Sol Smith's Blog - Posts Tagged "pulitzer"
Pulitzer in Fiction
As you've probably gathered by now, the Pulitzer Prize announcements have been made and for the first time in over 30 years, there was no Pulitzer Prize in the Fiction category. What's wrong with them? Were there not enough novels published last year to garnish their attentions? I think that it's a dramatic undervaluing of the genre as a whole.
The statement that seems to have been made by this move is that Fiction isn't as worthy of our attentions as non-fiction or journalism. This is a notion that has existed for centuries: that if something actually happened, it's more important than if something didn't actually happen. When Defoe published Moll Flanders in 1721, it was said to have been an actual account of a living person. The same was said--amazingly--of Gulliver's Travels. Again, the idea being that the drama and relevance was all the more palpable to a reader if the story was "true."
We see this today in movies. The tagline "Based on a True Story" is only slightly less annoying than "Inspired by a True Story" in Moviedom. What great fictional work isn't inspired by Truth?
We seem to be obsessed with the idea that even songs are autobiographical. We want to know "who" this love song is about or what event inspired that song. As if musicians must live a life and translate it for us and not simply tell stories.
Fiction can often put Truth in a more dramatic, palpable, and inspiring light than can non-fiction. Fiction has the advantage of never having to tell a lie. No matter how imaginative or absurd a story is, if it touches you and moves you, it was Truth doing so.
But, evidently, fiction is below the honor and dignity of the Pulitzer committee--at least this year. I think that we fiction readers and writers have every right to feel a little put-off.
The statement that seems to have been made by this move is that Fiction isn't as worthy of our attentions as non-fiction or journalism. This is a notion that has existed for centuries: that if something actually happened, it's more important than if something didn't actually happen. When Defoe published Moll Flanders in 1721, it was said to have been an actual account of a living person. The same was said--amazingly--of Gulliver's Travels. Again, the idea being that the drama and relevance was all the more palpable to a reader if the story was "true."
We see this today in movies. The tagline "Based on a True Story" is only slightly less annoying than "Inspired by a True Story" in Moviedom. What great fictional work isn't inspired by Truth?
We seem to be obsessed with the idea that even songs are autobiographical. We want to know "who" this love song is about or what event inspired that song. As if musicians must live a life and translate it for us and not simply tell stories.
Fiction can often put Truth in a more dramatic, palpable, and inspiring light than can non-fiction. Fiction has the advantage of never having to tell a lie. No matter how imaginative or absurd a story is, if it touches you and moves you, it was Truth doing so.
But, evidently, fiction is below the honor and dignity of the Pulitzer committee--at least this year. I think that we fiction readers and writers have every right to feel a little put-off.
