Pondering the Pulitzer

1921 Winner: Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” (summary)

So, we are ready for serious book talk once again.  And, really, Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence” is a great place to start this.

Beside the ominous “Year Without a Pulitzer” in 1920, there’s a reasonably streamline transition between the 1919 winner (reminder: Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons) and Wharton’s.  Both center on well-to-do families, each very caught up with their role in society—and furthermore, the role of other families in society. And additionally, at the end of each novel we have members of these very high class, wealthy families struggling to understand how the world has changed around them, thus changing the entire way their known society operates.

I suppose this makes sense.  While the narratives do not take place at the same time, Tarkington and Wharton were writing at nearly the same time.  They were living in a world that was changing.  They were living through changes in society, class, and industry.  It is natural, then, that their literature would reflect this.  It probably only seems to strike suck a reminiscent chord now because it is not the time we live in (though, we are going through our own changes—which, I guess, will be evident to future generations from our own writings).

Now, if I recall correctly, the qualifying factors we have talked about thus far in our Pondering the Pulitzer process, we want our books to be timeless and applicable to the masses.  On some points, yes, Wharton’s 1921 winner passes the test.  However, there are also several points of miss on timelessness and wide appeal.  There is no doubt that no matter the time period or circumstance, there are human emotions we may always echo.  We understand jealousy, distrust, shame, and love just as Wharton’s characters do.  Though, I suppose it doesn’t matter to us quite as much if someone wears their brand new clothes right away or not (apparently, in The Age of Innocence circles, you ordered dressed from Paris, then waited two years to wear them appropriately).

Wharton’s ending does shed a light on this.  Main character Newton Archer’s children are grown, experiencing a different world, and one that is a far cry from his only thirty years earlier.  Gee, the world does change dramatically.  Archer, surprisingly, just sort of goes with the flow.  Maybe this is because in his relative youth, he was so apt to want to break social norms…though he never really does.  The fact that Archer is aware of a different life, and does not wind up following this path he wanted to blaze for himself, is a huge point of the novel.  And Wharton’s ending, while initially glazed over me, is actually really wonderful.  I made a paragraph of notes about it.  I think it works on many levels, and I wonder how many Wharton intended.

Overall, I enjoyed this.  It was a grower.  Originally, I just languished through it.  But by midway, I wanted to stop other things I was doing to read it.  I wanted to be around May and Countess Olenska, and even Archer…though, I began to dislike Archer more and more.  Then, at the end, he regained my smile.

This was great.  I suggest it.  And what makes me very happy about it is this: Wharton is our first woman Pulitzer for Novel winner, but far from the end.  Just wait: this decade of the 1920s is packed with women, and I mean that in not a dirty way, and it makes me happy.

But, first, before the ladies, we are ready to go back to Booth Tarkington one more time next week.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, doves!

Welcome Back: Answering Where I’ve Been.

See, the thing is, I did not intend to take a break from this blog. Nor, did I expect to take a break from reading, which furthered my absence from this blog.

It started simply, really. Not “simply” is exactly a “happy” way, but still. As it was, I was really getting bogged down between my two jobs, my (I hope) building writing career, and social obligations.

Then, well, I was in a car accident. That’s the “simply” enough part. It just happened one afternoon on my way back to work after my lunch plan. That was certainly not planned. There was not time in the schedule for the accident itself, let alone the recovery.

Don’t fret too much: I’m perfectly fine now. Nothing too terrible happened. But I did have some injuries over which I needed to recover. Recovery sounds like the perfect time to get plenty of Pulitzer winning reading done, no?

Well, that was my initial impression, and it was a false one. Not only did I spend a significant portion of time sleeping, but I was also taking meds that made focusing on the words printed on a page impossible. I had a hard time even following along to reality TV—I think that’s saying something quite significant.

And then, well, I was even further behind in work and deadlines. And then, golly, the holidays came upon me with all their neediness to attend to.

Somehow, I just became lost while trying to get back to my Pulitzer reading.

