Bury My Heart

now finished: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
now reading: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

I owned a copy of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee for more than 15 years before reading it. Hence its place in "Project: Finally!" in which I have resolved to finally read over the course of 2013-14 the most nagging and lingering of all the books I've meant to read for years now. These aren't just books I've thought about reading here and there, but the ones that I've actively, totally, fervently meant to read, that I have touched or even owned, many of which I have started and read some of. These are the books that I know about and have engaged with and many, many, many times failed to read for some stupid reason. This project is about mending!

Would that the slaughter of the tribes that previously occupied the U.S.A. could be mended so easily.

It's not as if I can add anything to the tale of woeful history in which the U.S. manifested its destiny by slaughtering the previous occupants of the land. I will say, however, that this book presents the story in such a way that I felt really sad. And yeah, outraged, of course. Plenty of outrage. Of the if-not-you're-not-paying-attention variety. But even more sadness, the deepest, darkest, gut-punching sadness. Every time another leader tried to say, "Hey, we can live here and you can live here and we can all live here, but please let my people just live on this land without your soldiers attacking us" it hearkened back to the very first pages in which Christopher Columbus notes how polite the welcoming Taino Indians were, their manners "decorous and praiseworthy." Which prompted him to take all he could get. Nothin' but a G-G-G thang. Talk about your original gangsters. But don't gangsters actually respect their rivals' territory, maybe, at least a bit?

A few people did try, among them  John L. Webster, Judge Elmer S. Dundy, and Tom Jeffords, but there were so many assholes to contend with that the noble efforts of good people were but a tiny glimmer in a horrid, shadowy doom. Now, I'm a super proponent of "it's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." That's true, but many people didn't have even that much of a choice. So, so many people, especially Native peoples, were lighting their candles, only to be doused and darkened time and again by gold- and silver-hungry settlers, battle-hungry soldiers and officers who didn't have a living in the army if they didn't stir up shit, and general greedy destiny manifesters who told themselves Indians were savages.

Every time another massacre is about to happen in this book -- and yes, there are so, so many -- the dread creeps up again, and the reader just hopes against hope that this time someone will see reason, that someone will realize killing people they have just sworn to protect, including dozens of women and children, is a really bad idea, you know, morality-wise.

Alas, no.

This book made me so profoundly sad -- and I already knew some of this history! It's not as if it was a surprise, right. I've read I Will Fight No More Forever.  I grew up in Arizona. I know about Honor the Earth. I had thought and even ranted about loads of it before! I lived in Joseph City and I've been to Holbrook and know all about the Navajo, right?! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.  So pathetic that this is what passes for "knowing" this history. I lived on the edge of the reservation (you know, where the powers-that-be like to build power plants). I quoted passages from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee  in a college paper (without reading all of the book!) I'm a supporter of Native justice, so I totally knew all about what went on, right? Oh my dear gods, no. Those attitudes of "what can I do" + "hey, I'm on the right side, I've done something" are pretty dangerous. Especially if they prevent you from getting around to reading this book for fifteen years. Trust me, you can learn something from reading this book, no matter what you think you already know, and furthermore, you can feel something and experience something while reading this.

Then again, I really DON'T know what to do, even now that I've read it. For a long time I have wanted to get a job where I can even do something tiny and small to help right these wrongs and be better going forward. But what? How? Where?  etc. I really should have gone to law school at ASU. Fuck Hofstra's "international law" concentration; what a joke. I might add that I don't even know how to find my own Indian ancestry, which I always think about when I think about the deplorable behavior of the white folk in the 19th century. My great-great grandmother, the paternal grandmother of my paternal grandmother, hails from Quebec and was a "first nations" person, or whatever one calls this in Canada. See how pathetically little we know? Even my grandmother didn't know. Just knew that her grandmother was Indian, married into the family of Frenchies there in Quebec, and both of this ancestor's parents are recorded as French names in our records, without birthplaces even, so who knows who was French and who came from where. That's all we know. We don't even know what Indian nation she descended from, or who married or kidnapped whom. It bothers me that one's history can be so quickly erased and forgotten, whether on a personal level, or on the massive scale in which the U.S. army and settlers saw fit to eradicate entire tribes and nations and peoples and history in the Western U.S.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee should be required reading for everyone. (Is it required reading anywhere in school??) Yes, it will make you feel sad. You might have to pause and come back to it when it gets to be too much. But read it. Do.

