Seeking some compelling mid-winter reading? Try perusing the list of books that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction! The winners, as you'll see in the links below, range from classic novels to now-obscure books.
I'd like to hear your thoughts about which Pulitzer-winning titles deserved or didn't deserve that honor over the years, and which non-winners should have won. But first, some info and my own thoughts!
The Pulitzers -- whose deadline for 2012 contest entries was Jan. 25 for journalism and last Oct. 1 for fiction -- started in 1917. In the category we're talking about today, there are actually two winner lists: Novels (1917-1947) and Fiction (1948-present); the renaming that took place more than 60 years ago made short-story collections eligible.
Famous Pulitzer-winning novels include titles such as Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (honored in 1921), John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1947), Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1983), and Toni Morrison's Beloved (1988), among others.
Now-obscure winners? There are many to choose from, but here are four: Ernest Poole's His Family (1918), Margaret Wilson's The Able McLaughlins (1924), Harold L. Davis' Honey in the Horn (1936), and Edwin O'Connor's The Edge of Sadness (1962).
Several novels were saved from possible obscurity after being turned into notable films. One example is Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons, the 1919 Pulitzer winner that eventually inspired the 1942 movie directed by Orson Welles.
Then there are famous authors who won the Pulitzer for books that many feel weren't their best work. For instance, Willa Cather's good World War I-themed novel One of Ours received the prestigious prize in 1923, but her magnificent My Antonia did not in 1919. William Faulkner won in 1955 for A Fable, but not for previous titles such as As I Lay Dying. Saul Bellow nabbed the 1976 Pulitzer for Humboldt's Gift, but not for earlier novels such as The Adventures of Augie March.
Were those honors belated consolation prizes? Do Pulitzer judges wait until American authors (entrants have to be U.S. citizens) build a larger canon before honoring them? Perhaps. But several authors did win for their first (and sometimes only) book; among those titles were Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1937), Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1961), and Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies short-story collection (2000). (Ms. Lahiri subsequently wrote The Namesake novel.)
Of course, there are head-scratching omissions, such as no Pulitzer for F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose The Great Gatsby is an all-time classic and whose later Tender Is the Night was also worthy. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible richly deserved the prize, too, but was a 1999 Pulitzer runner-up to Michael Cunningham's superb but not quite as good The Hours.
Why are some Pulitzer-winning authors, unlike famous non-recipient F. Scott, little known today? Tastes change, and there are years where a weak field of entrants can result in a relatively weak winner. In several cases, winners didn't merit the honor under any circumstances! Award results can be puzzling, whether it involves the Pulitzers or other prizes.
That said, I think the Pulitzer judges do often get it right with their fiction choices -- such as this century's picks of Ms. Lahiri's aforementioned collection, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2001), Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex (2003), Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2007), and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008).
Those are my thoughts on the not-so-brief, sometimes-wondrous life of the Pulitzer fiction category.
But what about one of the best, under-recognised American novelists ever--Jim Harrison? his writing is filled with greatness. Sundog and Dalva are two favourites, but it is hard to choose. He's that good!
I've never read Jim Harrison, but just put him on my list after your enthusiastic praise of him. It's a real shame when someone that good isn't better known.
The Old Man & the Sea ('52): Hemingway classic. I was reminded of it when the recent aphorism "Character is doing the right thing when nobody is watching" became popular.
A Fable ('55): Faulkner classic, but not as great IMO as his Rievers ('63) that many more LOL moments.
To Kill A Mockingbird ('61) : Harper Lee wrote it but it's interesting that a more famous supreme egotist known as her neighbor "Bulldog" Persons later took credit for it. Persons was of course Truman Capote, who probably edited it.
The Killer Angels ('75): Gettysburg told by the battle principals in 1st person, not only for history buffs, stunning & awesome.
A Confederacy of Dunces ('81): Swiftian social comedy published 20 yrs. after J.K. Toole died full of LOL dialog, his mother sent it to about 100 publishers posthumously before LSU Press took a chance on on the obscure work.
Lonesome Dove ('86): Classic Texas Odyssey by TexLit master Larry McMurtry. I praised him when he signed my copy in Austin in '85 as his works (including Last Picture Show) comprised most of our Southwestern Lit. course syllabus, this underrated master fictionalist was actually humbled. To all collectors' chagrin he no BTW longer signs his works.
Are the old books new again?
I found Upton Sinclair won the Pulitzer for "Dragon's Teeth" which I have not read-his more famous The Jungle. And I found many others-The Moneychangers where a reviewer in 2000 notes "Muckraker, Upton Sinclair, tells the fictionalized story of the Wall Street panic of 1907. The panic, according to Sinclair, was orchestrated by several very powerful capitalists......Although, I suspect that many of the manipulations the capitalists did have been corrected thanks to modern checks and safeguards, the book does reveal the vast amount of corruption" Ha!
