Ironweed by William Kennedy

"...the only brotherhood they belonged to was the one that asked that enduring question: How do I get through the next twenty minutes? They feared drys, cops, jailers, bosses, moralists, crazies, truth-tellers, and one another. they loved storytellers, liars, whores, fighters, singers, collie dogs that wagged their tails, and generous bandits. Rudy, thought Francis: he's just a bum, but who ain't?"

Believe it or not, this is the flower known as Ironweed. Known more for its incredibly strong stem than it is for its lacy purple petals, you won't find this roadside weed on any dining room tables. However, this is the perfect introduction to the book that bears its name.

William Kennedy published Ironweed in 1983 and won the Pulitzer for it a year later, in 1984. You find it surprising to learn, however, that such a noteworthy work was almost never published. The last in his series of works depicting Depression-era Albany, Ironweed was rejected by eleven major publishing houses before Viking Press agreed to print it, bring unprecedented fame to the streets of Albany, New York.

Whether I am a better person for its publication or not, I can check it off the list. A glowing review, right? In all honesty, I wasn't in the mood for a realist depiction of survival, and perhaps I picked the wrong season to read Ironweed. During this season of Joy and Thanksgiving, reading about a struggling bum on the streets of Depression-era Albany is a far cry from It's a Wonderful Life. There is, however, a glimmer of hope, and I think that is the only thing that kept me plugging along. (At this point, I am sure that I have lost you to a Barnes and Noble search engine, looking to order your own copy.)

The main character is a bum named Frances Phelan, a native of Albany returning after 22 years on the run. As a heavy indicator of what lies ahead, the book starts in the cemetery, in which Frances is trying to earn a few dollars by digging and filling in graves with his friend Rudy. We learn early that Frances is a man not only trying to survive the cold winters of the north but also survive his past.

Responsible for the death of his infant son, a scab trolley driver, and a few others along the way, Frances is haunted by the images and people of his past. Is this the sign of a man unwell? It is really left to the reader to decide, but it is clear that in order for him to stay in Albany, Frances will have to confront and overcome his demons.

The rest I will leave up to you, dear readers. I am ready to put this read behind me and move on to more uplifting thoughts. Up next, Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler, winner of the Pulitzer in 1989.

Until then... Happy Reading.

I am Beloved and she is mine.

Oh, Beloved. Where do I start?


I have tried to read Toni Morrison once before... in high school. I thought at the time that I just wasn't mature enough to read her writings. Now at the budding age of 28, I am still not sure if I am mature enough to read her writings. I have come to the conclusion that Morrison is what I would consider an earthy writer, covering topics I would consider best left behind closed doors.

With that said, though, I really enjoyed this novel.

Beloved, winning the Pulitzer in 1988, is the tragic story of Sethe, a runaway slave. Her life was never easy before or after she obtained her freedom.


When first introduce to the dwelling of 124, you understand that something spiritual dwells there besides Sethe and her surviving daughter, Denver. Sethe's sons have since run away due to the somewhat antagonistic spirit. Within the first couple of chapters, Paul D, a fellow slave from Sweet Home, finds his way to her door, and this is when life really changes for the residents of 124.

Sethe and Paul D bond over a shared past of slavery, torture, and eventual freedom. However, Beloved, the ominous spiritual presents, cannot allow Sethe to move passed her death, to love anyone other than her, or, quite frankly, to be happy. This is when a unknown woman shows up at the home of 124. She calls herself Beloved, but she cannot remember where she came from or where she found her new clothes. All she knows is that, "I am Beloved, and she is mine."

After Beloved's arrival, Paul D is driven out of the house, Sethe secludes herself in her delusional bliss and her true past is revealed. However, much like Ghostbusters, it does have a happy ending. Beloved is sent back from whence she came and if forgotten. There is rumor that she is an escaped slaved whose owner was found murdered awhile back and is a plausible alternative. It is left to the reader to decide.

While it was a good story at the core, I would have felt more comfortable had certain details be left to the imagination. I have a pretty vivid one on my own. Mothers beware if your kids are asked to read this in middle school or high school. If I read another book by Morrison, it will several years from now, when I have read everything on my bucket list.