He was a warmongering Nobel Peace Prize winner before warmongering Nobel Peace Prize winners were cool

recently finished: Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

This book, the third in Edmund Morris' fine trilogy depicting the life of Theodore Roosevelt, gives a reader the chance to ponder many important life questions, such as: Who have been the best among the 43 (yes, you read that right, 43) U.S. presidents? What makes a man or woman truly great?  and Why ever do we pronounce a word spelled co-lo-nel as "ker-nel"?

Well, like it or not, he is "the Colonel" through much of this third book, after the second volume about his presidency and the first about his pre-presidency life. Volume 1 won the Pulitzer and may be the best of the three in the eyes of many, but I think in the end I enjoyed Volume 3 as much if not more. Volume 2, oddly, was less interesting in a way. The actual stuff that went on during Theodore's (not Teddy!) presidency was fascinating, obviously, but it was as if Edmund had way too much source material to work with. He is at his best, I think, covering the less already documented portions of TR's life, because Edmund is a master of pulling together tidbits from the deepest archives and combining that with incredible feats of personal travel research to complete the portrait of his bio subject.

In Colonel Roosevelt, Theodore is out of the White House, where he has cajoled and coerced and manipulated my boy William H Taft into taking his place, although he ends up abandoning Taft in a totally rude and in my opinion avoidable falling out. Taft did not want to be there, and Theodore was an unnecessary jerk about it, and Taft even asked for TR's help, but Theodore was all high and mighty and hanging out with every king in Europe and, I daresay, realizing that he himself could in fact be president again in 1912, perhaps, and therefore he became unwilling to help Taft. So rude. Well, the plan failed. But it's a fascinating chapter in TR's life (and several chapters in the book).

The other highlights of Colonel Roosevelt are travel and war. Naturally, those are "highlights" in totally different ways, and only one because it happened. The other, clearly, is interesting to read about but in real life avoidable, although no one will ever learn, particularly not when they are giving the Nobel Peace Prize to warmongering presidents. This book starts with TR's amazing African safari hunt (the man is nothing if not bloodthirsty, despite his mid-life epiphany that he maybe shouldn't kill off all of the animals he would like to keep around for future generations) and I actually could have used a couple more of Edmund Morris' fabulously cute little maps that he (the author himself!) draws to show us TR's life journeys throughout the three volumes. Then, later in the book, we get yet another epic journey, again bringing his son along, this time to Brazil and uncharted areas of the Amazon rainforest to map a new river. (Not precisely "new" seeing as one of the animals in their party is felled by the arrows of Indians who may have never seen the white man before, but you know, new-to-the-Brazilian-English-Spanish-Portugese-United States-ian-etc.-maps kind of new. Unsurveyed.)  That there was one trip full of hardships, up to and including death, and also some of the most powerful bonding of human friendship to be found.

World War I is something I and many others should probably know more about. It was good to review the events leading up to it and the ways in which all of the parties (except Belgium! as TR rightly points out) were both partly justified and partly at fault in starting the giant, menacing debacle. There were some sane voices trying to solve problems in a better way, but there were also lots of voices like Theodore's, positively salivating to go to war (despite his being BFFs with the Kaiser and other Germans). Presidents Taft and  Woodrow Wilson both were interested in peace, and took major steps to try to have peace, but boy do I understand what a hard struggle that is in this violence-lusting world of ours. Quite honestly, Wilson might not have really taken the best approach, what with his whole kept-us-out-of-war being so U.S.-centered and all that it really doesn't help bring about world peace. I do wish Taft would have been able to get his world peace body of nations together, but alas, the world started slaughtering in new, ever more advanced technological ways, and TR packed off all of his sons to Europe to join the "fun." Or should I say doom?

As usual, a feeling of sadness came over me as I pushed through to the final chapters. All of my presidential bios end the same way! as I like to joke. I could see the end of TR's life approaching, so I poured a glass of wine to settle in for the demise. After three months and three books, I do know him well, and I commend Edmund for this remarkable achievement, although I still can't believe TR's sister got married in an endnote in volume 1 after her personal life, its intertwining with TR's, and her lack of marriage were major plot points for hundreds of pages before that. The endnotes are definitely something to grapple with in this bio series, almost at the Infinite Jest level. (OK, well, not quite.)  At any rate, if you're one of those who has often wondered just why the heck Theodore is carved on Mount Rushmore with those three other biggies, plunge into Edmund Morris' magnificent life's work about a life.  Overall: A -
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt: A -  Theodore Rex: B+  Colonel Roosevelt: A 

Tramplin' out that there vintage

now finished: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Fun Fact: John Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in the first published edition of The Grapes of Wrath. Upon receiving some galleys/proofs/something, he wrote his publisher or editor (I forget which) saying No, the whole thing! Print the whole song! It's relevant!

