers; but, really, we've only heard these stories from newsreels. Most of us don't know what's really happening over there, we don't have a firsthand account—we just have this tidbits we pick up from here, there, and the other. But, in House Made of Dawn, Momaday (being a Kiowa Indian himself and having grown up on a reservation) gives us an intimate account of things that he had probably seen, of people he had probably known, of situations and struggles he had probably encountered on a daily basis.

It's been a couple of days since I finished this novel and I'm still wrestling with it, still trying to determine how I felt about it. I loved it almost as much as I hated it, and I hated it almost as much as I loved it. It's a truly wonderful story, both heartbreaking and inspiring; it was both an engaging fictional story, and informing autobiographical sketch of life in the 21st century as a Native American. I was mesmerized by the story itself, and, after reading it, I felt much more informed about the plight of the Native Americans.

However, throughout the novel, I was frustrated and even angered by Momaday's writing style. It is truly a great work of everything I know to be postmodern literature—there are parallel narratives being told throughout the book, there are different perspectives addressing the same story, there are different points of view, there are several different "rabbits" Momaday chases, the time and setting are constantly shifting from paragraph to paragraph—it is a great piece of writing. And the language and voice Momaday employs is absolutely wonderful—his descriptions of locations, particularly locations in the wilderness or around the reservation, are absolutely beautiful. Somehow, he manages to describe something as mundane as trees in new and interesting and equally breathtaking ways every handful or so of pages. But because of the constant shift in narrative, it was really, really difficult to keep track of the story. The story, at times, simply disappears in Momaday's prose, albeit elegant. I have to forgive Momaday, though, because his writing is so good that I am forced to believe that his writing style is completely intentional—he knows exactly what he's doing throughout the novel, in every sentence. Furthermore, putting this novel in historical context, I am forced to believe that House Made of Dawn was written to reflect the chaos and tumult of the 60's and amongst his fellow Kiowa Indians.

Despite my difficulty in getting through the novel and keeping track of the story, I absolutely adored House Made of Dawn and would recommend it to anyone wanting to investigate either Native American or postmodern literature. After this journey is over, I may even want to re-read it, just to more fully pick up on themes and symbolism Momaday uses throughout the novel.

Entry 14: "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren (1947)

2010-09-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

Wow.

It has been a really, really long time since the last Pulitzer Prize winner I successfully finished and wrote about. A lot has happened in the past nearly five months and I was unable to do any significant reading since my books were in boxes and being transported from one city to another. However, in the past month, I have found enough stability to unpack them, organize them on my shelf and start working my way through them again.

Of course, the novel that I chose to restart my Pulitzer journey with was, what I'm guessing, one of the most difficult novels to get through—not because it was a painstakingly dull read like The Magnificent Ambersons, but because it was so deeply profound and so utterly, dreadfully beautiful.

There are no words I can write here to describe Robert Penn Warren's 1947 Pulitzer winner, All the King's Men, that would do the novel any sort of justice, but because of the nature of this journey, I have to at least document it.

Let me first of all say that, after reading this novel, I'd really like Robert Penn Warren to be one of my favorite authors of all time. Unfortunately, this one book is not enough of a sample for me to make that sort of call; it is, however, enough for me to say that you can rest assured that once this journey is over, I will be investigating more of Warren's writings. His style of writing is so dense with beauty—heartbreaking, soul crushing beauty—and it is almost impossible to get through twenty or even ten pages without having to put the book down to take a deep breath and, perhaps even, weep a little.

In the first twelve pages, for instance, Warren embarks on this long narrative—a soliloquy, as it were—about an envelope. Of course, this discourse isn't really about the envelope at all—the envelope is merely the catalyst that introduces the reader to the theme of "knowing," and how "knowing" will steal your innocence, your naivete, and this theme will run its course throughout the novel. At first, as the reader, you curse Warren's name and say out loud, "What the hell are you even talking about?? Just get on with the story already!" Then, the almost stream of consciousness narrative is over and you are left gasping for air, wanting to read the paragraph over and over because of its raw power. You know you have to leave this moment behind, but you are constantly drawn back to it:

You saw the eyes bulge suddenly like that, as though something had happened inside him, and there was that glitter. You know something had happened inside him, and though: It's coming. It was always that way. There was the bulge and the glitter, and there was the cold grip way down in the stomach as though somebody has laid hold of something in there, in the dark which is you, with a cold hand in cold rubber glove. It was like the second when you come late at night and see the yellow envelope of the telegram sticking out from under your door and you can lean and pick it up, but don't open it yet, not for a second. While you stand there in the hall, with the envelope in your hand, you feel there's an eye on you, a great big eye looking straight at you from miles and dark and through walls and houses and through your coat and vest and hide and sees you huddle up way inside, in the dark which is you, inside yourself, like a clammy, sad little foetus you carry around inside yourself. The eye knows what's in the envelope, and it is watching you to see you when you open it and know, too. But the clammy, sad little foetus which is you way down in the dark which is you too lifts up its sad little face and its eyes are blind, and it shivers cold inside you for it doesn't want to know what is in that envelope. It wants to lie in the dark and not know, and be warm in its not-knowing. The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killer, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it, would save him. There's the cold in your stomach, but open the envelope, you have to open the envelope, for the end of man is to know.

Even re-reading it now has winded me and has broken my heart yet again. And the most amazing part about his writing style is that he maintains this level of intensity and beauty throughout the entire novel. Four hundred and sixty four pages of literature that is so profound and so moving that it makes you want to lay down on your floor, turn out the lights, and just stare at the darkness swirling around the ceiling. It's literature so beautiful that it makes you never want to read again—it's as if Warren has just given you the ultimate gift and, from now on, you'll never be in want again.

unreturned. The only difference is that Burden (Warren, rather) was able to articulate the way he hurt in a meaningful way.