But now, yes, I am back. Do not doubt. (At least, I’m trying my utmost to be back.) I have reread Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence so that I may fully disclose my summary feelings about it to you tomorrow.

Until then, chickens, it feels good to be connecting again…if anyone is still out there. If you feel like a chat, you can always connect by emailing me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com

Until tomorrow.

1921 Winner: Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” (notes thus far)

Wow, Edith.  Just wow.

Well, not just wow.  Not like there’s nothing to report.  Not like there’s nothing to say about the book.  Not like Wharton can be summed up in just a single word…except that I just want to keep saying wow.  Just wow.

Let me tell you: I liked Poole, I dug Tarkington.  Wharton is a whole different game.  You know how you go to the ballpark all your life, sit in the same seat, and the whole thing is great?  And you think you’d always like to go to a baseball game and sit in those seats.  And then one day you wind up sitting behind home plate?  And you realize everything is different from here.  And yes, you will be just as happy to go sit in your old seat next time—nothing is wrong with it, everything is pleasant, of course there’s not a bad seat in the house.  But…I mean, there are ways in which it cannot compare to being behind home plate.

THAT is Edith Wharton.

We mused for lengthy periods of time yesterday about Wharton’s uppity nature of characters.  But I gotta say: I’m not hating it.  Her prose are marginally tighter than most novels from the turn of last century—especially written about people rambling about just after the Civil War.  Yes, there are many more words than we seem to prefer in our contemporary fiction, but they aren’t lax.  They aren’t unnecessary.  I must say, Poole and Tarkington were both guilty of the unnecessary words, though I just assumed it to be a factor of era.

I think this is the kind of thing in Wharton that makes such an inaccessible group of people feel accessible through her writing.

Also, every second feels like something is about to happen.  I don’t mean this in the same way every moment in The Walking Dead feels like something horrendous is about to happen with camera pan (p.s. I was catching up on the new season last night).  I’m not sure what I’m expecting to happen at the turn of a page in The Age of Innocence, but it’s something.  Even Wharton’s description of things like a foot walking on frozen ground is riveting.

Part of my hopes I’m not being usurped by this: Edith Wharton’s words are pro-feminist without saying so, in a time when that wasn’t advocated from the highest authorities.  I just dig this.  This is something I love: tell me who you are, you don’t need to proclaim it.  I can figure it out.

Sure, I may not always like the answer as much as I like Wharton’s, but we don’t have to worry about that just yet.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, darlinks!

1921 Winner: Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” (intro)

OK, my lovely literary friends, are you ready?  ‘Cuz we’re going upper class once more.

Impending marriage among the chic and high-class, social scandal, a disappearing world of the upper-crust whose happiness is being threatened—woah.  We might give the 99% something else to demonstrate about with our reading of The Age of Innocence.  (Is it too soon for that joke?  Should I mention now that I am also a 99%-er?)

Wharton’s 1921 Pulitzer winner is presented as rather a dichotomy.  Yes, it’s touted as an accurate portrayal of the wealthy set on the East Coast in the late 19th century  (East Coast represent what, what), but it’s also noted for Wharton’s questions of morality and practice of those same folks.  This is very interesting, no?  I think it sounds promising.  Then again, Edith Wharton was a traveling companion of Henry James…so that makes me slightly hesitant about her ability to reality check a bunch of rich people.  I’m not joking, I’m just saying.

Wharton did love to travel, and I can’t hate on a lady for that.  I mean, if my parents had provided me with mucho money, I’d probably be jet-setting also.  (Two fun facts: Wharton was very critical publicly of her parents, and the phrase “Keeping up with the Jonses” is most likely a reference to Wharton’s father and family—oh, everything is just making sense.)  I’m a francophile myself, but Wharton’s personal devotion to French Imperialism and her hands-on take with French government does make me shake my head a bit.  Then again, she’s buried at Versailles, so there’s no free lunch, right?