Up next, Ironweed by William Kennedy, winner of the Pulitzer in 1984.

Until then... Happy reading.

The Road...

Once a upon an Armageddon Week on Discovery, I learned something devastating. We consider the human race to be a civilized, mostly caring group of folks. However, when everything is stripped away, you don't have to go very deep to find we are not that much different from the animals. Can this really be true? I don't like to think about such things, but in reading this book one doesn't have much of a choice.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road won the Pulitzer in 2007 and, in true Pulitzer fashion, was made into a major motion picture in 2009. I was hoping that reading this novel would redeem my opinion of McCarthy as a writer. Until now, I have only read two of his works: Child of God and All the Pretty Horses. I remember too much about Child of God (and not in a good way) and I remember very little about All the Pretty Horses. This one, however, I think I will remember for months and years to come. It will haunt me as I lay awake at night, my thoughts unwilling drifting to the post-apocalyptic chaos that possibly awaits us.

The Road is about a man and his son (they could be any man and child for they are not given a name) walking down the road to the coast after a seemingly global apocalypse. Trusting no one in this dog-eat-dog world, father and son sneak through the day, scavenging necessities from wherever they can. Also on the road are bands of carnivores, searching for their next meal.

Pull the civil band-aid off humanity, and you find the basic need to survive. By any means necessary. Even the "good guys" (here the father and son duo) abide by Darwin's survival of the fittest, saving themselves instead of the lives of others. The toughest part of the book for me was a scene about halfway through in which the father and son enter a house looking for supplies and food. They stumble across a trapdoor in the floor and, after breaking the lock and entering, find a huddled mass of people, naked and cold. Waiting to die. Hoping to be rescued. A rescue attempt is impossible when the father sees the bad guys (for lack of better terms) returning to the house. They must choose. I hope I never find myself in a situation of similar terms.

Despite the depressing depiction of humanity, McCarthy does give a few glimmers of hope, glimmers of a world destroyed but not defeated (as Michener would say). One of my favorite moments in the book is when the father puts the boy in the grocery cart they use for storage and runs up and down the hills of road with him. The boy feeling the exhilarating breeze of speed and childhood on his face.

How does this book end you ask? Is there salvation at the coast? Well, my friends. I can't say. McCarthy left the ending so ambiguous, the reader can interpret it how he chooses. Honestly, it comes down to whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. Is there hope? Or are we all doomed in the end?

For me... there is always hope.

Up next, Beloved by Toni Morrison, winning the Pulitzer in 1988.

Actually, if I was honest, I would tell you that I have already finished Beloved and that I am slightly behind on my blogging. And if I was really honest, I would tell you that I am taking a quick detour from the Pulitzer list to read The Last Novel by David Markson. But I will keep that to myself lest you think my resolve is weakening.

Until then... Happy reading.

Where, you ask, is the Malvern Pudding...

weighted with its ancient stone? It has been set aside, as has my mother's cookery book. They will not be seen again in this story. While these are not the opening lines to The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, they drip thick like honey through the rest of the story for me, containing almost the essence of the entire book.




The Stone Diaries was published in 1993 in Canada, Shields' second home, where it won the Governor General's Award. The book was later published in America in 1994, where it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995, giving her book the distinction of being the only one to receive both awards. Eight years later, Shields lost her battle with breast cancer at 68 years young.


Her novel, The Stone Diaries, is the fiction autobiography about a woman named Dairy Goodwill, beginning in much the same way that it ends: with death and loss. Daisy's mother dies during childbirth, a great surprise considering she thought she was merely struggling with a persistent bout of indigestion. Daisy struggles through her entire life to discover who she is only to get caught in the trap of daily minutia: lavishing hours of energy into maintaining a pristine home, reading the latest issue of Good Housekeeping in order to be the best wife and mother, preparing elaborate meals, and appearing perfectly polished and "fixed up" to announce dinner. She seemed to pass through life instead of living it.


From birth, Daisy was almost marked for loss or at least for a series of unfortunate events. Her mother dies, her father sends her away to live with a neighbor and her son. The neighbor dies, and at the age of eleven, Daisy finds herself moving to the United States and living with a father she doesn't know. After college (the only time in her life she seems to being fully living), she marries a man she doesn't truly love. But the marriage doesn't last long, as her drunk new husband falls out their hotel window on their honeymoon and dies instantly. Later, she fights cancer as well as other medical maladies that can come with old age, while her children are busy with their own lives. In the end, she dies as we all must.