When things like this happen to us in real life (and I'm speaking about us, men), we just get angry and leave it at that.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to say about the story itself. It wasn't a bad story or anything, I was just indifferent to it. I've read better stories, and I've definitely read much worse. But this one is really predictable throughout—it is the story of a country bumpkin runs for governor, wins the election, goes mad with power, and his madness is the start of his descent into futility; it is the story of an idealistic doctor whose idealism lands him his dream job of running a major hospital, but whose naivete puts him in the middle of a political system that drives him to corruption; it is the story of a beautiful young woman who forsakes the love that was shown her by the one man that wants nothing but to love her, and becomes the catalyst that undoes the worlds of those she loves most; it is the story of a man who just needs to work and in so doing, becomes a part of a corrupt political machine. These stories are nothing new. In fact, I daresay that there's nothing really original about these stories—we hear about them in everyday life, literally everyday. In fact, I have even read somewhere that Warren based the characters on real life persons (which, of course, makes this novel an interesting piece where the line between fiction and reality is blurred).

But I am forced to believe that it wasn't the originality of the story isn't what garnered the Pulitzer Prize—it was the breathtaking beauty of Warren's writing that did.

Next stop: House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday.

It feels good to be back.

Entry 13: "March" by Geraldine Brooks (2006)

2010-05-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

Wow. Has it really been so long that I haven't posted anything new on The Pulitzer Blog? Please forgive me, fellow readers; I know my curious absence must have sent you to fits of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. However, grieve no more—I'm back with a plethora of interesting topics to blog about over the next couple weeks.
May has been such an exceptionally bizarre and stressful month. There will be more details on the reasons why to come in future blogs, but I have been dealing with the prospects of moving to another town, trying to find a job in that town, coming to the end of my allotted time with my current roommates, wondering where I'm going, facing homelessness, etc., etc. These concerns have been bogging me down, weighing heavily on my shoulders. We're only a little more than halfway through May and, already, I'm feeling the strain of the pressures this month has brought me wearing me out; I'm constantly fatigued, sore, and increasingly agitated. I'm being spread very thin by the cares and concerns of my everyday existence.

At the end of everyday, now, I have to remind myself, "Only three weeks to go... Only two weeks to go... Only one week to go..."

Needless to say, because of all of this undue stress, I have neither found the time to read, nor cared to find the time to read. That is my explanation as to why it took me two full weeks to complete Geraldine Brooks' March—a book that, at a scant 278 pages, would typically only take me a day or two to finish.

Furthermore, I regret to say, I probably won't be reading anymore novels for the remainder of this month either, as all of my books are currently in boxes, sitting in Joshua's garage, 30 minutes away from me. I miss them, but at least I'll have The Stories of John Cheever to keep me company.
Here's an idea that's come about in the 20th and 21st centuries that I've never really taken to: authors writing prequels, sequels, and other literary appendages and attaching them to classic works by other authors. There's something about this craze that seems to me, oh, I don't know—disingenuous? Unoriginal? Oblique? Perhaps, even blasphemous? Of course, this way of writing has probably been around for centuries, but it really seems as though it has really taken off in the past hundred or so years.

For instance, in 1813 Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, the story of a young girl named Elizabeth, who learns to deal with issues such as manners, upbringing, moral rightness, and relationships in an aristocratic society. In the novel, she falls madly in love with Mr. Darcy and blah, blah, blah. Some one hundred and ninety or so years later, in 2003, Elizabeth Aston continues the story of Elizabeth and Darcy in the sequel to Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy's Daughters.

Another example: in 1847, Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre, the story of a young girl who falls in love with a well-to-do man named Rochester. The only snafu in this love story is that Rochester is married! Woops! To make things even more complicated, Rochester's wife, Bertha, is a crazed lunatic that he locks in his attic! And, of course, though her readers were dying to know more about the nutjob in the attic, Brontë never really explains anything. So, 1966, Jean Rhys decided to write a prequel to the book called Wide Sargasso Sea, in which Bertha and Rochester's entire bizarre marriage is explained from its beginning to its end.

Geraldine Brooks' March is yet another example of this type of writing, though it is neither sequel nor prequel. Her novel is an appendage to Little Women, Louisa May Alcott's classic Civil War novel from 1868. Little Women is the story of Margaret March and her four daughters, Jo, Amy, Meg, and Elizabeth; it is her daughters' transformation from girls into "little women" during the one year of the Civil War in which their father, Robin, is absent. All Alcott says about his absence is that he was a chaplain in the Union army and he had been sent to minister to the troops. He is there in the beginning of the novel, and he is there at the end of the novel. So, in 2006, Geraldine Brooks decided to write March and thereby offer another part of Alcott's story: the story of Robin March.
Let me first say this: Geraldine Brooks is an amazing writer. On the front cover of the edition I have, Karen Joy Fowler, of The Washington Post, praises Brooks' writing by labeling it "harrowing and moving"—I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. Brooks has a very firm grasp on the English language and her writing style—whether she is depicting hospital rooms, battlefields, violence, racism, family dinners, or marital conflicts—is some of the most eloquent I have ever come across.

With that being said, however, I'm not really sure her writing style lends itself to her storytelling. Although she is unarguably a wonderful, gifted writer, I really had a hard time with her lack of story in this particular book.

So she sets out to explain the entire year that Robin March was absent from his home—okay, that's great; what happened in that one year? Well, according to Brooks, not a whole lot. He went to war as a chaplain to minister to the Union troops, he saw some stuff,—some of it was nice, some of it wasn't so nice—he wrote letters home, he got sick, he attempted to help slaves, he got hurt in a skirmish, he was laid up in a hospital, then he went home. Now, these details that I've explained here seem like a very basic overview of a long narrative; however, they aren't. That's what happens, but with more flowery, eloquent language.

This book is in no way a narrative of a story; rather, it reads more like a fictional memoir. Brooks, rather than telling the story of his absence from beginning to end, the way one might expect her to, she instead relates random memories from his year at war—and from his years of adolescence—and trusts the reader to deduce the full story from these tidbits. Worst of all, these memories aren't really that interconnected, so much as they are interrelated (and even that's a stretch; by "interrelated," I mean that he sees a slave and is reminded of another time he saw a slave).