And yes, admittedly, I tend to be more interested by the lives of women writers (mostly because I myself am a woman writer), but really, Edith Wharton is a fascinating study.  Her romantic life alone—marriage to an older man (with whom she had little in common), his mental collapse, their subsequent divorce, her affair with a high profile man (which was pretty much only realized after somebody in the 1960s started going through the papers she had just casually left at Yale, oh ya know.)—is enough to rival Agatha Christie’s little home life for attention.

Wharton—apart from writing and traveling—was an interior designer and remarkably influential fashionista.  They called her a “taste-maker”—which makes me giggle, because every photo I’ve ever seen of her features her wearing the most ridiculous hat I’ve ever seen in the history of the world since the last Edith Wharton photo at which I glanced.

Homegirl has a bibliography like Faulkner—a million novels, mostly on the hits list, and a ton of other work just for good measure.  With such impact as Wharton’s and such glitter as Tarkington’s, I see why Ernest Poole is doomed to be called one of the “lost Pulitzers”.  I mean, I still liked it though.

Wharton is about to be very influential on us, by the way.  She is the first woman to win the Pulitzer for Novel.  And heart-warmingly enough, she leads the way for many more women to come.  After Booth Tarkington wins again in 1922, three women in a row win.  By the end of the 1930s, six additional women will win.  So, in 22 years—where 21 novels were picked—ten of them were written by women.  This is just rad.  I mean, it makes me laugh in a sarcastic way that women were winning Pulitzers for Novels nearly en masse before they had the vote—but I guess it’s one step at a time.  Good going, ladies.  You make me proud to be a woman writer.

Sidenote: among the multiple film adaptations of The Age of Innocence was a play form written in 1928 by Margaret Ayer Barnes, with whom we will become very familiar: she wins her own Pulitzer in 1931.

There’s also a Martin Scorsese directed film version of this in 1993 with Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Wynnona Rider.  Who knew?  Well, probably a bunch of you, but I didn’t.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, guys & dolls!

1920: The (First) Year Without a Pulitzer (for novel/fiction)

Well, here we are.  This is the first, but not the last (there will be eight more years, though one’s slightly more complicated) where there was no Pulitzer Prize awarded for Novel or Fiction.  So, sometimes, as in voting for politicians, the decision is no decision.  Who would have thought that would be an option?  It happened nine times thus far.

Can you imagine?

What happened?  Why is this?

I’m inclined to want to believe it’s that there’s just too much to look at, too many books deserving to select just one—as Sinclair Lewis will publicly tirade about when he is awarded six years from this first “no Pulitzer.”

However, this is not the case.  According the the Pulitzer FAQs website, it’s not awarded because the judges’ panel feels excellence has not been achieved that year anywhere within the category.

You gotta be kidding me.  You couldn’t find anything written in 1919 to reflect the excellence of that year?  Booth Tarkington could not be stood up to in 1919?  It was just a bad literary year?  Not enough to look at?  Were we all WWI hung over?  Nothing worth a gold medal came from 1919?  Nothing good was produced?

Highly unlikely.

I mean, could it have to do with that choosing of ONE?  Could it have to do with having no runners-up, no short listings to back up the decision?

Interestingly enough, there haven’t been any “no award” years since the short listers started coming out in 1980.  Do we think this has anything to do with it?  You can’t tell me literature is perfectly, ultimately better now (since 1980) than in 1920.  Do you know who was writing in 1920?  (Well, the Pulitzer in 1920 would have been awarded to a book written in 1919.)

Just a little sneak peak, in 1919 Ben Ames Williams’ All the Brothers Were Valiant came out, which, much like The Magnificent Ambersons, was remade into several movies.  Also, Daisy Ashford’s The Young Visitors was released.  Now, I’ve never read this, but I do think it’s interesting—and I hope it was up for consideration.  Ashford first wrote this when she was nine years old, in 1890.  She cleaned it up and published it in 1919.  Now, I don’t know how good it is, but I can be sure nothing I wrote at nine will ever be published.