For me, I had a hard time with this book. As you know already, I get attached to my characters, my friends, and knowing that she will die in the end made it hard for me to get attached. Sounds crazy I know. But I didn't really feel like I knew Daisy Stone Goodwill.



Perhaps it wasn't me.



Perhaps it was Daisy, unwilling or unable to show anyone who she really was. Hiding behind her Martha Stewart meals and her June Cleaver pearls. I can tell you a lot about what she does but not necessarily a lot about who she is. There is a lot of talk about stone. Daisy's maiden name is Stone, her father is a stone mason. They wear their emotions with stoic expression, never letting anyone close to the real self. Daisy is always the dutiful wife, the genteel woman, but it doesn't make her happy in the end. She feels like she is missing something.



I can see a little bit of Daisy in myself. Wanting to keep a clean home (despite the mess a one-year-old brings), to cook healthy meals for my family, to keep a garden. But lately, as my daughter gets older, I have found that my home can be clean and still be cluttered and healthy meals don't necessarily have to take an hour and a half to prepare.It is more important to make sure I spend time with my family. That my daughter sees my silly, carefree side as we play on the floor. That she know who I am.



The dishes can wait a little bit longer.



Up next, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. I've got my fingers crossed that it's going to be a good one.



Until then, happy reading.

"But man is not made for defeat..."

"Man can be destroyed but never defeated."

Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer for this work of fiction in 1953. The Old Man and the Sea was last novel to be published in his lifetime and the novel that brought him international acclaim. How disappointing...

Don't get me wrong. I loved the book, but I found it elementary in style and simple in plot. Not to mention there were no chapters (and we all know how I feel about that), and because of that fact, I finished it in the course of an afternoon. On the surface, there is nothing particularly special about the story line: an old fisherman (Santiago) goes out alone in a sailboat, struggles for over a day to catch a marlin, loses everything but the bones to a series of shark attacks, and ultimately has nothing to show for his struggles, except a broken boat and a broken body.

However, if I would look deeper, there would be more, right? ... Otherwise, high schools the world over would not still teach it to disinterested teenagers (at least it is only one hundred or so pages).

I am sure that Hemingway did not intend to make the old Cuban a pathetic character. I am sure he wanted the reader to focus on his tenacity, his cheerful and undefeated spirit. Nevertheless, he made me sad. Santiago is having a dry spell, hasn't caught a fish in over 84 days. His only friend and companion, a young boy, is no longer able to fish with him, his parents said Santiago was suffering from bad luck. And the other fishermen laugh at his foolishness when his back is turned. With only a hope and a prayer, he braves the deeper waters of the unforgiving sea to find larger fish for greater profits. Well, we all know how that worked out for him (sorry if I spoiled the ending for you).

He was tenacious, fighting for any part of his prize he could keep. But, his loneliness overshadowed his determination for me. Repeatedly, he would state "If only the boy were here... but he is not here." However, Santiago cowboys up and is not defeated, not by the fish anyway. The fish did not defeat him. Due to his large (however unfulfilling) catch, the fishermen once again respected the old Cuban, and the boy, the boy who never left him, was there to mend the broken bits. While the skeleton (the only thing to show for his backbreaking labor) may float along the shoreline like garbage, there is still hope in the end:

"You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach

me everything. How much did you suffer?"

"Plenty," the old man said.

"I'll bring the food and the papers," the boy said. "Rest well, old man."

... Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still

sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old

man was dreaming about lions.

Perhaps you could claim Santiago as a Christ-like character, ridiculed by his peers, suffering alone in a wilderness of blue vastness. Perhaps you could say that Santiago is simply a reflection of Hemingway, an old man struggling to fight the good fight only to be knocked down and hindered at every turn. Perhaps...

But for right now, all I see is an old man, a fish, and the sea. Perhaps, I am tired.

Up next, something slightly more recent: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, winning the Pulitzer in 1995.

Until then, happy reading.

