drea's picture
drea from Rural Alberta, Canada is reading between the lines April 16, 2012 - 1:59pm

NO ONE! 

 

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2012-Fiction

 

how does that work, exactly? 

bryanhowie's picture
bryanhowie from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING. April 16, 2012 - 2:17pm

What the fuck?  I wasn't nominated?  This will not stand!

Matt Attack's picture
Matt Attack from Richmond, Va. is reading As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner April 16, 2012 - 2:30pm

Well ain't that a bitch. 

Courtney's picture
Courtney from the Midwest is reading Monkey: A Journey to the West and a thousand college textbooks April 16, 2012 - 2:34pm

Same thing happened in 1974. I'm not sure what the reason is this year, but the panel unanimously voted Gravity's Rainbow for the 1974 and the board refused to honor the jury's decision because they took offense to the book. I see nothing controversial about this year's finalists, but who knows.

drea's picture
drea from Rural Alberta, Canada is reading between the lines April 16, 2012 - 2:54pm

I see Rob wrote an article on the same topic over in the Mag part of the site.

It's an outrage to the nominees. I'm probably missing something here about the jury process, etc. but wouldn't you think only titles worthy of the award would be nominated in the first place??

(mind you, I have dated people I would never marry...) 

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz April 16, 2012 - 3:06pm

Interesting.

That would be kind of a bummer. 

Well, then everyone should read last year's winner--if for no other reason than the 'Powerpoint' chapter.

Brandon's picture
Brandon from KCMO is reading Made to Break April 16, 2012 - 3:23pm

That Powerpoint chapter is gimmicky as shit.

Now the next person to write in Microsoft Excel or OfficeSuite is going to be accused of being too derivative of Egan.

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz April 16, 2012 - 4:15pm

She owns that now. He-he. That is the beauty of doing it first. Or winning a Pulitzer for a novel you did it in.

But I liked it. I thought it made a great short story. It was the best part of the book for me. Well, that and the 'Parrothood' thing. 

Choruses are gimmicky. So are truncated chapters. And lists. And incorporating pop. There are a lot of gimmicks.

Words are gimmicks. Gimmicks. I like that word. Sounds funny.

 

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig April 16, 2012 - 7:39pm

Interesting...

 

Man would it fucking suck to be one of the nominees. Especially the dead one.

drea's picture
drea from Rural Alberta, Canada is reading between the lines April 16, 2012 - 8:40pm

@Sparrow - No shit, on so many levels. 

 

Laura Miller in Salon had this to say about it, "By all accounts, the group could not reach a majority on any of the three titles recommended by the jury. It’s certainly unlikely that enough of them read fiction widely enough to agree on an alternate choice. In that, they truly are representative of American readers, and that bodes worse for our national literature than a year without a Pulitzer winner."

 

Jason C's picture
Jason C from Quad Cities, Iowa is reading Growing Up Dead In Texas by Stephen Graham Jones April 16, 2012 - 9:25pm

I read Train Dreams and it was ok, nothing special.

The Pale King was unfinished.

Really...just a shitty final nominee list.

MattF's picture
MattF from Tokyo is reading Borges' Collected Fictions April 17, 2012 - 2:56am

Disagree on Train Dreams being nothing special.

Maybe they don't want to award a novella (don't know the history on that), but Denis Johnson can do a hell of a lot in 115 pages.

 

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz April 17, 2012 - 12:42pm

These awards are all bullshit anyway. 

Just award all of them the fucking thing.

Or even better, discontinue the idiotic prize. $10,000 ain't shit anyway.

It was a stupid idea to begin with.

It stinks. Pew-litzer.

I always hated the name.

Plus the fucker was Hungarian for god's sake. Hungarian, 

There is not a single year, in the last twenty or so, that I would have picked the winning novel as my favorite of the year.

It's a conspiracy anyway. 

 

Matt Attack's picture
Matt Attack from Richmond, Va. is reading As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner April 17, 2012 - 12:44pm

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz April 17, 2012 - 12:48pm

Matt Attack's picture
Matt Attack from Richmond, Va. is reading As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner April 17, 2012 - 12:56pm

lol, oh cheer up. Here. 

Chester Pane's picture
Chester Pane from Portland, Oregon is reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz April 17, 2012 - 2:18pm

Nice Stormtroopers.