Furthermore, March seems to be less a story about Robin March and more about slavery. March is a chaplain and, throughout the novel, that fact is beaten into the reader's head—they mention it every couple or so pages. However, despite its overwhelming importance to the book, Brooks never expounds on it. Once or twice, Brooks briefly mentions that March prayed with Union soldiers, and we are given a glimpse of him preaching a sermon, but that is it, really. With as much as she mentions his position in the army, I assumed that she would have spent more time discussing his prayers, his sermons, his duties as a chaplain. In Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, a novel about a pastor, the reader gets to hear entire prayers, entire sermons, to read sermon notes—not so with this Union chaplain. The most intimately acquainted we are allowed to become with March is when Brooks shares with the reader his thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Curiously, however, despite his role as a chaplain in the Union army, Brooks glosses over the time that he spends with soldiers—again, I would assume that since he is a chaplain in the Union army and the entire novel was written to detail the events of the year that he spent in that role, Brooks would spend a good amount of time discussing the war. Not so. Rather, she focuses most of her attention on his relationships with the slaves he comes in contact with on two different plantations. Furthermore, while he is there, she spends more time describing their lives than his! Every now and then, I'd have to turn the book over in my hands and remind myself of the title on the front cover: "Yep—it says March still; not The Evils of Slavery and March's Recollections Thereof."

And, because of her focus on slavery rather than March,—the book's titled-character—it was very easy for me to become disconnected from the book. Sure, Brooks made me feel bad about slavery, and she made me feel uneasy while discussing what went on on the plantations, but because her focus was to explain how the one year of war changed Robin March, I didn't really connect with the slaves she discussed; not as much as she probably wanted me to, anyway. Instead (and I almost feel bad admitting this), but I really wanted to just get past the parts that dealt with the atrocities that befell the slaves because I was more interested in Robin March's story—not theirs.

What is most interesting about Brooks' focus and ardent desire to shed a light on the many evils of American slavery, is that 1) she's white, and 2) she's Australian! This woman immigrated to the United States in the 90's, became an official citizen in 2002, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for a novel that chronicles American slavery. Furthermore (this is where her story gets even more bizarre), she has also developed (invented, is more like it) tangible, deep connections to another oppressed people group: the Jews!

See, in 1984, Geraldine Brooks converted to Judaism. In 2008, she decided that her 24 years of being Jewish (or a facsimile, thereof) had given her enough experience to draw on 5,000 years of oppression against her adopted people group and wrote a novel about the struggles of the Jewish people called People of the Book.

This reminds me of the Anti-Dentite episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry suspects his dentist, Dr. Watley, of converting to Judaism simply for the Jewish jokes. Is it possible that Brooks converted to Judaism simply so she could identify with oppressed people groups, then write books that convey their struggles?

Hmmm... I guess we'll find out the answer to that question if her next novel is about the Irish during the Potato Famine, or the Japanese-Americans during World War II, or about the Russians during Stalin's reign.
And, so, here is my conclusion about March, by Geraldine Brooks: while this is a wonderfully, beautifully written book, I really don't feel as though Brooks really achieved her goals—she didn't do a very good job of explaining Robin March's one year of transformation while at war and she didn't do a very good job of chronicling the struggles of being an African-American during the years of American slavery. In both arguments, I believe it really comes down to this: Brooks is completely and totally disingenuous.

She's an Australian writing about the American Civil War; she's a wealthy white woman attempting to identify with the plights of impoverished black slaves; she's a Gentile calling herself a Jew and attempting to identify with 5,000 years of oppression; she's a woman attempting to tell the story of a man; and, worst of all, she's not Louisa May Alcott and she did not write Little Women, however she still attempts to write a companion piece to Alcott's Little Women.

March is a good book; not a great book, but a good book.

Entry 12: "The Late George Apley: A Novel In the Form of a Memoir" by John P. Marquand (1938)

2010-05-05T09:14:00.001-07:00

It must be tough being incredibly wealthy and well-off. At least that seems to be the common sentiment of these early Pulitzer-winning novels that focus on High Society. John P. Marquand's The Late George Apley, which won the Pulitzer in 1938, is no exception to the rule.

The only difference, however, is that I actually kind of enjoyed this author's view of High Society. Kind of.

This novel, much like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, and the like, is written in the form of a collection of notes, letters, and journal entries from and to George Apley, the protagonist of the novel. Marquand then intersperses tidbits amongst these entries that inform the reader of the setting, the time, and other unique indicators of what was going on in the lives of Apley's friends and family from a third person perspective, to make the reader a bit more informed and to paint a fuller picture of the story. The third person in this novel, the narrator, however, is not Marquand—rather it is a college classmate of Apley's, named Mr. Willing. To once again draw reference from another book, Willing is a lot like Nathan Zuckerman in Philip Roth's American Pastoral; Willing is approached by George Apley's son to write a biography, a tribute, to his late father, mostly for the intention of distributing it amongst family members.

He does so by drawing on a collection of the aforementioned letters et al and organizing them in such a way that Apley's biography is more like a memoir; The Late George Apley is the result of his work. So, in essence, the reader is reading a work about his work, much like watching a movie about making a movie.

As a result, his book alone is contributing greatly to my existential crisis.
First of all, this book is a satire of High Society. I found it interesting how Marquand, throughout the novel, seems to be praising High Society, all the while actually poking fun at it. While I legitimately believe that Booth Tarkington really, really wanted me to sympathize with the plights of High Society in The Magnificent Ambersons (which I didn't), and while I legitimately believe that Louis Bromfield wanted me to take the worries and cares of High Society seriously in Early Autumn (which I really didn't), it is my belief that Marquand wanted me to view these very same elements which plague George Apley hypercritically. It really didn't seem to me that Marquand was sympathetic in his treatment of Apley, and it really didn't seem like he wanted me to be either. In fact, it's almost as if Marquand wanted me to pity the man simply for the mere sake of his being Apley, not for the overwhelming obstacles he is presented with and is forced to overcome.

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.
Just as it was with Georgie in The Magnificent Ambersons, or Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, here is the essential premise of The Late George Apley: George Apley is born into wealth and privilege and spends his life ensconced within that world, struggling to defend it. The trajectory of his life almost seems predetermined: born into wealth, a "proper" upbringing, degrees from Harvard University, travels to Europe, forays into business, philanthropy, and heavy involvement in various social clubs. He despises the changes he sees taking over society and refuses to take part in them, even going so far as to lash out against them (in the form of letters, obviously—a proper gentleman wouldn't dare challenge the world to a match of fisticuffs). But he is madly in love with the world that he grew up in, he is madly infatuated with High Society and it grieves him so to see it go; in one letter, he writes, "I am quite convinced that we are coming to the end of an era. I don't know quite what will happen to us, but I have faith in our common sense, just as I have faith in our inheritance."

