Pulitzers ad infinitum
Been a long while since I posted one of these. I haven't been moving very fast with the books, anyway, mostly because there have been a number of either weighty tomes or literary duds. Anyway, here's the last batch:
1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. This falls into the "tome" category: eight or nine hundred pages on the real-life crimes and trial of Gary Gilmore, who murdered two men for no particular reason and then chose not to contest his sentence of execution. It clearly owes a lot to Capote's In Cold Blood - the similarities between the two books are marked - but Mailer extends the narrative into the media circus surrounding Gilmore. It's long, exhaustively researched, and for the most part, very interesting.
1979: The Stories of John Cheever by (you guessed it) John Cheever. Fuck you, John Cheever. I won't lie to you: I did not finish this book. It exemplifies everything that sucks about the Pulitzers, being composed of smug, self-satisfied, literary jerk-off stories about rich New Yorkers and their servants. The best I can say for it is that Cheever is dead, and therefore no longer writing such shitbombs.
1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson. Shrug. It was okay. Afros and petty gangsters figure prominently, which is a plus.
1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow. What's this? A novel about a wealthy New York writer struggling to find meaning in his life? Wow, never seen that before. Funny at times, yes, but horribly, painfully pedantic.
1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. Finally, a good book! A great book, in fact, such as nearly redeems the others. Shaara's dramatization of the Battle of Gettysburg is a page-turner, with vividly drawn historical characters, tense action sequences, and a heartfelt consideration of the reasons (and lack thereof) this country fought the Civil War.
1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty. An aging Mississippi woman mourns her parents' deaths. I feel completely neutral about this book. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. In fact, it did nothing for me at all. Apparently the New York Times Book Review called it "The best book Eudora Welty has ever written," which makes me wonder if that was really a recommendation.
Still reading? Congratulations. So am I, though after this last bunch I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it.
1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. This falls into the "tome" category: eight or nine hundred pages on the real-life crimes and trial of Gary Gilmore, who murdered two men for no particular reason and then chose not to contest his sentence of execution. It clearly owes a lot to Capote's In Cold Blood - the similarities between the two books are marked - but Mailer extends the narrative into the media circus surrounding Gilmore. It's long, exhaustively researched, and for the most part, very interesting.
1979: The Stories of John Cheever by (you guessed it) John Cheever. Fuck you, John Cheever. I won't lie to you: I did not finish this book. It exemplifies everything that sucks about the Pulitzers, being composed of smug, self-satisfied, literary jerk-off stories about rich New Yorkers and their servants. The best I can say for it is that Cheever is dead, and therefore no longer writing such shitbombs.
1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson. Shrug. It was okay. Afros and petty gangsters figure prominently, which is a plus.
1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow. What's this? A novel about a wealthy New York writer struggling to find meaning in his life? Wow, never seen that before. Funny at times, yes, but horribly, painfully pedantic.
1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. Finally, a good book! A great book, in fact, such as nearly redeems the others. Shaara's dramatization of the Battle of Gettysburg is a page-turner, with vividly drawn historical characters, tense action sequences, and a heartfelt consideration of the reasons (and lack thereof) this country fought the Civil War.
1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty. An aging Mississippi woman mourns her parents' deaths. I feel completely neutral about this book. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. In fact, it did nothing for me at all. Apparently the New York Times Book Review called it "The best book Eudora Welty has ever written," which makes me wonder if that was really a recommendation.
Still reading? Congratulations. So am I, though after this last bunch I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it.