2010 – Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters
2009 – AS Byatt, The Children’s Book 2008 – Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
2007 – Rosalind Belben, Our Horses in Egypt 2006 – Cormac McCarthy, The Road
2005 – Ian McEwan, Saturday
2004 – David Peace, GB84
2003 – Andrew O’Hagan, Personality
2002 – Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
2001 – Sid Smith, Something Like a House
2000 – Zadie Smith, White Teeth
1999 – Timothy Mo, Renegade, or Halo2
1998 – Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie
1997 – Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
1996 – Graham Swift, Last Orders, and Alice Thompson, Justine
1995 – Christopher Priest, The Prestige
1994 – Alan Hollinghurst, The Folding Star
1993 – Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River
1992 – Rose Tremain, Sacred Country
1991 – Iain Sinclair, Downriver
1990 – William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach
1989 – James Kelman, A Disaffection
1988 – Piers Paul Read, A Season in the West
1987 – George Mackay Brown, The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories
1986 – Jenny Joseph, Persephone
1985 – Robert Edric, Winter Garden
1984 – J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun, and Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
1983 – Jonathan Keates, Allegro Postillions
1982 – Bruce Chatwin, On The Black Hill
1981 – Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, and Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast
1980 – J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
1979 – William Golding, Darkness Visible
1978 – Maurice Gee, Plumb
1977 – John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy
1976 – John Banville, Doctor Copernicus
1975 – Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection
1974 – Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, or the Prince of Darkness
1973 – Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince
1972 – John Berger, G
1971 – Nadine Gordimer, A Guest of Honour
1970 – Lily Powell, The Bird of Paradise
1969 – Elizabeth Bowen, Eva Trout
1968 – Maggie Ross, The Gasteropod
1967 – Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem The Golden
1966 – Christine Brooke-Rose, Such, and Aidan Higgins, Langrishe, Go Down
1965 – Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate
1964 – Frank Tuohy, The Ice Saints
1963 – Gerda Charles, A Slanting Light
1962 – Ronald Hardy, Act of Destruction
1961 – Jennifer Dawson, The Ha-Ha
1960 – Rex Warner , Imperial Caesar
1959 – Morris West, The Devil’s Advocate
1958 – Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
1957 – Anthony Powell, At Lady Molly’s
1956 – Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond
1955 – Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mother and Son
1954 – C. P. Snow, The New Men and The Masters
1953 – Margaret Kennedy, Troy Chimneys
1952 – Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms
1951 – Chapman Mortimer, Father Goose
1950 – Robert Henriques, Through the Valley
1949 – Emma Smith, The Far Cry
1948 – Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
1947 – L. P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda
1946 – Oliver Onions, Poor Man’s Tapestry
1945 – L. A. G. Strong, Travellers
1944 – Forrest Reid, Young Tom
1943 – Mary Lavin, Tales from Bective Bridge
1942 – Arthur Waley, Translation of Monkey by Wu Cheng’en
1941 – Joyce Cary, A House of Children
1940 – Charles Morgan, The Voyage
1939 – Aldous Huxley After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
1938 – C. S. Forester, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours
1937 – Neil M. Gunn, Highland River
1936 – Winifred Holtby, South Riding
1935 – L. H. Myers, The Root and the Flower
1934 – Robert Graves, I, Claudius and Claudius the God
1933 – A. G. Macdonell, England, Their England
1932 – Helen de Guerry Simpson, Boomerang
1931 – Kate O’Brien, Without My Cloak
1930 – E. H. Young, Miss Mole
1929 – J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions
1928 – Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man
1927 – Francis Brett Young, Portrait of Clare
1926 – Radclyffe Hall, Adam’s Breed
1925 – Liam O’Flaherty, The Informer
1924 – E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
1923 – Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps
1922 – David Garnett, Lady into Fox
1921 – Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget
1920 – D. H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl
1919 – Hugh Walpole, The Secret City
“Frost had built on the dead grass, and it skirled beneath his feet. If not for this sound he’d have thought himself struck deaf, owing to the magnitude of the surrounding silence. All the night’s noises had stopped. The whole valley seemed to reflect his shock. He heard only his footsteps and the wolf-girl’s panting complaint.”
I really wanted to read Train Dreams after it was embroiled in the “no Pulitzer” debate. Hey, it was only 117 pages, so I knew it wouldn’t take me long to read. It’s easily read in under two hours. As I write this, I’m still trying to decide between a 3.5 and a 4.5 star rating. I either loved it, or it was under my 4 star par. I guess I’ll just have to average the two and give it a 4.