He leads such a posh life, that his greatest troubles and worries are, to the reader, far and beyond laughable. You know—here in the real world, we have to worry about really troubling things: losing our jobs, losing our homes, not being able to pay bills, not being able to feed ourselves or our families. Only in Apley's world, the world of High Society, is the potential removal of some rosebushes enough to prompt an entire series of letters, or the unintentional burial of a distant aunt in the wrong portion of the family plot sufficient to spark a deep and abiding family feud.

These troubles, of course, are utterly alien to a commoner such as I.
Here's the kicker, though.

As much of a defender of this world and this life Apley is, it's ironic that he's not entirely comfortable with it. Albeit true that he was born into that life, and that it was his choice to maintain that life, there were moments when he really questioned whether or not it was the life for him—most notably during his one attempt at rebellion: a very brief and short-lived love with a middle-class Irishwoman named Mary Monahan. Of course, this affair was intensely frowned upon by his parents, family, and peers; even in today's culture, with much thanks to movies like The Boondock Saints and The Departed, we are all too familiar with the way Boston's Irish working-class is viewed; one can only imagine how unfavorably they were viewed by High Society at the turn of the century.

However, as comfortable as his life is, and as much respect/reverence he is shown as a result of that life, it is ultimately a lonely life, completely devoid of happiness and personal pleasure. He is all too aware of this unhappiness, but he is also all too aware of his assumed responsibility to carry on his family's High Society mantle. This, I feel, is the central conflict of the novel—the tearing of the soul between duty to self and duty to tradition. As George himself reminisced late in his life:

I have always told the truth. I have never shirked standing for my convictions. I have tried to realize that my position demanded and still demands the giving of help to others. I have tried in my poor way to behave toward all men in a manner which might not disgrace that position.
I have not had a very good time doing it. There is a great deal of talk in these days about happiness.
...Perhaps it would be better if people realized that happiness comes by indirection, that it can never exist by any conscious effort of the will.
The world I have lived in may be in a certain sense restricted but it has been a good world and a just world.

Why, all of a sudden, am I hearing the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's Richard Cory playing faintly in my mind, and growing ever louder?

Entry 11.1: "A Bell for Adano," by John Hersey (1945)

2010-05-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

After the onslaught of so-called American values Philip Roth conjured up in American Pastoral, reading John Hersey's A Bell for Adano was almost jarring. Everything that Roth disavowed in his novel, Hersey makes an overwhelming case for in his; everything that Roth showed to be a facade in his novel, Hersey attempted to make genuine in his. One of these two authors is clearly propagating me.

I have a feeling it's Hersey.
A Bell for Adano is the story of Major Victor Joppolo, an American officer stationed in the town of Adano in 1943 Italy, during World War II. During his tenure of overseeing the daily activities of the town and its people, he comes to be incredibly well-liked by everyone there—not so much because of his personality, but because of how truly American he is. To the townspeople, he represents the America that drove out the evils of Fascism and replaced them with freedom and democracy; he represents the America that is fair and just, the America that guarantees equality.

There are a few troubling about this character, however: he consciously made every effort to ensure that he was well-liked by the townspeople. If he felt that he was losing popularity, he did whatever it took to gain it back. So, although Hersey wants the reader to believe that Joppolo's main concern was the well-being of the town, and I do believe that was a great concern for him, I really think that he was more interested in keeping up appearances; in making sure that he presented himself in such a way that would make the townspeople believe that he was some sort of American Messiah, sent to cleanse the town of Fascism and provide salvation for those who believe.

Knowing that Hersey was a war correspondent in Italy during this time, and presuming that he wrote this book partly based on his experiences, seems to suggest he had bought into the notion of the cleansing powers of American democracy just as much as his Joppolo.

Joppolo was an extension of Hersey?
This book couldn't have been more timely on Hersey's part either—it was written and published in 1944 and won the Pulitzer in 1945, during the last two years of World War II, when the Allies had finally regained momentum and, ultimately, defeated the Axis Powers. This was a time when Americans were questioning their country's involvement in "Europe's war" and were anxious to believe that going to war was the right thing to do. With this novel, it seems as though Hersey's intent was to restore a sense of nationalism amongst his fellow countrymen.

The only thing that offsets this theory is that Joppolo isn't the only American character in this book—he is, however, the only American that is portrayed in a positive light. Surrounding him are Sergeant Borth, a total meathead/complete nincompoop; Captain Purvis, a nervous do-gooder; Lieutenant Livingston, a pushover; and General Mavis, a despicable ass.

Furthermore, the conclusion of the book is one of the most puzzling endings I've come across yet: Joppolo countermands a direct order from General Mavis, Mavis finds out about it, comes down on him hard, and has him reassigned to Algiers. So after all the good that Joppolo did for Adano and its people, he is relieved of his duties and banished away. Furthermore, according to the conversations in the book, Mavis replaced him with a different Major that was utterly disinterested in everything.

So, if Hersey was trying to get across a pro-American message, why the confounding ending? The only thing that comes to mind is that Hersey really wanted Joppolo to portray, like I said before, "the American Messiah." In order to most accurately paint him as a savior, Hersey would have had to have Joppolo martyred somehow—maybe fearing that execution or casualty would have been a little too obvious, he chose to simply have him banished. I really don't know; this is the best I could come up with to justify the ending.

Two New Additions to My Collection and Some Charts

2010-05-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was showing a friend of mine, Noa, the greatest city in the world—Chicago. Obviously, I had to show her the greatest bookstore in the world—Myopic—since we were there. What a great honor it must have been for Noa to help take part in my Pulitzer search! She even had the distinct privilege of crossing the two books that I found off my list: Caroline Miller's Lamb In His Bosom (1934) and Martin Flavin's Journey In the Dark (1944).

