The Pulitzer run has sputtered lately. Part of it may be my extreme busyness (although that’s a bit of an exaggeration), or it may just be that the quality of the materials has been wanting.
It took me a month to finish The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love because I (ironically) couldn’t get the rhythm of the book. It was just a jumbled mess of sexual conquests tied together by the fact that this guy was a Cuban in America during I Love Lucy’s heyday. Just uninteresting really, and that’s a tall order, considering Cuban culture is so vibrant.
Now I’m actually still reading House Made of Dawn, but apparently it’s a popular enough book that, if I don’t finish it by tomorrow, it gets kicked back to the library and I have to get back in line for it. I’m not going to. The best I can do is turn the wi-fi off on my Kindle and finish it offline (if it lets me). Three full weeks and I’m only about halfway through…and the whole book is only around 200 pages. I guess I can assuage my fears by thinking that if I ever do get into it, it won’t take too long to finish.
But I’ve taken this glitch as an opportunity to move on, and maybe I don’t even care if I get back to it any time soon — because it’s just another disappointment. Yes, it’s set in the mid-20th century American West and it follows the events of Native Americans — both settings and characters with which I’m quite fascinated. But Momaday is…well, he’s a great writer, and he’s not a great writer. His language is beautiful and descriptive, but his story-telling is just that: beautiful and descriptive language. I’m reading through the long sentences, and, unlike when I read the long sentences of Rushdie, I’m wondering where he’s going with it. Momaday isn’t telling a story, he’s describing events — with well-arranged words, but simple descriptions of events nonetheless. It’s disjointed and tiring. I’ll give him credit for the writing of the book, and even the ability to apparently impress the right people, but not much else. Sadly, House Made of Dawn will (probably) have to sit down there around Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead as one of the more uninteresting Pulitzer’s I’ve read.
But things may be looking up.
Knowing I had a long drive to the airport today, I checked out the audio version of the book I wanted to read after Mambo Kings but couldn’t get to because the library was closed: The Overstory, by Richard Powers, which won the Pulitzer in 2019. I was reluctant about it some months back because it looked like it might not be my style (you should know I love trees, but I’m not into the “Mother Earth” vibe I was getting from the dustjacket). Still, it was worth a shot. It was one of the few hard copy Pulitzers left close at hand, and I figured it couldn’t get much worse than the last two.
The Overstory is actually a collection of short stories, all (it seems, so far) containing a sub-story of a tree somewhere within. Returning from the airport, I listened to the first two, and was so impressed that when I got to base, I detoured through the (now open) library to pick up the book, and, having read a few lines of the next story, it may be the kind of book I’m looking for. Something well-written that I can see myself reading as I lounge on the couch in the sun with a cup of coffee on a chill autumn morning. I can’t say much more yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
And maybe I’ll get around to finishing House Made of Dawn too. I really don’t want to categorize it with The Executioner’s Song, the only Pulitzer I gave up reading and tossed in the digital trash less than half way through. I’ve got to finish it. The question is, when?