Why am I waffling? Part of me loved the story, the writing, and the story of the life of Robert Grainier. Johnson definitely packs a big punch in such a small book. I admired how the author gave such a wide sweep of history of the American West and an individual’s life in so few pages. What I didn’t like was the mystical aspects of the book regarding the wolves. It was a little weird.
All in all, I would have been neutral on this title winning the Pulitzer. I’ve certainly read winners that I thought were much worse than this book. I’m definitely glad I read it, if anything to ponder why the Pulitzer Board chose not to pick this one.
Titles I’ve read are in bold.
*Asterixed titles are those I’m most interested in reading.
2012
Banks, Russell. Lost Memory of Skin. Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. deWitt, Patrick. The Sisters Brothers.
Goldman, Francisco. Say Her Name.
Harbach, Chad. The Art of Fielding.
MacLeod, Alexander. Light Lifting. Obreht, Téa. The Tiger’s Wife.
Ondaatje, Michael. The Cat’s Table.
Phillips, Arthur. The Tragedy of Arthur.
Russell, Karen. Swamplandia!
Torres, Justin. We the Animals.
Trevor, William. Selected Stories.
2011
Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue.
*A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.
Next by James Hynes.
The Surrendered by Chang Rae Lee.
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes.
*The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel by David Mitchell.
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray.
*The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli.
The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel by Brady Udall.
2010
The Convalescent, by Jessica Anthony
*The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood
The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker
*Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon
Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
Spooner, by Pete Dexter Tinkers, by Paul Harding
The Vagrants, by Yiyun Li
Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
*Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin
2009
*Alameddine, Rabih. The Hakawati
Aslam, Nadeem. The Wasted Vigil
Bausch, Richard. Peace
Benioff, David. City of Thieves
Erdrich, Louise. The Plague of Doves Galchen, Rivka. Atmospheric Disturbances
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth
Millhauser, Steven. Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories
Sheers, Owen. Resistance Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge
Talarigo, Jeff. The Ginseng Hunter
2008
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke
Away, by Amy Bloom
Cheating at Canasta, by William Trevor
The Complete Stories, by David Malouf Finn, by Jon Clinch
The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes, by Tess Uriza Holthe
Five Skies, by Ron Carlson
*The Ministry of Special Cases, by Nathan Englander
*Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan
Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson
The Pesthouse, by Jim Crace
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon
2007
Beautiful Dreamer, by Christopher Bigsby
*The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig
The Secret River, by Kate Grenville
The Attack, by Yasmina Khadra – translated by John Cullen
*The Girls, by Lori Lansens The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
The People’s Act of Love, by James Meek
*Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell
*Blind Willow Sleeping Woman, by Haruki Murakami
Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, by Sam Savage
2006
Bates, Judy Fong. Midnight at the Dragon Café.
*Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
Gaitskill, Mary. Veronica. Ghosh, Amitav. The Hungry Tide.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go.
Iweala, Uzodinma. Beasts of No Nation.
McCarthy, Cormac. No Country for Old Men.
McEwan, Ian. Saturday.
*Murakami, Haruki. Kafka on the Shore. Tr. by Philip Gabriel. Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead.
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Hummingbird’s Daughter.
2005
Barnes, Julian. The Lemon Table.
Christensen, Lars Saabye. The Half Brother.
De Bernières, Louis. Birds without Wings.
Dybek, Stuart. I Sailed with Magellan.
Khadra, Yasmina. The Swallows of Kabul.
Mda, Zakes. The Madonna of Excelsior.
Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas.
*Munro, Alice. Runaway.
Niemi, Mikael. Popular Music from Vittula.
Roth, Philip. The Plot against America.
Wolff, Tobias. Old School.
2004
Ali, Monica. Brick Lane.
Antunes, Antonio Lobo. The Inquisitor’s Manual.
Boyd, William. Any Human Heart.
Carey, Edward. Alva and Irva: The Twins Who Saved a City.
Casares, Oscar. Brownsville: Stories. Haddon, Mark. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner.
Jones, Edward P. The Known World.
Lethem, Jonathan. The Fortress of Solitude.
Morrison, Toni. Love.
O’Connor, Joseph. Star of the Sea.
Packer, ZZ. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.
Saramago, Jose. The Cave.
2003
Auster, Paul. The Book of Illusions.
Doerr, Anthony. The Shell Collector.
Labiner, Norah. Miniatures.
Lustig, Arnost. Lovely Green Eyes. McEwan, Ian. Atonement.