With the addition of these two books, I am now only nine away from completing my collection:

Tinkers, by Paul Harding (2010)
Guard of Honor, by James Cozzens (1949)
Dragon's Teeth, by Upton Sinclair (1943)
In This Our Life, by Ellen Glasgow (1942)
Honey In the Horn, by Harold Davis (1936)
The Store, by T.S. Stribling (1933)
Years of Grace, by Margaret Barnes (1931)
The Able McLaughlins, by Margaret Wilson (1924)
His Family, by Ernest Poole (1918)

Almost there. Also, just to see how much further I have to go, I decided to take a look at how many books I've read and compare it to how many weeks I have left.

It has been 11 weeks since I started this journey (on February 13, 2010 and today is May 2). That means I still have 285 days (or, roughly, 41 weeks) to finish up this project. Of the 83 books (including this year's winner), I have read 14—I'm reading 1.3 books per week. In order to finish this project on time, I have to read 1.7 books per week.

I have created a pie chart below to make all of this seem more professional:

As you can see, I am nearly 17% done with this journey. However, my reading year is nearly 21% complete. This does not bode well for me. It's time to pick up the pace!

Here's what I've done so far:

In order to finish this project on time, my pace will have to look similar to this:

And, of course, in the time I spent making these charts and graphs, I probably could've finished 20 or so pages of The Late George Apley.

The Elusive Ernest Poole

2010-05-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

Around a year ago, now, I was perusing an antique shop in a podunk little town here in Illinois called Sandwich. While scouring their massive collection of antique books, I stumbled across a really old copy of Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc—I didn't know the book, but I had just started a miniature collection of Twain novels, so I bought it for $25. When I brought it home, I researched the title a little bit more and, in particular, my copy of it.

As it turns out, the book was published in 1896 and was Twain's last published novel. Here's a bit of the entry on its Wikipedia page:

Twain had a personal fascination with Joan, and initially penned this novel under a pseudonym. It has a very different feel and flow from Twain's other works. There is a distinct lack of humor so prevalent in his other works. This is a mature Twain writing about a subject of his own personal interest.

Twain considered this, his last finished novel, to be his best and most important work, a view not shared by critics then or since. Iconoclastic author George Bernard Shaw, in the preface to his play Saint Joan, accuses Twain of being "infatuated" with Joan of Arc. Shaw says that Twain "romanticizes" the story of Joan, reproducing the legend that the English conducted a trial deliberately rigged to find Joan guilty of witchcraft and heresy. Recent scholarship of the trial transcripts has suggested that Twain's belief may have been closer to the truth than Shaw was willing to accept.

Mark Twain, himself, commented, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others need no preparation and got none."

So one can only imagine my excitement when I, during my research, discovered that the $25 copy of the book I found at the antique shop in Sandwich, IL is the first edition.
"We are never going to find this book."

At least this is the common sentiment Joshua and I have shared regarding the very first Pulitzer-winning novel, Ernest Poole's His Family (1918). Of course, this is the way we both feel about a couple other books too (namely, Upton Sinclair's Dragon's Teeth and Harold Davis' Honey In the Horn), but we both instinctively knew that this Ernest Poole novel was going to be the most elusive of all during this search. Sure enough, it has been. We have been to used-book stores all over northern Illinois, Chicago, and even parts of Iowa and neither of us have been able to find anything by Ernest Poole, let alone His Family.

Finally, three weeks ago, during a tour of Chicago's used-book stores (Powell's, Myopic, et al), I decided to show Joshua the most amazing store I have ever been to in my life—Printer's Row Fine and Rare Books. This store has one of the most expansive collections of rare books and first editions that I have ever had the good pleasure of seeing. They have incredibly pricey first editions of almost any author you can think of there—James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, John Steinbeck, Thomas Merton, James A. Michener, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner; you name it, they probably have it. And, of course, these books are pristine condition and typically cost around $2,000.

While perusing their shelves, I happened to stumble across an elegantly-bound edition of His Family. "Obviously they have this book here" I thought. Here's the ironic part, though: finding the book wasn't nearly as cataclysmic as I imagined it would be. I had imagined that when I found the book, it would be because I was on my hands and knees, scouring shelves upon shelves of books, digging through piles upon piles of books, trying to find it. It would be my diamond in the rough. It would be my treasure in the field I exhausted all my resources to obtain.

Instead, I just happened to be browsing around a store, saw it sitting on a shelf, and said, "Hey Josh—there it is." Not very romantic.

Surprisingly, the store was only asking for $40 for the book; this incredibly low, low price, however, is still just a wee bit out of my price range. But that's when I remembered that I owned something the store's proprietor would probably be interested in—a first edition of Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. I told his assistant (the owner was out this particular day) about my book and that I was interested in selling it to the store, and he told me to come back when the owner was back. So, a couple days ago, I did just that.

Very proudly, I walked through the doors, approached the podium the proprietor stands behind when examining a book, handed him my Twain book, and proclaimed, "Boy, do I have a treasure for you!" He replied, "Yeah? Let's take a look here." He turned the book over in his hands a couple times, commented on the book's great outward condition, opened it to the title page, closed the book, handed it back to me, and retorted, "Your treasure is worthless."

That's about the time my heart sank deep into the pit of my stomach.

Now, I knew the book wasn't in perfect condition, but I was willing to accept a payment smaller than $1000 for it, if I had to. I was even willing to go so low as to propose an even trade—my Mark Twain for his Ernest Poole; that's how desperate I've become to somehow obtain this book! I was not, however, expecting this man to tell me that my book, my first edition of Mark Twain's last published novel, was completely and totally worthless.

I asked, "What in the hell do you mean, 'worthless'?"

He took the book back, opened it and, very curtly, replied, "It's been cannibalized. No title page, no copyright page, no bastard page... Somebody ripped it all out, and those are the three most important aspects of a first edition. That person made this book worthless. And it's a shame, honestly. Whoever owned this book before you should be shot. I probably would've given you a thousand for it." That's about the time my heart sank even further—from the deepest pits of my stomach, all the way down to the soles of my shoes, and I felt sick.