And while the Pulitzer is preferably American, it’s not necessarily American.  And in 1919 Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day came out.  You’re going to give it to NOBODY in a year when Virginia Woolf—revolutioner of the novel—is publishing new work?

Last, but not least, in our false consideration, Sherwood Anderson released this little book you may have heard of called Winesburg, Ohio.  That book is consistently on “100 Books You Should Read” lists, Best Books of Whatever lists.  Did…the judges read this?  Maybe?  Possibly?

Whatever the case, they picked nothing.  We are Pulitzer-less in 1920.  Well, what can we do?

I guess we just have to hold out today and look hopeful for tomorrow and 1921: the brilliant Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, sweethearts!

1919 Winner: Booth Tarkington, “The Magnificant Ambersons” (summary)

Big sigh.  Two books down.  Are you still with me?

Booth Tarkington really did live up to the grandiose nature I envisioned of him.  I imagine he was the sort that used up most of the oxygen, and possibly all of the limelight, in the room.  I feel as though you probably couldn’t look away from him—a more understated, much more prim Truman Capote, if you will.

All that being lathered about, and I still must say I had quite a trial getting through this book.  I couldn’t commit to it.  I’m unsure why.  I really can’t tell you why it was so difficult just to get through this book.  I was excited to start it.  Tarkington creates beautiful sentences—just one after another.  So why couldn’t I focus?  Why couldn’t I settle.

True, there was elongated passages of descriptive setting.  These weren’t as frustrating as others I’ve read from authors I won’t name here.  There was a definite purpose in storytelling with these passages.  This is the saga of a family—this is the unfolding of a family through time.  Yes, we must know how things have changed.  (Isn’t this just echoing one of my numbed life advice phrases?: To know who you are, you have to know where you’ve been.  Oh…I use that in all kinds of situations.)

I mean, I guess I have to remember (as the back of the book reminds me), this is the dawn of the motor vehicle.  Everything in the world is different for Tarkington and his contemporaries.  Everything is changing and needs to be explored.  OK, I suppose that’s important to consider.

Does this, however, help to make it timeless?  I mean, I don’t know that it can automatically discount it, right?  Things are always changing.  Maybe we don’t take the time to be all inspired and touched by the moving world around us.  Which is interesting, because Tarkington writes about how the faster the world moves, the less time anybody has for anything.  What do you think he would say about our current day iWorld moving at the speed of—oh, I don’t know, what’s faster than light?

How about accessible?  Is The Magnificent Ambersons accessible?  Well, let’s put it this way: it’s more accessible than Henry James.  (And if YOU know who Henry James is—and I’d imagine you would if you’re reading this blog—I’ll just bet you’re chuckling.)

Maybe this is just me speaking coming off of His Family, but something about Tarkington’s prose feels out of reach.  Is this a comment on the implied significance of the Amberson’s affluence?  It could work like that.  It works that it’s different, as far as the continuance of the Pulitzer Prize for Novel (less than thirty years until it’s for Fiction).

Really, even while I haven’t seen any of the film on tv movie adaptations, I can see this making a good flick.  Tarkington’s book is almost like the American Jane Austen (that’s not sacrilege to say, right?), and Austen’s writing makes terrific movies.

But let me tell you, Tarkington’s dialogue is much more relateable and hearable than most of Austen’s—even while she does have brilliant lines.  Is this because I’m American.  Probably.  But, ya know, this is the Pulitzer, which is preferably given to an American writer.  So there’s that.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, chickens!

Week One: Wrap Up

OK: here’s the thing.  We (that being me) encountered a few hiccups this week.  Some were technical, some were personal, some were the result of trying to do too much without enough organization.  Be patient with me.  I’m going to do this as efficiently as I can, and as quickly as I can, but I want to give you worth-while posts.  So we all have to agree it’s OK to take longer than my over-zealous mind thinks we will.