The Grapes of Wrath. An evocative phrase that says so much while being admirably just out of reach of those who don't want to think too much ever in figuring out what something means. Another Fun Fact: Steinbeck was slaving away on the novel and really trying to get its essence right and his dutiful wife (who typed his freaking manuscript - ugh! - but also made corrections and suggestions, so there's that) suggested the title! And then he rejoiced and was thankful and told his editor that Wife had come up with the genius title. Who knew?

OK, maybe some people knew. Just like maybe some people -- by which I of course mean "thousands upon thousands" -- knew all about how totally, incredibly awesome The Grapes of Wrath is. This is one of my finally-finally-dreadfully-late-to-the-party-finally books that defies all finally books.  Earlier this year, while the particular blog you are now reading was still taking its Great Firewall break, I posted elsewhere my list of Seriously-I-Have-Meant-to-Read-These-Forever books, which inspired me to get off my reading a** and go out and acquire one of them, and so I finally got The Grapes of Wrath, thus enabling me to check off a book on many a list: the Pulitzers, the Modern Library's Top 100, the Nobel winners, etc., and most importantly the oh-my-god-why-haven't-I-ever-read-this?! list.

One of the astonishingly good things about Grapes is that every time Ma or not-preacher Casy or Al or the couple they meet by the side of the highway or just about anyone in the book opens his or her mouth, you just get to ooze with delight at the wonderful things they say. How anyone's heart can not be warmed is beyond me.

Tragedy. Americana. One heck of a  road trip. Observations. Disaster. Avoidable disaster. Greed. Selflessness. Poverty. Compassion. Mistakes. Togetherness. The desire to be productive, which must be tempered by the equally important desire to not be wasteful. It's all in there.

Should I get spoilery on here?  The ending is something to behold, undoubtedly. I think for the moment I won't spoil, but I'll just say that it stunned me as it has stunned many a reader over the years. And I do mean the ending-ending, as in, the last paragraph. Perhaps I'll do a future, spoilery post about the ending.

Basically, I revamped my approach to life while reading this book. I now want to ask everyone I know to read it. If they haven't read it, I want to give them my copy that they might do so immediately if not sooner. If they have read it, I want to rejoice over it with them (and also maybe ask them why they never checked to make sure that I, too, had read it).

I think that if you have read it and don't like it, maybe you're kind of a jerk. I'm just sayin' ... It's just really, really enjoyable, while simultaneously being soul-crushingly devastating and heartwarming. How does he do that?!

And of course, the obligatory early 2000s comments: my, how history repeats itself! The more things change...! When will we ever learn?  And so forth.

Stop reading my blog and go read The Grapes of Wrath.  (But then come back here and we'll talk about it.)

When in Mexico...(or another Spanish-speaking/reading country)

now finished: El Paraíso en la otra esquina by Mario Vargas Llosa

So obviously I have had Mario Vargas Llosa on my to-read radar (to-readar?) for a while. He's all famous and literary and won the Nobel Prize and stuff, so eventually I would get around to him. But then we showed up in Querétaro and right away I found a book group and they were meeting, like, ten days after I arrived, but hey--why not? I headed to a little bookstore here in the Centro Histórico and picked up a copy of El Paraíso en la otra esquina (translated as The Way to Paradise, more on that in a sec) and plunged into my first Vargas Llosa -- en español! 

Now, I have read quite a few books in Spanish, but mostly young adult books.  I also occasionally read Spanish newspapers. This was kind of a jump in difficulty level, but actually, I could do it! I love reading in a foreign language and I have long since (we're talking decades) known that the way to go about it is not to keep a dictionary there and look up every single word you come across that isn't "Hola" or "agua" or "isla." Just like when you acquire language naturally as a child, you learn things from context and there are many times when at first I am not quite sure what a sentence says, but I read the entire paragraph and then go back and read the paragraph again and the second (or sometimes third) time through it dawns on me. It's as if you can actually feel your brain acquiring language. I love language. This is part of why I enjoy ESL teaching -- and writing, and reading -- language is magical. If humans contributed nothing else to this planet (and at times, this is a premise worth considering), then what we've done with languages is enough to fascinate the eternal universe, I say. 