A thousand dollars... For a book.
I proposed an even trade, obviously, but he wasn't going for it. He told me that my Twain book would compromise the integrity of his collection. "After all, all of the other first editions here are in pristine condition. Why should I make an exception?" I suppose he has a point. He asked me if I had anything else to give him, perhaps, and I do—I recently found a first edition of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood with the original dust jacket, coincidentally from the same antique shop in Sandwich. I'm not sure I'm ready to part with it, but I just may have to. He also proposed trading him a bicycle (he asked, "What do you have? Is it new? How much did you pay for it?" I answered, "It's a Globe Vienna 2, brand new, and I paid $400 for it." "Hm. Well that wouldn't be a very good deal for you, then..."). As I was walking out the door, he patted me on the shoulder and said, "Keep trying, friend."

I could only smirk and walk away, shaking my head and cursing that damned elusive Ernest Poole.

Entry 10.1: "Ironweed" by William Kennedy (1984)

2010-04-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am currently on an impressive streak: the last four books I've read (A Death In the Family, American Pastoral, The Old Man and the Sea, and Ironweed) along this Pulitzer journey have been phenomenal. I'm almost as excited about this little four book winning streak as I am about my beloved Chicago Cubs current four game winning streak.

Maybe it was the curious, mysterious title of the book; maybe it was the resemblance the man on the cover has with Pa; maybe it was the Great Depression era subject matter that so closely ties in with our country's current economic condition, but when I first set out on this journey, William Kennedy's 1984 Pulitzer-winning novel, Ironweed, was immediately on my list of titles I was most looking forward to reading. Just like most of the other titles that won the Pulitzer, I had never heard of Ironweed, nor of William Kennedy for that matter. But there was something about this book's presence on my shelf that I was drawn to—I really couldn't wait to read it, but Joshua had no interest in it whatsoever, so I kept putting it off. Finally, after reading three amazing Pulitzers in a row, I decided to just go for it.

What was most surprising about this novel was its raw beauty.

I was very surprised at how beautifully this book was written and how talented of a wordsmith William Kennedy is. There were actually several portions of the novel that seemed almost Joycean in nature. Going in, I was expecting something akin to The Grapes of Wrath—something gritty, destitute, and barren. What I found, however, was that Ironweed was actually quite romantic.
Ironweed is the story of a homeless man named Francis Phelan—a former professional baseball player who returns to his hometown after 22 years of running away from it to confront his past and his ghosts. The unbearable guilt and shame of having blood on his hands drives Francis away and back again on Halloween, 1938, to his hometown of Albany, New York. During his brief visit, Kennedy introduces the reader to a series of misfits and vagabonds, down-and-outers and bums that Francis must make amends with—whether he does so successfully or not, on the other hand, seems to be a minute detail. I suppose, in the long run, it's the thought that counts.

Throughout the novel, peculiar as this may sound, I was constantly reminded of the John Cusack movie, High Fidelity. Much like Francis Phelan, in this movie, John Cusack takes it upon himself to contact his top five ex-girlfriends to try to make sense of their breakups. He, of course, is inspired to do so by the Bruce Springsteen that is his conscience...

Now, I know this seems like a silly comparison, but that is, in essence, what Ironweed is about—learning to cope, learning to deal with ghosts, learning to make peace with the past, and learning to look to the future. And, of course, there's a valuable lesson to be learned there for all of us.

Entry 9.1: "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway (1953)

2010-04-21T16:33:00.001-07:00

Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite authors—and one of my favorite men. I'm not the first one to say this, not by a long shot, but I've considered Ernest Hemingway to be a man's man: an outdoorsman, a sports fan, an appreciator of beers and wines and cigars and pipes, a fantastic writer, a lover, an explorer. I've read a few of Hemingway's other novels, like For Whom the Bell Tolls, his short stories, and, of course, A Farewell to Arms—definitely in my top three favorite novels, always jockeying for position with The Catcher In the Rye and Fahrenheit 451.

His 1953 Pulitzer-winning novel, The Old Man and the Sea, is one that I've always wanted to read but never got around to. So being forced to read it to complete this journey came as a blessing. What also came as a blessing is the fact that I was able to start and finish it in about an hour—this is definitely going to help me get back on track with the goal of finishing all of the books in one year. I was almost considering changing up the rules a bit and reading all 83 of the Pulitzers in 83 weeks, rather than 52.
There seems to be a trend in award academies.

While Joshua and I were in Chicago last week, getting a $50 parking ticket, we stopped by a rare book store that specializes in first editions and antiques. We got to chitchatting with the guy working that day—the owner's assistant—and I told him about the Pulitzer Project and inquired whether he could help us out with any of the books we needed. I told him that our goal was to read all 83 books in one year, and he stared at me with a dumbfounded look, then replied, "Why the hell would you want to do that...?" To be honest, I didn't really have much of an answer for him. I simply said, "Well, I wanted to embark on a reading journey and Pulitzer-winning novels seemed to be a great theme. I mean—these are the best of the best in American literature." He rolled his eyes, then scoffed, "Look, man—prizes don't mean anything. It's all politics and favoritism. It's like that with any award academy. Look at the Academy Awards, for God's sake! Jeff Bridges is a fantastic actor that should have won the best actor award every other time he was nominated. So they gave it to him because they felt bad and finally decided that he was worthy of a prize. Same goes for Pulitzers, man."

And the more I think about it, the more I think that's true—particularly after finally reading The Old Man and the Sea. Now, don't get me wrong—I liked the book. I liked it. It was a good a book. It was not, however, a great book. Certainly not by Hemingway standards anyway (though, to be honest, by Pulitzer standards, The Old Man and the Sea is absolutely brilliant). A Farewell to Arms is arguably one of the most perfect novels ever written—it is a literary masterpiece in every single way. I believe it to be Hemingway's magnum opus. And, yet, that's not the book he won the Pulitzer Prize for. He won it for The Old Man and the Sea.