This particular weekly wrap up was an idea I had to post on Sundays.  Kind of a: “let’s revisit and reconvene.”  However, I forgot to finish this before I unexpectedly left town briefly.  So here, on Monday, we’re going to talk about last week.  As I’ve been told: ain’t nothin’ perfect in this world anyway…right?

Really, week one was very exciting.  It’s great to start a new project, to have a new thought.  We started imagining: what is it that makes a Pulitzer winner?  That’s very ambitious.  We have more than 90 years of reading to get through until we figure it out.

So far, I’ve decided on a few common factors.  We want the books to be timeless and approachable.  I suppose I forgot to talk about more obvious things: the book should be interesting, right?  Should be engaging, I suppose.  I would call both His Family and The Magnificent Ambersons interesting and engaging.  The text should probably also deal with the world around them, yes?  Don’t we think the books should deal with their time at hand?  I’m sure there are some that don’t.  But if it doesn’t take place at the same time as time written, does it still deal with the same societal issues?  Even His Family takes place three and four years before published.  And while that doesn’t seem like much, it is a huge difference.  It’s the difference between never having the whole (seeming) world at war, and currently watching the whole world be at war.

And like I said, the difference between tone of His Family and The Magnificent Ambersons is a bit surprising.  I don’t think this should be surprising.  Why do I think just because they’re closely written in time they should be anything alike?  Are two books written in 2011 guaranteed to be similar?  Of course not.  And we definitely do not want it that way.  We would give up reading if it were this way.  (Well, I might not.  But I would complain about it…probably constantly.  See, aren’t we relieved?)  Let’s see what else we can find.  So far, the books have been good, the thoughts have been good.  Let’s continue.

I am grateful (and a little astonished) at how many people seem to be liking and reading this.  Thank you, truly.  I hope you stay with me.  I hope I’m doing justice to both these books and your time.  I’m looking forward to this week.  We’ll finish our first Tarkington experience, talk about the first year sans Pulitzer for Novel, and get on to the wonderful Edith Wharton.  If I am as ambitious as I wish to be, we might get to Tarkington Round 2 by the weekend.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, bookworms!

1919 Winner: Booth Tarkington, “The Magnificent Ambersons” (notes thus far)

Let me just tell you something right off the bat: I’m having some strong and conflicting emotions about this novel and its author.

I said I was struggling against my hopefulness that these words HAD to be flawless because of the name of their creator.  So there’s that.

And the first few pages though I had to take some breaths to center my dizzy self and get a new red pen—I ran out of ink making too many underlines and side notes of praising—were dynamite.  There are positively gorgeous sentiments.  They sweep across the soft page, they make me want to nap in between lines of the paragraph.  Just…say those words again.

And then…you get a few more pages in and I’m having flashbacks of Lit Crit & Theory in college, where I, for some unknown reason, spent significant amounts of time defending Joseph Conrad.  I never really knew how this happened.  I think it’s because I was always on the defensive about my own literary theory: everything—for both writer and reader—is predicated on time, place, and circumstance.  (Ah, we’re back at me talking about “what makes a Pulitzer?”, aren’t we?  Good.)  And in defending this stance, I was defending Conrad.  Absolutely, he’s saying a bunch of stuff that looks very racist in black and white on the page—no pun intended.  But…number 1: nobody said these were Conrad’s thoughts.  They are the words and thoughts of his fictional (mostly) characters.  Number 2: well, you don’t know Conrad’s life.  I’m not saying it’s OK, I’m saying it’s more complicated.

For Tarkington’s background of his Ambersons: I guess I need to remember the same thing applies.  Are we picking up what I’m putting down?  OK, good.  We’ll see if this is a resounding theme.

I’m not saying I dislike the book.  I’m saying I’m caught off guard.  I’m saying I don’t know where to go with this.  I’m saying I wish I had picked a partner for this endeavor so I could turn to this partner and say, “Really?  Did that just happen?  Did it make you uncomfortable too?  And not in, like, a Gus van Sant kind of way?”