Up here...dey is only heroes.

Who says best sellers never receive the Pulitzer? Like The Color Purple, Tales of the South Pacific has its own musical ( Rodger and Hammerstein no less). It was a great book, although I find it hard to imagine military men randomly bursting into song and dance, but I guess there isn't much to occupy your time while you fight a war of waiting.

Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener (1948) is a novel of short stories with interlocking characters and one narrator. According to Wickipedia, the stories are based on observations and anecdotes he collected while serving as lieutenant commander for the Navy on the island of Espiritu Santo. While the stories are fiction, they are based in truth, focusing mainly on the characters and not on the war itself.

My favorite line in the book comes from an African American ensign working in an American Cemetery on the island of Konora. "Up here... dey is only heroes." The men fighting World War II in the south pacific did a great deal of waiting. Waiting to fight, waiting to go crazy, waiting for a war that seems so immanent and yet so far away. They occupied their time investigating the islands and the natives that live there, swapping war stories that belong to someone else, or writing letters back home to girls they may or may not love. The chronological stories cover the building of an airstrip before the Battle of the Coral Sea and ultimately ending in the invasion of the fictional island Kuralei through a planned attack code-named Alligator, covering the time span of 1942 to 1944 roughly.

While reading this novel, I happened to be in North Carolina visiting family. Especially two members who fought bravely in various battles of World War II, my grandfather and my Great Uncle Howard. My grandfather, a member of the Navy, was wounded at the age of 18 by a kamikaze pilot who crashed into his ship. About 10 years ago he had a piece of the plane removed from his arm, a bolt measured in metric. Uncle Howard was an Army Ranger and has only recently starting talking about some of the things that he experienced, the things he was asked to do. I hold them in the highest regard for what they did for our country and others. Members of my grandparent's generation are known as "The Greatest Generation," and perhaps they are. But there is still a residue of hatred that remains. I heard my uncle refer to Japanese people using what I would consider a racial slur in conversation. My heart cringed. There I sat, someone who works with International Students on a daily basis, and I didn't say a thing. Should I have?

At one point the narrator questions who will replace the Commander Hoags? It is difficult to fill the shoes of great leaders. And the past always seems better, easier than the present. But is that generation much different than this one? A different "enemy" perhaps, but war is war. However, how many people take the time to support the troops that are fighting overseas? How many people take the time to pray for the souls that are lost... on both sides of the war? I don't. My heart breaks when I hear about lives lost on the news. I cry when I watch new reports of brave men and women leaving their families to serve our country. But then I turn off the TV, take my daughter to school, and I go about the daily act of living... with little thought to what it cost.

Perhaps I digress... but it is amazing to me that the more of these Pulitzer Prize winning books I read, the more I find their relevance today. I guess to plan for the future we must learn from the past; however, isn't history doomed to repeat itself.

Up next, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953).

Happy reading, everyone.

Lamb in His Bosom

Alice Walker and Margaret Mitchell were not the only Georgians to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. They were not even one of the first. The first Georgian to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature was Caroline Miller in the year 1934 for her first novel, Lamb in His Bosom. And only posthumously was she entered into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2007. I must take a moment and express my irritation that she was inducted after Jimmy Carter (2006). Nothing personal against Jimmy Carter and his works of fiction, but you would think that as the Pulitzer Prize the is greatest Literary award in existence, it would warrant induction first. Almost like a Speedy Pass at Six Flags. Miller was even the reason that Mitchell was indirectly responsible for Mitchell winning the award, and you would think, as a charter member, she would show her appreciation and admiration to a fellow writer from Georgia. But what do I know. Only upon beginning this journey did I even know that Caroline Miller was a writer from Georgia and winner of such a prestigious award.

I digress...

I must say out of all of the works I have read so far, this one has impacted me the most. Perhaps it is the fact that it takes place in a familiar region of Georgia. Perhaps it is because I come from a long line of farmers. Perhaps it is because I am a new mom and now know from where the main characters are coming. Whatever the reason, I feel especially connected to the characters. My heart rejoiced for them, my heart broke for them. I have always had the tendency to become too attached to the characters in the books that I read, even the bad ones with hardly a notable character within its pages.Growing up in the country, I had few friends to play with, so I found them wherever I could, usually within the dogeared pages of books.