It's almost as if the Pulitzer committee was sitting around their boardroom in 1953, discussing literature, and they had all come to the conclusion: "Boy, there really weren't any amazing books this year!" Then, one of them timidly spoke up and said, "Well, Ernest Hemingway just came out with a new book last year—The Old Man and the Sea, it's called. Maybe we should just give the prize to Mr. Hemingway for it. After all, he DID write A Farewell to Arms." The other board members stroked their beards, pondered the suggestion for a while, and said, "Yes! That is a fantastic idea!" Then they promoted that timid little guy, who later awarded William Faulkner for The Reivers rather than As I Lay Dying.
The thing that I still can't get over, after finishing the book last night, was the moral that I got out of the story. Of course, I don't know if this is what Hemingway was shooting for with this book, but it's the feeling that's been resonating with me since I turned the last page, closed the book, and set it down on my nightstand—futility.

I can't get over the epic struggle it was for this old man to finally catch the marlin he'd been waiting for on the wide open sea—the hook, the fight, the tension, and ultimately the catch. He fought the fish for hour after hour, becoming dehydrated, more and more weak, starved, tired. Then, after hours of struggle—struggling both with the fish and his aged body, which was failing him in this fight—he finally gets the opportunity to harpoon the fish, then land him. He ties the fish to the side of his little dinghy—a symbol for his old age, as younger, up-and-coming fishermen were trolling the waters in their much more modern, larger boats—and sets sail for home. Along the way back, there are three shark attacks, in all of which he manages to be the victor. His prized marlin, however, doesn't quite make it back. By the time he lands on the beach, he has sailed home with nothing to show for his long trip to sea, save for the skeleton of what would have been an great catch. And, in his weakness, he becomes a mirror image of that fish—nothing but a shell of what once was a great man.
I have a rich history of tough men in my family. My father, closing in on 60 years old, is just as active as ever; his father battled pain everyday of his life, but was too stubborn to get help from a doctor (he viewed it as taking the easy way out); and then, of course, there's my great-grandfather, Ivan Forrester Germain—or as the family knew him, "Pa." If you never met Pa, I can almost guarantee that you've been denied the privilege of knowing the toughest son of a bitch there was.

He died in January, 2000 when he was almost 90 years old. About two or so months before he died, I rode my bicycle over to his house to visit, and to see if he'd let me play his prized possession: a 1933 Gibson acoustic guitar. He usually said "no," obviously—he wouldn't even let his own kids look at it, let alone touch it! But, for whatever reason, he would sometimes let me play it. Every now and again, he would even request songs. He had given up playing in his old age—too weak to even press down on the fretboard. I remember the last time I ever saw him play it though.

I had been playing guitar for a couple years and asked me if I had learned harmonics yet. I shook my head, No, I hadn't. He told me to get his guitar for him, so I ran to the room where he kept it, ran back with it, and eagerly placed it in his lap for him. He rested his middle finger on the 12th fret, just barely touching the strings with his old, leathery hand. "Now," he said, "Strum a couple strings for me." I did as he told me and the strings rang out a swelled tone that hung in the air between us; neither of us spoke—we just listened until the final notes faded into silence. He leaned back in his chair, turned to his wife, Gwen, who was sitting on the couch beside the chair, smiled and calmly exclaimed, "Isn't that the most damn beautiful sound you ever did hear?"

But the last time I went to his house specifically to see him, that November before he died, I knocked and knocked on the front door but there was no answer. I was obviously concerned about his life—the man was closing in on 90 years old and was only becoming more and more frail. I dropped my bike in the front lawn and ran around to the back of the house and was amazed to find him hauling huge piles of firewood in a red wagon from his garage to the house, then carrying them, one by one, up the stairs. "Pa! What in the world are you doing??" He gave me a puzzled look and replied, "Well, what the hell do ya think I'm doing...? I'm getting ready for the goddamned winter!"

That was Pa.

But when he lost his wife after 60+ years of marriage, he lost his will to live. And just like the old man in Hemingway's novel, Pa's toughness became more and more futile. He stopped eating, he couldn't sleep, he didn't clean himself up—he became a hollow shell of a man. And yet, despite his obvious weakness, he refused to acknowledge it. He spent hours in his workshop, day after day, building, lugging around firewood, working on his car that he hadn't driven in 10 or more years. I was fooled by this facade all the way up until I played guitar for him for the last time, that November.

We walked back to the house, after I helped him carry the rest of the firewood up the stairs (and by "helped him," I mean "carried the rest of the firewood by myself while he yelled at me to get a move-on"), and sat down in the living room. I watched him sip at his coffee—some of it trickling down his scraggly beard and onto his flannel shirt. "Grab that guitar, would ya?" he said. "Play me one of your damn songs." "Actually," I replied, "I just learned a new one. Hank Williams."

Hank Williams was his favorite.

"Thank God," he said. "Finally, some good music." And clumsily, I strummed the chords of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Root-strum, bass-strum, root-strum, bass strum. C, F, and G. Over and over. I sang the lyrics I could remember over the top of the strumming and fudged the ones I forgot, simply by humming the melody or apologizing profusely for forgetting the words to one of his favorite songs. When I finally reached the end of the song, I looked up, expecting Pa to spew out on of his signature smart-alecky comments to humiliate me (he always told me that he only did it to toughen me up—it worked).

Instead, I was amazed to see Pa, gazing into the distance behind me with a million-mile stare as tears welled up in his eyes. I had never seen the man cry before—not even at his wife's funeral, especially not at his wife's funeral. But here was now, with tears in his eyes. And I thought of the futility of his feigned toughness in the last few months of his life. We all knew how miserable he was, we all knew he was depressed and lonesome. He didn't want us to know, but we knew.

And, in the end, he was nothing more than a shell of a man.

Entry 8.1: "American Pastoral" by Philip Roth (1998)

2010-04-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

Let me first say this: I have read better books than American Pastoral, I have read better writing than American Pastoral; I have not, however, been more impressed by a book than I was by Philip Roth's 1998 Pulitzer-winning novel, American Pastoral. I have never been more impressed by a writer who dared to tackle a subject that was so grandiose and epic in its scope and contained it in such a unique way, unlike the way Dan Brown did in The Da Vinci Code; I have never been more impressed by a writer who created such incredibly interesting and unique characters, put them all together, made them interact with each other, and offer the reader their back stories while not overdoing it, nor boring the reader to tears the way Ayn Rand did with Atlas Shrugged; and I have never been more impressed by a book that confronts the so-called "American dream" head-on in such a eloquent way, unlike the way Booth Tarkington did in The Magnificent Ambersons (how much longer am I going to rag on poor Tarkington and that book of his?, I wonder).