Really, the thoughts that keep striking me en masse go like this: Is this really only one year after “His Family”?  I get that the Ambersons and the Gales are families of different financial background and different parts of the country…but wowzah.  Sure, the Ambersons are not what you’d call “progressive” by any means…but wow…just wow.

I hadn’t thought of this.  These books were written within a few calendar turns of each other, and yet, they’re two completely different worlds.  Ideas about this are still swimming in my head.  I am not prepared to fully comment just yet.

I am still eager to continue reading this book.  The opening, as I said, sold me.  Here’s your sneak peak so you go and read it yourself:

Major Amberson has “made a fortune” in 1873, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then.  Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative…

Also, the long descriptions Tarkington provides of facial hair styles in his lil’ world over there is either frigthening or enthralling—I’m not sure yet.  But I am picturing them on any man I see today.

Really, in closing, what I think is missing here is that I forgot to tell you I found out Booth Tarkington’s full name is Newton Booth Tarkington.  He was named after his uncle.  And that…is fabulous.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, darlings!

1919 Winner: Booth Tarkington, “The Magnificent Ambersons” (intro)

“Booth Tarkington”: now that’s a good name. I’ve been walking around, just saying that name, driving everyone crazy. Booth Tarkington. Good name, right?

No fear: you’ll be up to your ears in Booth Tarkington soon. He makes a second appearance on the list in 1922.

I think, maybe, this is going to be the first instance of me doing something wrong with this project (I’m not saying this will be the last time).  I’ve looked into these books…apparently not enough.  The 1919 winner—Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons—is the middle book of a trilogy.  I haven’t read the first.  Oops.  Honestly, I had only heard of this, the middle one.

This is probably the most famous of the three.  It has been made into a feature film twice—once, in 1924, renamed Pampered Youth (was the 1920s really the time to make this flick?), and again under the same title as the novel by the cinematic phenom Orson Welles in 1942.  Then, there was a TV movie in the 1990s.  I haven’t seen any of them.  This is probably a good thing.  I’m a believer that good books can certainly make good movies…but we certainly know this isn’t always the case.  And, like selecting a jury, I already have enough predetermined notions to get rid of when entering any text.

For instance, “Booth Tarkington” is such a great name that I just want the writing to be phenomenal.  It’s like “Ford Maddox Ford.”  I love his name, I feel not-thrilled when his prose are lackluster.  (That being said, I fawn over Ford Maddox Ford.  I always call him my favorite ex-pat…somehow temporarily forgetting F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald.  You know: them.  Oh, and then there’s….wait, nevermind, we’re talking about Booth Tarkington here.  My bad.  Don’t get me on a roll.)

So, speaking on Booth Tarkington: I always kind of think he looks like he could be Dracula in a movie.  This doesn’t mean he’s not good looking.  Before vampires sparkled and went to high school (I’ve never seen or read Twilight, so this is all conjecture), they were supposed to be simultaneously sinister and intriguing.  That’s what Booth Tarkington looks like every time I see him.

Only three novelists won the Pulitzer for Fiction (Novel) more than once.  Tarkington is one.  The others?  John Updike and…pause…William Faulkner.  If Tarkington is akin to the two of them, I have to calm my predisposed thoughts even more before beginning Ambersons.

I think it’s probably good for this purpose that I didn’t read the first, now that I think about it.  We’re looking at what makes a Pulitzer, right?  We’ve already decided the book needs to be accessible and timeless.  Shouldn’t it also be able to stand on its own?  I think so.  I think it should be able to be a complete piece of literature with nothing else holding it together.  Perhaps, I will want to read the whole trilogy at a later date, but now let’s focus on the piece at hand—the Pulitzer winning piece at hand.

Tarkington’s trilogy—and The Magnificent Ambersons in particular—is about the fall of a well-to-do family.  Uh oh.  Not good…for the family, that is.  Usually, this is good fodder for a story.  It’s interesting that our first two books are family dynamic fueled, though I suppose this is indicative of the turn of last century’s literature.  Is this always true?  I’m not sure.  Maybe.  Maybe it’s just me.  (They also appear to be largely concerned with economics and finances.  I’m unsure what to make of this, for many reasons.  Let me get back to you.)