But again, I digress...

The book jacket declares this as "The saga of a courageous young woman in the Old South," but it was so much more than that. Yes, Cean was the main character, but I found it to be more about the saga of a courageous family living in the Old South. When we talk about the Old South, most of us think of Plantation Farmers, cotton and slaves. We forget that not everyone lived with such "luxury" in the Old South. There were the poor country folk that worked the land with the strength of their backs and the sweat of their brows. That is the family we follow through a lifetime of joys and, more often than not, sorrows.

I have always had the misconception that I was a strong woman. I will haul limbs, clear away brush, and brandish a screwdriver just as good as the man I married. I will can vegetables and make jams and jellies ( a dying art, so I am told). But this book, Lamb in His Bosom, showed me how weak I really am. In one night, Cean gives birth to her third child by herself and then finds need to shoot a panther that has invaded her home, aiming to kill her two children and newborn asleep in the bed. After the birth of my one and only, I could barely walk across the room by myself; I don't think I would fair well if asked to kill an unwelcome predator.

Cean birthed around 15 children in her lifetime and lost several of them including her husband to accidents, sickness, childbirth or war. Lonzo, her husband, couldn't understand the want to go to war for slavery. Why should he fight a war for something he was too poor to have? His son, however, was ready to fight when the call came, only to have somewhere important to go.

I think the most difficult concept for me was outliving your children. That is not the natural order of things, but with the lack of antibiotics, hospitals, and antiseptics, it was a common occurrence. Even today, people can't afford the medicines that would easily mend their sick loved ones, or must choose between food and shelter. I take that for granted. How fortunate I am. It's something I think we all need to be reminded of from time to time.

"Seen would throw that promise back into God's eternal face in the weak song of her lips. He had promised, and repromised to bear her like a lamb in His bosom, never, no, never, no, never to forsake her."

Up next, Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener, winner in 1948.

Happy reading...

The Shipping News

Now that I have time to sit down and write about The Shipping News, I am having trouble remembering much about it. Please don't take this as an indication of how impactful the book was but more as an indication of mental exhaustion... or atrophy.

The Shipping News, winner of the Pulitzer in 1994, is about a man named Quoyle who falls in love and marries a "free-spirit" named Petal. To put it bluntly: "There was a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering. In another time, in another sex, she would have been Genghis Khan." However, through a series of unfortunate events, Quoyle is given a chance to start over with his aunt and two children, Sunshine and Bunny, when Petal dies in a car wreck, living him enough life insurance to move to Newfoundland, the land of his ancestors.

Quoyle gets a job there writing the shipping news for the local newspaper. His finds a new start among his co-workers and community members. And he even eventually finds love again. Not the all-consuming passion that he felt for Petal, but love that comes as quietly as night creeping into the shadows at the slow swing of day. Of course, more happens in the 345 pages, but I would hate to ruin it all for you.

While there were some oddities that stood out (i.e. - They called each other by seemingly formal titles: Aunt and Nephew.) and the book was a little slow to get into, it was overall a great read. I found myself neglecting chores just to sit and read it. As with many of the Pulitzer winners thus far, it was more about character development than plot line, it definitely honors the human experience, the falling away of the old to make room for the new, and the interconnectedness of us all.

Fourteen years after This Shipping News was published, we experience a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. As BP incompetently attempts to repair it, I read a chapter in which Quoyle exclaims, " No one hangs a picture of an oil tanker on the wall." Oh that we have come so far. But we have all experienced it: Those were the good old days. Each generation longs for the familiar, for the way that it was. Even in a sleepy ol' town. Especially in a sleepy ol' town. "There's two ways of living here now. There's the old way, look out for your family, die where you was born, fish, cut your wood, keep a garden, make do with what you got. Then there's the new way. Work out, have a job, somebody tell you what to do, your brother's in South Africa, your mother's in Regina, buy every goddamn cockadoodle piece of Japanese crap you can. Leave home. Go off to look for work." As Edith Wharton so nicely put it, there is good in the old ways, but there is good in the new as well.

But it all comes down to love, love for each other and love for yourself:

"For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery."

