Pulitzer slight

[Mark Kohut]

I guess I somehow find it irresponsible--irrational, I know-----not to pick a winner.
By definition, one novel is the best every year,in some way of judging. They should risk a choice.
 
And some of their choices have been so bad, they could not choose worse.....
 
 
 
 

From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
To: kelber at mindspring.com 
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 11:02 PM
Subject: Re: Pulitzer slight

On Apr 16, 2012, at 4:19 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> Once again, no Pulitzer Prize for fiction:
> 
> http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/04/16/pulitzer-prize-no-fiction-award/


Apparently the 3 judges (Susan Larson, Maureen Corrigan and Michael Cunningham) couldn't come to an agreement - 2 out of the 3 have to agree.  

The finalists,  according to  http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2012-Fiction  were :

"Train Dreams," by Denis Johnson  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), a novella about a day laborer in the old American West, bearing witness to terrors and glories with compassionate, heartbreaking calm; 

"Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell (Alfred A. Knopf), an adventure tale about an eccentric family adrift in its failing alligator-wrestling theme park, told by a 13-year-old heroine wise beyond her years; 

and

"The Pale King," by the late David Foster Wallace(Little, Brown and Company), a posthumously completed novel, animated by grand ambition, that explores boredom and bureaucracy in the American workplace. 


Personally,  I didn't think Swamplandia was worthy of a Pulitzer -  I doubt I could have brought myself to award anything to a book not completed by its author and I don't know anything about Train Dreams.    Maybe it was just not a great year for novels.  

Bek
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