OK, so back to Vargas Llosa. Famous, always meant to get around to reading him, now I have. They say (I know, who are "they"?) that he's "right-wing" now. I didn't see it in this novel; instead, what I saw was a really fun cynicism about lots of different people in society, with a bit about the seemingly futile struggle to free and liberate the oppressed and also a few sharp jabs at the very wealthy who feel oh-so-entitled to all that they have. 

And then there's Gauguin. El Paraíso en la otra esquina tells the stories of two people, in alternating chapters: painter Paul Gauguin and his quest to find paradise and a return to the "natural" Eden-like state of humanity, notably in Tahiti, where he paints masterpieces but also "marries" several 14-year-old girls, and Flora Tristán, the grandmother of Gauguin, who travels in France, England, and Peru during the 1830s and 1840s trying to raise the consciousness of workers and to unite women and other oppressed classes in a struggle to be free. Also: she realizes that sex doesn't have to suck (as it did with her husband) when she has a wonderful affair with a woman. This book is very sexy, at times. Politics and art and sex. What more do you need? And as a bonus, there are religious hypocrites. Sometimes Flora gets into it with them: priests, rich bosses who exploit their workers, grande dames of society, and the like. "Dedicar nuestras vidas a ejercer la caridad," some rich women tell her, to which she replies, "No, ustedes no practican la caridad. Distribuyen limosnas, que es muy distinto." (-p.64 of ISBN 978-607-11-0763-3)

I think it's great. Gauguin is a jerk when it comes to the way he treats some people (for example: females) but he is a fascinating character, and that's what we ask for in a novel, no? Also, you can relate to him if you're an artist and traveler, so I was definitely hooked even though I knew his struggle to find paradise was doomed to be doomed. The title refers to a children's game that the real life Gauguin likely played in Peru where the kids ask for paradise and are directed to the other corner (does anyone know this game in real life? and I'm trying to figure out if there is a comparable game anyone I know in the U.S. played?) and for this reason it bothers me that the English title is translated as "The Way to Paradise." Although that captures, for the most part, the quests of Paul Gauguin and Flora Tristán, it doesn't really capture the way the game is invoked, described, and revisited at the end of the book to come thematically full circle. Why can't titles just be translated literally?! I don't mean translated literally when the word-for-word translation does not evoke the idea, but I mean translated without creating a new meaning. (See also: my rant about Men Who Hate Women with Dragon Tattoos.)


This book also really made me want to go to Peru. I wanted to go there anyway, but this ratcheted it up a few notches.I think it was helpful for my Spanish for me to plunge into a book in Spanish during my first month in Mexico. I still need to read, speak, and write more in Spanish -- a lot  more -- but this was a good kick-start. And I will definitely be reading more Vargas Llosa in the future. The to-readar grows ever more crowded!
Final grade: A-  (Because I'm such a hard grader. It could be an A, maybe. I'll see how it compares to other Vargas Llosa books and then decide for sure.)

The beauty of Tinkers

now finished: Tinkers by Paul Harding

I've caught up on another Pulitzer winning novel, and this one is small and wonderful. Most summaries say something like, "A dying man thinks back on his life" and while that is true that is not the entirety of this work. I think the real magic in Tinkers is the way that two stories are told, of two different men, and yet you slowly come to realize how connected we all are, even when separated, and how much our stories are part of one another's stories.

Also, the Maine setting works painfully perfectly for this novel. It, too, is vivid and magical. And so literary! And, yes, a wee bit mournful, I'd say:


"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? ...And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough. - p. 72

There are several surprising, delightful moments, like when Russell the Cat makes an appearance. I immediately loved Russell the Cat, and remember him well, brief though his time was on the Tinkers stage:

"The children were astonished by the ham that Kathleen had cooked for the Christmas meal. It was the largest they had ever seen. It was covered in a crust of brown sugar and molasses. Buddy the Dog sat at attention, as if recommending himself to the ham over the children by his proper manners. Kathleen shooed him with a kick in the ribs, but he just let out a yelp and stayed put. Russell the Cat came into the room, too, and sat facing the wall, away from the table, cleaning his paws, as if an affectation of utter disinterest might be the trick to getting a scrap." - p.83

Why did the Bellevue Press publish this book? In part, this is a story about epilepsy. In part, it is about humanity.  It is about what it means to work, to feel, and to make a life. In part, it is about what it means to be mentally ill and the judgments we freely cast on one another.

"Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools?" - p. 124

When I used to review advance reader copies as a Borders front-of-store person, the cards I filled out for the Random House rep asked me to compare the book to another work. (This, to get the bookseller thinking about recommending it to readers, obvio.) I think Tinkers feels a bit like "The Little Match Girl."

Also, when you read Tinkers you will learn about clocks. And you will like doing so.

The Island of the Day Before

now finished: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco was one of the sure bets in my A-to-Z Literary Blog Project to make the top half, in which I am revisiting my top 13 authors by reading another book of theirs. The book I read for 'E' is for Eco during the original project, The Name of the Rose, was so perfectly what I expected it to be -- including interesting and good, along with much more -- that I became convinced he would continue to be perfectly what I expected of him in his other works. I had always thought I'd read Foucault's Pendulum  next, it being so "the other book by Umberto Eco" famous and all, and I've even touched it many a time, but instead I am in hanging out in Phoenix and my local branch of the library had The Island of the Day Before on the shelf and I was there and could have put a request for the Pendulum to be transferred from another branch but The Island of the Day Before was about a man shipwrecked on a ship, and it was blue...so blue...I like blue things...

OK, so this was a strange book.

I can truly appreciate the Goodreads reviewer who referred to its "150 page screening process to weed out the unworthy."  I really did not know what was happening for quite some time and I wasn't sure if I was enjoying the book at all, but it ends up getting kind of trippy and good, at least in parts.

I know, I know, it doesn't sound like a very enthusiastic recommendation, and there are so many of you who are all like, "I ain't gonna work to read a book" and that's fine, just go on back to your Hunger Games, now, really. Run along. Umberto Eco melds philosophy and whimsy and wink-wink cleverness and social criticism and story and literary allusions (including to himself) and some weirdness and some history and god knows what all else. There is no "OMG I literally hunger for these games" here.

Sometimes The Island of the Day Before is straightforwardly clever, such as when Roberto della Griva's father advises him, "Well, war's an ugly animal, that's sure. Anyway, my son, never forget: always be good, but if somebody comes at you and means to kill you, then he's in the wrong. Am I right?" - p. 51 

Sometimes it's wry:  "He was now so sure an Intruder was on board that his first thought was this: Finally he had proof he was not drunk. Which is, after all, the proof drunks constantly seek." - p. 200

Sometimes there's a kind of winking sympathy directed at the reader: "We could say that Roberto had definitely lost his mind, and with very good reason; no matter how he calculated, the figures would not add up. The paradoxes of time can indeed unhinge us." -p. 338   This basically sums up the experience of the main character and yet also the reader of the book.

I personally think the book became excellent when he started philosophizing with Father Caspar about religion, swimming, the universe, and so on.

And really, who else but Umberto Eco could use the word "hircocervi"? I mean, sure, he wrote in Italian and the translator used the word "hircocervi," but the Italian could very well be the same, and I'm sure you get my larger point. Who writes about hircocervi, mentioned in a passing metaphor? Umberto Eco, that's who.

Have I mentioned that the ship on which Roberto della Griva is shipwrecked, as well as the island he can see but can't swim to, as well as the story he is writing, as well as a few other things are these incredibly layered metaphors?  Have I mentioned that "the day before" refers to the international date line, which thoroughly trips out our hero Roberto, as he thinks about the ramifications of swimming to yesterday?  Have you ever thought about how central figuring out longitude calculations can be to life on Earth as we know it?  These days, we see how nuts some religious folks can be about evolutionary biology, dinosaurs, and prayer before football games. I thought about that as our characters grappled with what longitude says about papal conceptions of Earth's place in the universe, and as they matter-of-factly discoursed on whether God created infinite worlds and the meaning of atoms, The Void, and all being essentially being nothing.
 
Some books are easy to talk about. This isn't one of them. I enthusiastically recommend this book, but unlike The Name of the Rose, the list of  people to whom I'd recommend this one is pretty small.