Happy reading...

From my home town...

If I am being completely honest, I have avoided reading Alice Walker... at least anything was wasn't assigned for a class. Consider me a victim of the green-eyed monster. Alice Walker was born in raised in my home town of Eatonton, GA and has managed to do what I can only dream of doing: she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple in 1983. And rightly so.

I was a little apprehensive about reading The Color Purple as my mom read it for her English class a couple years ago. After telling me a little bit about the storyline, I wasn't sure if this was something I was ready to tackle. It is a tough book, and Walker doesn't sugarcoat anything. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I finished.

A brief summary for those of you who may not have read it yet:

The main character is an African American girl named Celie, who finds herself raped and pregnant by her "father." Her father takes away the babies, and she thinks they are dead. She marries a Mr. _____ (his last name is never known) to escape and to help her sister, Nettie, escape the same fate. He is not much of a good man either and has a girlfriend on the side. In the end, however, Celie is able to make peace and finds contentment in her life. She learns to make a living for herself by sewing pants and ends up inheriting her parents house and finding her two children.

While at times I found myself pitying Celie and the circumstances in which she found herself, she never gave up on hope, and in the end, she had everything she wanted. It may not have come around in the most conventional way or the easiest, but in the end, it was everything she wanted and needed.

I am proud to say that Alice Walker came from my home town of Eatonton, GA. Like Celie's need to spread her wings and experience something new, I, too, could not wait to get out of Eatonton. To leave and never look back. But again, like Celie, I get homesick for the familiar. For the people that knew me when I was young, innocent, and stupid and still liked me in spite of it. I went back "home" earlier this summer, the first time in almost 10 years. My family now resides elsewhere, and I have had no reason to venture into the city limits. Somethings had changed, but it was a lot like I remembered.

Thomas Wolfe may say that you can't go home again, but Alice Walker says that you can. I think I like Alice Walker's idea better...

I have also finished reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (1994). But that is a topic for another day. Up next, I am thinking either Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller (1934) or Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1948).

Until then... happy reading.

The Optimist's Daughter

Andy and I finally finished it. Actually, we finished it about a week ago as it was due back at the library on the 6th, I just haven't taken the time to write about it. Judge me as you will. However, give me some credit as I have spend the last two days taking care of a rather sick baby. But I digress...

The Optimist's Daughter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, was an easy read ... if you are a Southerner and if you read like you talk. I had no problems, and while Andy grew up in a town as far south as you could get without being in Florida, he had difficulty making it through the first chapter. For that reason, I read to him; I am about as Southern as they come. But let me clarify: Southern Country, not Southern Belle.

The book is set in Mississippi, the home state of Ms. Eudora Welty, and is about Laurel, who comes back home to Mississippi from Chicago when her father gets sick. He ultimately dies, and Laurel is left to suffer his ridiculously self-centered wife, Fay (Laurel's stepmother). There was a great deal of gossip and old ladies talking. And while Andy didn't like it, it felt a little like home to me. Welty didn't wax romantic; she simply wrote about what she knew, and like Laurel, she knew a little bit more about the world beyond the state line. However, it is often said to write well, you must write what you know. Welty did this and did it well.

While I didn't care much for the story line (and truthfully it was a very simplistic one comparatively), I felt a connection to the characters and the writing itself. The women may have been nosey old gossips, but they made no apologies and Welty didn't criticize.
I would much prefer to reread A Worn Path, but The Optimist's Daughter was worth the read.

In my procrastination of writing about The Optimist's Daughter, I finished another book on the list of Pulitzers: The Color Purple, Alice Walker1983. However, I will wait to discuss that one. Currently, I am reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, 1994 winner. This one may take a while. However, in my absence, I will attempt to get Andy to share his thoughts Welty's The Optimist's Daughter.

Until then... Happy reading.

There was good in the old ways. There was good in the new order too.

So, I did it. I finally finished The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (Pulitzer 1921). And while I would be the first to admit that I didn't really care for the book, I will also be the first to admit that I was able to find meaning in the work, and in that regard, I found pleasure. In the end, it was worth the read.

