Blogging the Pulitzer Prize Novels
So, I’m embarking on a new challenge. It will take some time, but I intend to read and review every Pulitzer Prize winning novel. I’ll get a Pulitzer page up soon with a list of the novels. I have read Gone With the Wind (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), All the King’s Men (1947), To Kill a Mockingbird (1961), A Confederacy of Dunces (1981), Gilead (2005), and The Road (2007). That’s only 7 out of 84, so I have a long way to go.
I’m starting with the latest, Tinkers, 2010′s winner, then I’ll head back and read the ones from 1918 and 1919, then I’ll pick a decade and study the decade as I work through the novels. Hopefully this will be a good historical critique of modernity and postmodernity, and I’m even more hopeful that some of this, supposedly the best literature, will transcend some of that malaise.
I will be grading each book out on the Good, the Beautiful and the True. I will do this on a scale of 1-10 for each category, not because I love that format, but because it will help me to think critically and will help on my list for a brief recap review.
Some questions I will consider:
Is it Good: Is it a good (i.e. compelling) story. Does it make me care? Also, is it morally good, is it transcendent or does it wallow in the mire?
Is it Beautiful: How is the writing and storytelling? How is the character development? What is the setting, the scenes, the poetry of the language?
Is it True: Does it match up with 1) Read life as people perceive it 2) Life as we know God has created it? So, an honest pagan can discover some real truth in the world, but to get a maximum score here there is going to have to be some acknowledgment of God and the Biblical worldview.
This may change and develop as I move along, but I’ll do my best to keep you posted. On to Tinkers.