Page numbers I cited are from ISBN 0-14-0259198

Everlasting: Then and Now

just re-read: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Anyone who was in Mrs. Muscato's SAGE reading class at Sunrise Elementary undoubtedly remembers the "Good Books" quarterly(?) book report projects. Each student read a different book and completed an extensive report/questions/activities, and then for the next go-round selected a different book, which might be the one a friend had read the previous quarter, or the one a different friend would read the next quarter, or even the next school year, as SAGE students attended SAGE Reading from third through sixth grades. The rotating list of titles included loads of classics: A Wrinkle in Time, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Witch at Blackbird Pond, My Brother Sam Is Dead, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, etc., and we were all aware of which ones our classmates were reading. I never got around to some of the books, such as A Separate Peace, although I read that later in life. Everyone did Bridge to Terabithia at some point in SAGE; that was sort of the all-around acclaimed favorite. "It's soooo good!!" we would gush to one another when we were on our Terabithia rotation. But I had a secret, at ten years old: I liked Tuck Everlasting more.

Not everyone cycled through Tuck Everlasting; it was a bit more obscure of a choice. I remember being drawn to it and feeling a sense of calmness in its pages, a depth. Occasionally when I worked at Borders during my twenties I spied a copy of it in the children's section and was glad to know it was still around. I noticed when the movie was made a while back, but I didn't go see it -- the vivid image from my childhood reading was still sufficient in my mind. Last week, as I strolled through the Phoenix Public Library looking for something else, I noticed the book on a shelf and picked it up, wondering if I would like it as much now as I did 25 years ago. I stood there and started reading.

I ended up checking it out of course, to bring home and savor again.

There's a mention early in chapter one of the wood that belongs to the Fosters. "The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it," the narration tells us. "How deep after all can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down...Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing?"

Interesting, I thought, standing there in the library children's section. This is how I think.

I began remembering how philosophical Tuck Everlasting is. Then, Winnie starts talking to the toad, and I remembered the toad. I remembered that the toad was significant --significant enough, as I recall, that there was a question about him in the Good Books set of activity questions.

When I got home from the library, I lay on the couch and quickly devoured the book, relating once again to the part where Winnie doesn't want to keep the fish they catch so they throw it back, remembering the house and the pond and the man in the yellow suit and the sheriff, reliving the jail switcheroo late in the book, Jesse's offer, and the fate of the toad.

At our ten-year high school reunion, a friend of mine observed that while people had changed quite a bit since high school in many ways, there was something about the essence of a person that remained the same, recognizable, an inner something that was still just them. There is some Linda-ness in me that was in me at age nine that is still in me in my thirties. This book, with its profound message and big philosophical questions and somewhat earthy-crunchy/somewhat atheist sensibility, spoke to that Lindaness then -- before I even knew how much those things were a part of my Lindaness -- and still speaks to that Lindaness now. 

I guess my love for Tuck Everlasting is...well...everlasting!

And the Pulitzer goes to ... nobody!

As I'm sure we all know, the Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday. Wait, you mean everyone else didn't have the announcement in their Google Calendar for months? OK, fine, I may be slightly  more interested in the Pulitzers than some most other people, but yesterday there really was something interesting for those of us who like to read a good ol' Pulitzer-winning novel now and again: no Fiction award this year!

The last time this happened for the Fiction category was 1977. In fact, it happened for Fiction three times during the 70s!  It happens from time to time in most categories. I was intrigued to note that there has been No Award only once each for Poetry and Biography as opposed to the multiple No Award years for other Letters and Drama categories. Anyway, since I have known and loved many a Pulitzer-winning novel, I thought I would offer my totally unsolicited recommendations to those of you who were ready to rush out to your local bookstore/library to pick up a copy of this year's winner, only to find there was no winner. Here are...

Linda's 10 Pulitzer Fiction Books To Read Instead of This Year's Non-Existent Winner (Pulitzer award year is in parentheses)