With American Pastoral, Philip Roth—an author whom I had never read before—proved himself to be a writer of the highest caliber and one that I will probably be exploring more after this Pulitzer journey finds its completion.
In one novel, Philip Roth managed to single-handedly rip out all the seams of the American dream quilt. Or, perhaps more appropriately, he blew it up. No subject is left untouched, no dream not turned into a nightmare. All of the ideals that propelled America to the forefront of the free world—business ownership, family values and propriety, and basic social freedoms—are confronted, challenged, then completely obliterated by Roth. And even though it seems like it would take an entire series of novels to effectively to do this, and even though it seems like a totally pretentious, or overambitious enterprise to embark on, Roth manages to do it and, most importantly, do it very well in less than 425 pages. And, in all honesty, I don't think this feat has much to do with his writing style, so much as it is because of the subject of his novel: a Jewish family by name of Levov.

By concentrating all of his attention on this one family, dealing with the tumultuous 20 years that were the 1960's and 70's, Roth is able to address incredibly complex events, emotions, and, in all reality, the entire human condition in a very contained, but engaging fashion. Love, lust, infidelity, activism, religion, sibling rivalry, politics, terrorism, parenting, racism, friendship—these are just a few of the incredibly lofty topics Roth confronts in this book.
The book was written in an interesting way—one that I found, on one hand, very unique, and, on the other hand, was very surprised I had never seen before.

The book is written in three sections; the first section is written in first-person from the perspective of Nathan Zuckerman, a writer, and the last two sections are written in third-person, from the perspective of an omniscient narrator (whom, I presume, is Zuckerman again, rather than Roth). The first section features Zuckerman as the main character, narrating his life; the last two sections features Seymour "Swede" Levov as the main character. However, despite Zuckerman being the main character in the first section, Swede is his focus.

Zuckerman informs the reader of Swede, describes him in all his glory (Swede was a guy that Zuckerman was both intimidated and mesmerized by), relates an experience he had when Swede propositioned Zuckerman to help him write a tribute to his father, and then writes about a high school reunion, where he runs into Swede's brother and some of Swede's other acquaintances. At this reunion, Zuckerman discusses the Swede with his brother and learns from him that the Swede's glorious, perfect life, which Zuckerman imagined it to be, was nothing of the sort; that, in fact, it was quite sad and tragic.

In the next two sections, Roth takes the identity of Zuckerman and informs the reader of the Swede's rise to the top and ultimate downfall.

And, to me, this way of organizing the book makes sense—a lot of sense. And I can't help but wonder Why have I never seen a book written in this style before?
Here's a bit of Americana for you: Swede Levov is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew that looks as much an all-American Gentile as G.I. Joe. "G.I. Goy," if you will. Through the course of his life, we see him evolve as a Homecoming King, all-American in baseball, football, and basketball, a Marine, a business owner, a family man. He marries Mary Dawn Doyle—a beautiful Irish-American Catholic girl, his high school sweetheart, winner of Miss New Jersey, and competitor in the Miss America pageant. They have a daughter, Merry, who is exceptionally bright, intelligent, and passionate. They live in a small farm-town outside of Newark, New Jersey, affectionately dubbed Old Rimrock. They raise cattle, they participate in town-hall meetings, they have a tire swing hanging from an old tree in the front yard, they eat apple pie—the only things missing from this portrait of Americana are a family dog and a white picket fence. This Jew—the most ostracized and discriminated-against people group in history—somehow managed to escape the fray and assimilated himself into mainstream American culture.

And all of this wholesome progression of good ol' Americana comes to a grinding halt when Merry, in protest of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, plants a bomb in the general store and, in the process, blows up all of the notions of Small Town, America. And the cinders and ashes, still smoldering in the wreckage, burns away all of the pretense, all of the facades, and leaves the ugly realities of dysfunction that everybody in America's family-friendly middle class worked so diligently at hiding.

This event is the spark that ignites turmoil after turmoil that the Swede is forced to navigate, reason through, wrestle, and come to terms with throughout the rest of the novel.
I don't really believe Roth blew apart the American dream in this book for the sake of blowing apart the American dream. I don't think his intention was to make a grandiose statement about America, or to use this book as his soapbox for anti-Americana sentiments. Rather, I think the real message that Roth conveyed in this book was the question Who are you? Or, perhaps more appropriately, Who do you think you are?

Just as Swede Levov helplessly watched his supposedly perfect life crumble around him, just as Nathan Zuckerman's image of the Swede was shattered, I think Roth dares the reader to question their own lives. What in my life is pretense and what is genuine? What in my life is facade and what is at the core of me? What is for show and what is for real? How many layers of stylish clothes will need to be stripped off of me until I arrive at the naked man that I came into this world as, and that I will leave this world as?

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction

2010-04-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight I heard about the 2010 winner for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press). This particular novel, Joshua and I have agreed, is going to be last on our reading list, despite how much I am interested in the story. And that's fine, considering it's probably going to be pretty difficult finding it at used bookstores for a while.

I found a short little article about it online and I'm genuinely impressed:

Tinkers, a debut novel by Paul Harding, a former drummer for the rock group Cold Water Flat, was the surprise winner Monday of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

A lyrical, 191-page account of a man's dying days and his relationship with his father, Tinkers got great reviews but is published by Bellevue Literary Press, a small, 3-year-old, non-profit publisher affiliated with New York University's School of Medicine.

Editorial director Erika Goldman says Tinkers has sold 15,000 copies since its publication in January 2009. That's a hit for a small press but nothing by commercial standards. Bellevue plans to reprint more copies but hasn't decided how many.

The last time a small publisher won the fiction Pulitzer was in 1981, for John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, released by Louisiana University Press.

Harding, 42, says he's "stunned. It was a little book from a little publisher that was hand-sold from start to finish." The Pulitzer's "imprimatur," he says, adds "a sense of freedom. I can afford to continue doing what I love to do."