Perhaps is was the affluent 1920's New York setting that originally turned me off, Jane Austen without the enduring Elizabeth Bennett and Elinor Dashwood. Perhaps it was reading this work from a modern women's perspective that made my stomach churn. Whatever the reason, I was able to find solace in the beauty of her words (and, believe me, there were plenty to choose from). At 353 pages, I was reminded of something a fellow reader once said: " I tend to stay away from the early works. They described things in too much detail." Here, here.

The story is told from the perspective of Newland Archer, and upon first introduction you learn that is freshly engaged to the Diana-like May Welland. However, within the first few chapters, you learn that his affections are easily swayed by her infamous cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, who has fled back to New York from Europe after scandalously separating from her husband. (Funny how standards change over time.) Secret rendezvouses ensue despite the nuptuals, and while Newland dreams of running away with his bohemian soulmate, the only act of adultary is commited in their minds and a few stolen kisses. (Sorry to ruin it for you. I know you were about to run out and buy a copy.)

Newland struggles with the clastrophobic sameness of his upper-class existance and faults May, his new wife, for her inability to challenge the norm. Countess Olenska, on the other hand, is the Yin to May's Yang. She prefers good music, literature, and conversation over "dictates of Taste." Newland, despite his desires, ultimately follows the path most becoming of a gentleman of means and became "in short, what people were beginning to call a 'good citizen,'" living "a life that had been too starved..."

I guess this was the part that spoke to me the most. We tell our children that they can be whatever they want to be, but do we really mean it? Are we really saying you can be whatever you want to be as long as it fits in with what I find acceptable? Will you still display pride in your child if they deviate from the perceived norm? For the more liberal thinkers, I think the answers to these questions come a little bit more easily, but there are still those, like the Archers and the Wellands, that will critize and disown for fair less.

When the book was first published in 1920, The Nation said, "Wharton describes the customs of a vanished age as familiarly as if she loved them and as lucidely as if she hated them." Rightly so. Wharton has a way of painting the people in such a away that you cannot decipher whether she admires or dispieses the society of which she writes. Her objectiveness alone showcases an amazing talent for storytelling, but combined with her timeless tale of innocence lost, this novel is much deserving of the Pulizer Prize. Well done.

I am not quite sure what will be next on the list for me. I will have to wait until the library opens on the 6th. However, Andy and I still have about 50 pages left in The Optimist's Daughter (Eudora Welty) before we can call it completed. Planning for a birthday party has left us little time to read. With that behind us now, I should be posting my next review in a matter of days. I know you will be waiting with great anticipation, but until then...

Happy reading.

Are you following me?

So last week I had a conference on Jekyll Island at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, and who do you think I ran into? None other than Mr. Joshua Pulitzer. Not in the flesh, of course (although there is rumor of certain manifestations hanging around the place). Apparently, he was one of the New York elite that helped create the millionaire haven tucked away amongst spanish moss and southern hospitality.

Truthfully, I only recognized him as a result of this bog and my attempt to read a ridiculous number of books. I stumbled across a biography of Pulitzer in the local Island bookstore located in the old infermary. While I was tempted to buy it, I purchased a different book instead: Almost to Eden by June Hall McCash. It is a piece of fiction centered around the Hotel, signed by the auther (bringing my collection up to 4), and I hope to one day be able to read it. Until then, it will sit on my shelf with all the other books waiting for conversation, waiting to be acknowledged. Like old friends you promise to keep in touch with, "We need to get together soon," they wait for me to find the time. Until then, they hold their secrets, mysteries, and kind advice.

Back to work now... Lots to be done for a baby turning one. And then... hopefully there will be time to read.

God might actually enjoy us.

So, I finished Gilead several days ago; only now have I had the time to truly collect my thoughts regarding the novel and write about it. I do need to go ahead and get something off my chest. My main complaint with this book was the length of chapters. And by that, I mean was there weren't any. Not one. I didn't realize how much I realied on chapters to break for food, sleep, etc. While it did have breaks in the text, it wasn't the same.There is a finality with the end of chapter. You can't continue reading until you turn to the next page. I would want to stop reading, but before I could, my eyes would have already jumped the double-spaced break to read the next entry.