1. His Family by Ernest Poole (1918)
   This was the first one, awarded in 1918 (note: there was no Fiction award in 1917, the first year of the Pulitzer Prizes!) His Family went out of print and few people remember Ernest, who wrote some other acclaimed novels as well. I consider this a little-known gem, especially for people who like or have lived in New York City and want a taste of its old days -- the city has always been filled with immigrants, financiers, do-gooders, and bright-yet-obnoxious young people (even if they weren't called hipsters yet). This book also speaks to a changing nation faced with war and a new generation that will surely do things better than the old generation did -- right?
2. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1919)
   Another early winner, awarded in 1919, that looks at the progress of a nation's people and their shifting political and financial fates, this time in the Midwest. The younger Amberson with his sense of entitlement from his "great" family kind of reminds me of Dubya.
3. So Big by Edna Ferber (1925)
   Edna Ferber is a truly underrated writer. She's vaguely "famous" but really not pushed on anyone in the academic canon, and most young people probably just tune out at the name Edna. Big mistake. (Your great-grandchildren will do the same thing with "Britney" and "Jaden," you know.) Any book of Edna's you pick up is a good choice (Giant, Cimarron, and Showboat, to name a few) but why not start with So Big, which won the Pulitzer and may be of particular interest to my readers in Chicago, Iowa, Michigan and environs?
4. Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1926)
   Our hero has some flaws in this one, but his journey is interesting, and the ending made me cheer - out loud and everything! Awarded in 1926, this is one of those books that makes you realize people have always just been people and we have hopes and dreams and fears in common with our peeps of previous generations.
5. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1947)
   Dude, you think politicians are messed up now? Well, I mean, they are. But they were messed up in 1947, too, when this book won the Pulitzer, as they were in the 1930s when the events in Louisiana that may (or may not) have inspired this novel transpired. Very well written!
6. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953)
   For those of you who want to check a winner off your to-do list quickly, head for this novel. I think it goes by pretty fast, unlike some other Hemingway works I could mention *cough* set in the Spanish Civil War *cough* and plus it's got the Cuba connection! And it's the eternal struggle of man versus nature! And yet it's so much more! And so on.
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee  (1961)
   Because seriously, if you haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird by now, you are just not caught up on one of the best, most essential works of the 20th century.
8. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1986)
   This is one of my favorite books ever. It's a big one, but well worth it. It immerses you in a world with wonderful characters and unparalleled achievement in storytelling, plus snakebites and campfires and prostitutes and sweeping vistas that are evoked by the stellar writing. I know that a lot of people think, "Lonesome Dove?" as they wrinkle their noses and recall fleeting images of the 80s mini-series and Robert Duvall in a cowboy hat. The answer is: yes. Lonesome-freakin'-Dove. AMAZING.
9. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1994)
   I think people are divided on this one, but I love it. It's all so gray and cold and psychologically dark, up there in the northeast U.S. and Newfoundland, and there is so much that haunts the characters and, naturally, the reader. Bonus points: the protagonist is named Quoyle. Cool name.
10. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007)
    I'm totally with Oprah here. Yeah, it's got the whole depressing apocalypse thing going on, but it's a fantastic choice for everyone because although it's grisly at times, it's the story of a father and son and the choices of humanity. The writing style is such that it moves quickly, but that's only one reason I couldn't put it down. And yes, you just might cry at the end, if you (and humanity) have a soul.

There now. Just because the Fiction jury consisting of Maureen Corrigan (whom I love listening to on Fresh Air) and Michael Cunningham (whom I love reading and even meeting in real life) and Susan Larson (whoever that is) didn't find any Pulitzer-worthy fiction that was published in 2011, you still have choices.

And may I suggest that to obtain these books you either a.)get a library card  or b.)visit an independently owned bookstore?  Happy reading!

Actually, you really should touch that rope-yarn

now re-re-re-reading: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Oh, Ahab. Oh my.

Ahab, Ahab, Ahab, my friend. You had me - you really did. You were tough, and surly, and kind of dark, but you really had me. I could totally dig your ferocity, your dedication, and your commitment to a quest. I kind of liked your brooding, mysterious ways. I really liked how much you knew about the ocean, and whaling, and the fun characters from islands all over the place who peopled your ship. I was even a bit jealous of the way you had spent most of your life traveling the world instead of languishing in Nantucket.

But now - now being p. 579 in my edition - you have lost me. With your despicable "Touch not a rope-yarn!" you sent Captain Gardiner on his way and refused to help him look for the lost boat with his 12-year-old son. Sure, sure, them's the breaks in this whaling industry. Captain Gardiner knows it, too, and was tough enough to bring his son along and teach him the ways. And who knows? Maybe they will find the missing sailors even without you and the Pequod. But Ahab! You even said it: now you have to forgive yourself. While a bird of prey swoops in to snatch your hat and drop it in the sea.

You are so totally doomed, old man.