(And Sinclair's later Pulitzer might be reward for his earlier book as well )
Alice Adams (Booth Tarkington wrote masterfully about American small towns)
The Late George Apley (Marquand wrote brilliantly about the upper/middle class)
A Bell for Adano (idealistic WWII story)
All The King's Men (also the movie. Unmatched portrait of American politics)
Collected Short Stories of Katherine Ann Porter (she's a classic)
The Fixer (Malamud's historical novel about the Beilis anti-semitism trial in tsarist Russia)
Stories of John Cheever (no explanation needed)
Foreign Affairs (Alison Lurie is that rarity, a light, comic American novelist)
A Summons to Memphis (Peter Taylor is an underappreciated Southern short story writer)
Breathing Lessons (if you like Anne Tyler, which I do)
Stone Diaries (author is American but lived in Canada. Writes beautifully)
A notorious case was 1941, when one panel member -- Columbia's Nicholas Murray Butler -- persuaded the rest of the panel to deny the prize to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" because it was "offensive." No award was given. Hemingway finally got a make-up prize years later for a much slighter book, "The Old Man and the Sea."
A similar situation in 1974 cost Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow a Pulitzer -- the writers and editors of the prize jury loved it; the Pulitzer board didn't. Again, no award was given. Pynchon is still waiting for his make-up prize.
Find links to the full text of 10 Pulitzer winners -- including "Gone with the Wind," "Arrowsmith," "The Magnificent Ambersons" -- at this entertaining website:
http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/pulitzerindex.html
If Columbia University's Butler Library is named after the Nicholas Murray Butler you mentioned, it would be ironic if it had "For Whom the Bell Tolls" on its shelves!
I have to concede, though, that Pynchon is one of the most important writers of his time and that Rainbow was a literary game-changer for a generation of younger writers who saw their craft differently under Pynchon's influence. This has to be acknowledged, whether I like it or not.
It's kinda like my feelings toward Reagan. I'm not a Republican, I don't agree with the Republican worldview, but I have to concede that Reagan was an important president. He was the game-changer, the guiding influence of all Republicans who came after. He swept away Eisenhower Republicanism and replaced it with the brand we're still dealing with today. Again, this has to be acknowledged, whether I like it or not.
I know how ludicrous it must look to see someone comparing Pynchon and Reagan, but that's the best I can do this time of the morning!
I looked up their publishing dates -- "Locust" came out in 1939, which means it was up against "The Grapes of Wrath" for a Pulitzer, and that was tough competition! "Elmer Gantry" was published in 1927; the Pulitzer winner in 1928 for '27 was "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." Both great novels, but I think Sinclair Lewis' book was superior.
Lewis did win the 1926 Pulitzer for "Arrowsmith," so the Pulitzer judges might have felt it was too soon to honor another novel by the same author. "Arrowsmith" was inexplicably chosen over the much better "The Great Gatsby" in '26.
Lewis also won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1930, so I guess that more than made up for not receiving the Pulitzer for "Elmer Gantry"!
As for Gatsby, it should be remembered that it was considered a failure in its day -- it didn't sell at all. It was generally well reviewed, but it didn't become the "great American novel" until after Fitzgerald's death.
I've heard that a great boost to Gatsby's reputation was the distribution of "Armed Services Editions" of the book among servicemen during WWII. The Armed Services editions of American novels is another of those interesting footnotes to literary history that might make an interesting subject for a future post. I know nothing about the program, but I find the idea fascinating.
(Have to go now- look up all the others I haven't read :)
You inspired me to look at the list of Nobel Prize for literature recipients (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/) and it IS true that many iconic authors have been overlooked. Perhaps part of the reason is that the Nobel honor has a wider pool of possible winners (worldwide) than the Pulitzer honor (U.S.).
Thanks for commenting, Brian!
A Visit from the Goon Squad; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; The Road; Gilead; The Known World; Middlesex; Empire Falls; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Interpreter of Maladies; The Hours; American Pastoral; The Shipping News; The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love; Beloved; Foreign Affairs; Rabbit is Rich; Elbow Room; The Confessions of Nat Turner; To Kill a Mockingbird; A Death in the Family; The Old Man and the Sea; All the King's Men; The Grapes of Wrath; The Good Earth; The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
I enjoyed a good number of them, especially these:
Gilead; The Known World; Middlesex; Interpreter of Maladies; American Pastoral; The Shipping News; The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love; The Confessions of Nat Turner; All the King's Men; The Grapes of Wrath; The Good Earth.
One of my favorite novels, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, won the National Book Award in 1953 over Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Steinbeck's East of Eden, but Hemingway was chosen for the Pulitzer. Hey, you can't win everything!
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron was the subject of much controversy in 1968 when it was considered the favorite to win the National Book Award, which was ultimately given to the now forgotten The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder. Styron's book was somewhat vindicated later that year by winning the Pulitzer.
There was a similar controversy in 1987 involving Toni Morrison's Beloved..
Wow -- 1953 was quite a competitive awards year! I haven't read "The Old Man and the Sea," but "Invisible Man" is a magnificent book. I can see why it's one of your favorite novels. The great "East of Eden" is my second favorite Steinbeck book after "The Grapes of Wrath."
Thanks again, cstargazer. I learned a lot from your comment.