Comments on: This Year’s Loser is….Fiction!

By: Raquel

Raquel — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:46:10 +0000

Twilight fan fiction?!? My soul just died a little.

By: Raquel

Raquel — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:45:15 +0000

PS: I had heard of this Fifty Shades of Grey nonsense before but didn’t read the book description until today. OMFG. And the worst part is that it is the first in a SERIES! The horror, the horror!

By: Miss Bibliophile

Miss Bibliophile — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:14:13 +0000

In the vein of one of the other comments, I’m more of a Booker Prize girl myself. (Guess it’s the Anglophile in me!) And I’m much more disappointed by the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey than by the Pulitzer controversy. I recently read an article about it that said it was originally written by the author as Twilight fan fiction (?!) and featured some horrendously written excerpts that just confirmed every bad impression I already had of it.

By: Cait

Cait — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:29:17 +0000

While I don’t pay that much attention to which books have won awards, I often find those that do rather lacking and some that don’t are completely worthy, but I do think it is a shame to not have a winner. It seems a cop out to say they couldn’t choose a winner, if the selection was terrible then this may be a fair point but is the: ‘they are all winners’ a little bit primary school?

Anyway I would have liked to see Karen Russell win, Swamplandia! is on my to read list as I thought St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves was amazing!

By: Raquel

Raquel — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:20:19 +0000

The Pulitzer rules state that if they can’t reach a clear consensus for a winner, no prize is awarded. So they were only following their own rules. They admitted that they could not choose one book that was a clear winner. It’s happened in the past, but they do admit that it is rare.

I can respect that they were following their rules: if they didn’t think anyone deserved the prize, they were within their rights to withhold it. I might be an anomaly, but I don’t care much about book awards and I didn’t get ruffled or incensed about the Pulitzer decision this year. Giving a prize for something in the arts, which is so subjective and difficult to judge, seems like a crap shoot to me. There have been plenty of books that have won awards like Pulitzers in the past that I disliked and others that I thought were marvelous that were undecorated. One gal’s throwaway is another gal’s masterpiece.

Interestingly, in 1941, the Pulitzer president refused to give Hemingway the prize for “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” even though the committee selected it as the winner, because he said it was profane and offensive. I think that’s pretty bad ass. As a writer, I’d be prouder of a book that was deemed too extreme to win a prize. That’s just me though!

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:09:07 +0000

From the articles I’ve read based on this year’s non-winner, I have questions about the selection process anyway. Not that there should have to be a winner every year, but it doesn’t sound like the process is designed for people who really know and care about fiction to award a worthy book/author.

By: Mal

Mal — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:56:18 +0000

The Pulitzer is usually hit or miss for me–I’m much more of a National Book Award groupie–but this still upsets me. If nothing else, I think it’s a huge slap in the face to the authors who published last year. Now they can’t just say that they are glad that one of their peers won, but they have to accept the fact that none of them were deemed worthy.

In related news, everything about Fifty Shades of Gray makes me want to die a little.

By: Alexis

Alexis — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:04:54 +0000

Oh goodness, Fifty Shades of Grey was too much. How this stuff becomes popular is beyond me…