Tarkington himself was from Indianapolis, where his novel takes place.  He went to Phillips Exeter—which is not only especially upper crust, but makes me think of my college French professor.  I’m having a flashback panic.  Tarkington started at Perdue, eventually transferred to Princeton, which was mostly a economic and mother decision.  All of this makes me feel like Tarkington is going to know what he’s talking about. Write what you know, right?

Tarkington had an interesting adult timeline too.  He married, had a child, divorced, suffered the death of his only child, remarried, and eventually went blind.  Tell me he wouldn’t make a phenomenal subject for biography?  I’m pretty sure I’m going to one day need to get to this.  I love a good biography…almost as much as I love reading a Pulitzer winner.

Here we go: Book 2, Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons.  Last note: in 1921 (three years after this books came out, two after the Pulitzer win, just as his second Pulitzer winner was being released), Tarkington was collectively called by booksellers, “The most significant contemporary American author.”

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, loves!

1918 Winner: Ernest Poole, “His Family” (summary)

Boy, I picked the exact right point to pause my reading before.  Because, you want to know what happened when I picked back up?: WWI.

Wow.

Not that I’m ruining anything extreme, I hope.  I mentioned several times the saga begins in 1913.  We all were aware of the escalating world tensions, correct?  (Please know this.  Just lie to me and tell me you know this.  If not: well, here is as good a place as any to learn.)

Honestly, I don’t know how much I can talk about the events of this book without giving anything important, plot-driving away.  I don’t want to take away what makes up the story, so I’ll just tell you this: you should probably read this book.  Preferably, I hope you read this book when you have a few hours to just spend time with this book.  Sink into a goose-down bed, surround yourself with pillows while it rains, while you drink Darjeeling tea from a ceramic mug…and read this book.

The thing is, no, you don’t have to break the mental bank to read this book.  I, as a post-modernist obsessor, do like a book where I don’t have to piece together the narration from time to time.  Sometimes straightforward is wonderful. 

That being said, that doesn’t make this unsmart, doesn’t make it unworthy.  Because like I said: this is more than the surface with His Family.  But I like that this doesn’t need to come through struggle.  I’m fairly sure that should be a factor in Pulitzer selection.  Is it relatable to the masses?  Yes.  Do you need advanced degrees in rhetoric or American Lit to understand?  No.

Oh good, we’re on the right track.

This is the whole reason we’re here, right?: What makes a Pulitzer winner?  How do you create a standard for a Pulitzer winner?

Apart from the accessibility of the novel, shouldn’t a novel be timeless?  So that all it’s accessibility isn’t lost as the years go by?  Yes, I think so.  Like I said, this book could have happened today—with notable exceptions of modern convenience and such.

Part of me wonders if I still would find Poole’s His Family topical and timeless were the world not in similar panic, dismay, and near chaos.  But really, I suppose that I would.  Really, it feels like we’re never far from some kind of terror—or we can pull back to it in memory.  And there’s always personal tragedy, which is also very present in this book.  There’s always the dynamic of “other people”—even if they aren’t traditional “family” per say.  Remember that quote the Oakland Tribune gave right after Poole’s book was released?  About it being “today’s story”?  Yeah, well I think it is also TODAY’S story.

I think this is important—is the book timeless?  Is it still significant and impactful nearly 100 years after its release?  How about 1,000?—assuming the Armageddon is not actually approaching (I suppose that’s another discussion).

So here we have it; I believe this is our first and second criteria—accessibility and timelessness.  Let’s keep this in mind as we move on to the next book…and the next…and the next.

If you want to talk to me about my Pulitzer reading (or anything really), you can contact me at LauraPondersthePulitzer@gmail.com or twitter ( @l_hallman )

Happy reading, fellow tumbles!