I say entry because the book it written as if it were a series of journal entries written by John Ames - a Congregationalist minister living and dying in Gilead, Iowa. At the age of seventy-something, he is writing to his young son, writing things that he would like to tell him had he lived to watch him grow up. Believe me, I am not giving anything away by telling you this. The first sentence of the book breaks the news before you have time to get attached: I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old. And yes, all of that was one sentence.

I found the book enjoyable despite the heavy subject matter. He writes a great deal about death, guilt, and the strong but strange bond between father and son. While I did pick these threads up on my own, they were enhanced by the notes and underlinings of my copies previous owner. My guess would be they had to write a paper (I was excited that they actually read the book instead of reading Cliffs notes).

It is bittersweet, the thought of writing down all of the things you would want to tell your child: I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful. While Ames knows that the old must pass away to make room for the new, he still stresses the history of certain items, hoping their significance will be remembered after he is gone. It makes you realize that it is all just stuff in the end. Something is only important because you made it so.

What touched me the most? I would say it was the following passage:
" it suggests how God might actually enjoy us. I believe we think about that
far to little. It would be a way into understanding essential things, since
presumably the world exists for God's enjoyment, not in any simple sense,
of course, but as you enjoy the being of a child when he is every way a
thorn in your heart."
Perhaps this speaks to me as a mother, but I like to think that this is true. And while, I can't say that I felt "touched by grace just to [have] read it" as The Washington Post said I would, I do think that it made me challenge myself and the way that I view the world, faith and a life well lived.

So what's next you ask? I am actually reading two: The Optimist's Daughter (1973 winner) by Eudora Welty and The Age of Innocence (1921 winner) by Edith Wharton. My husband, Andy, and I are reading The Optimist's Daughter out loud to each other, and The Age of Innocence I am reading on my own. I hope to encourage him to through in his opinion when the time comes.

Until then, happy reading.

Pultizer, The Man, The Legend

I realized that if I was going to dedicate a small portion of my life to the reading of such highly esteemed works, I should know a little bit about the man and the legend. So...

May I introduce you to Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, "the most skillful of newspaper publishers, a passionate crusader against dishonest government, a fierce, hawk-like competitor who did not shrink from sensationalism in circulation struggles, and a visionary who richly endowed his profession." Oh, did I forget to mention the Pulitzer Prize? My bad.

He may not be much to look at, but he is the epitome of the American dream. His is a rags-to-riches story in which he, the son of a Hungarian father and German mother, finds his way to America by enlisted in the U.S. Union Army through a bounty recruiter. Upon his arrival, he jumps ship to keep the bounty for himself by enlisting for a year in the Lincoln Calvery. From there he worked his way to St. Louis, where he worked odd jobs and through himself into the study of English and Law at the local library. A chance encounter with the two editors of the leading German language daily, Westliche Post, over a chess game led to a job offer. The rest, as they say, is history.

I must admit I was pleased to discover that Pulitzer, himself, was an immigrant. How appropriate that the ultimate award acknowledging American life in fiction, life in a nation of immigrants, was founded by a Hungarian Jew! Knowing this, for me anyway, makes what I am doing a little bit more worthwhile.

Happy reading!

92 Books and the American Experience

I have always fancied myself a writer, an award-winning story just waiting underneath the daily chores of living. I have come to the realization that I will probably never discover that diamond in the rough, that Pulizer Prize winning story that has yet to surface. I will probably never publish anything worth more than this free blog. And that's okay. Instead, I have decided to look to those who have won, who have managed to unlock hidden passages of the American Experience and have shared them with the rest of us.

My goal, at the age of 28, is to read the entire list of Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction. At the moment, that totals a number of 92 books, 1918 - present. (For those of you doing the math, there were a few years the award was not given.) Sadly to say, at the age of 28, I have only read three: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. All three were worth the time to read and, in my opinon, deserving of the award.

In committing to read this prodigious list of novels, however, I realize that at some point I will encounter Gone with the Wind. There are thousands of women in the world, I am sure, that imagine themselves as Scarlet O'Hara in the arms of one Rhet Butler. I, however, am not one of them. For vanity's sake, I will endure.

But for now, book number four: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer in 2005. The Washington Post claims that it is "So serenely beautiful and written in prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it." I will let you know how it goes.