*McGahern, John. By the Lake.
Merullo, Roland. In Revere, in Those Days.
*Mistry, Rohinton. Family Matters.
Oe, Kenzaburo. Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age!
Shteyngart, Gary. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.
Slouka, Mark. God’s Fool.
2002
*Carey, Peter. True History of the Kelly Gang.
Chaon, Dan. Among the Missing.
Davis, Lydia. Samuel Johnson Is Indignant: Stories.
Everett, Percival. Erasure: A Novel.
Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections: A Novel.
Gordimer, Nadine. The Pickup: A Novel.
MacLeod, Alistair. Island: The Complete Stories.
Olds, Bruce. Bucking the Tiger.
Sebald, W.G. Austerlitz.
Suri, Manil. The Death of Vishnu.
Winegardner, Mark. Crooked River Burning.
2001
Atwood, Margaret. The Blind Assassin.
Busch, Frederick. Don’t Tell Anyone.
Chabon, Michael. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Coetzee, J. M. Disgrace.
Crace, Jim. Being Dead.
DeWitt, Helen. Last Samurai.
Kalpakian, Laura. Delinquent Virgin.
King, Thomas. Truth and Bright Water.
Kneale, Matthew. English Passengers.
Nelson, Antonya. Living to Tell.
Ondaatje, Michael. Anil’s Ghost.
Paine, Tom. Scar Vegas.
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth.
Williams, Joy. The Quick and the Dead.
2000
Bainbridge, Beryl. Master Georgie. Cunningham, Michael. The Hours.
Cusk, Rachel. The Country Life.
Doyle, Roddy. A Star Called Henry.
Dubus, Andre. House of Sand and Fog.
Englander, Nathan. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges.
Jin, Ha. Waiting.
Johnston, Wayne. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.
Just, Ward. A Dangerous Friend.
Lee, Chang-rae. A Gesture Life.
Letham, Jonathan. Motherless Brooklyn.
Reuss, Frederick. Henry of Atlantic City.
1999
Anderson, Scott. Triage.
Anthony, Patricia. Flanders.
*Barrett, Andrea. The Voyage of the Narwhal.
Borges, Jorge Luis. Collected Fictions. Tr. by Andrew Hurley.
Byers, Michael. The Coast of Good Intentions.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of Bones.
Hornby, Nick. About a Boy.
McDermott, Alice. Charming Billy.
Moore, Lorrie. Birds of America.
Roth, Philip. I Married a Communist.
Vakil, Ardashir. Beach Boy.
1998
Alvarez, Julia. Yo! Atwood, Margaret. Alias Grace
Choy, Wayson. The Jade Peony
Deane, Seamus. Reading in the Dark
*Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain
Garcia, Cristina. Aguero Sisters
*Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Perota, Tom. The Wishbones
Smith, Lee. News of the Spirit
Stollman, Aryeh Lev. The Far Euphrates
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann. Blu’s Hanging
Miller’s book has been getting a lot of nice reviews from many media outlets and blogging companions. I’m not as enthusiastic as most.
The book is basically a retelling of The Iliad. Admittedly, I’ve never read the full version of the tale, but I have read several other retellings as my kids were nuts about mythology when they were growing up and we would read or listen to them together. If you’re familiar with the story, there isn’t much new here except for one thing, and that is the homosexual relationship between Patroclus and Achilles. The whole tale is told from that angle. Whereas The Iliad never expressly states this nature about their relationship, some scholars have inferred from their reading that this was so. However, others aren’t convinced; it is debated among scholarly circles today whether this was the case or they were just ‘bosom buddies.’ In addition, in The Iliad, Patroclus is clearly older than Achilles and not the same age, so there were some liberties taken there as well. Also, I didn’t find the writing to be that stellar. My thoughts echo the New York Times review almost exactly.
If this book hadn’t been shortlisted for the Orange Prize, I probably wouldn’t have read it. And the reason is that I’ve read so many retellings in the past it is high time I read the real thing. I’ve been going over different translations and I think I’m going to go with the Alexander Pope version. While not as literal as some of the more modern translations, it looks to be more in the spirit of Homer’s original because it rhymes. The Iliad and The Odyssey were orally passed down, and looking at Pope’s translation, it would seem the easiest one to memorize if one had to.
I do thank Madeline Miller for giving me the jump start to actually want to read the real tales themselves. For that I’m grateful.
2012, 369 pp.
FTC Disclosure: I obtained this book through my local public library.
"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)
