This year’s National Book Awards judges reached their decisions with an order and decorum sadly lacking in the nation’s presidential election, but when it comes to literary prizes, appearances can be deceiving. Awards like the NBA, the Pulitzer, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, Britain’s Booker Prize and the ultimate laurel, the Nobel, seem, to the average reader, like authoritative badges of literary quality. A shiny medallion-shaped sticker, stamped with the word “winner,” affixed to the otherwise enigmatic cover of a new novel, has a formidable power to sell books — sometimes thousands of them. But what do these prizes really mean? How are they chosen, and which of them, if any, is the most reliable?
Let’s start at the top: the Nobel Prize for literature, universally considered the most prestigious award a writer can attain — but why? According to Burton Feldman, author of the new book “The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy and Prestige,” the literary Nobel owes most of its Olympian aura to its sister prizes in physics, chemistry and medicine. “The science juries have long chosen far more impressive laureates than have the literary judges. Planck, Rutherford, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac, Pauling, Crick and Watson, Feynman — a steady procession of greatness or the nearest equivalent.” By contrast, the early Nobels in literature went to a parade of now-forgotten authors while — as Nobel-watchers love to point out — the likes of Leo Tolstoy, Bertolt Brecht, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka went unhonored.
The reason for these omissions lies in the administration of the awards. The winner is chosen by the 18 members of the Swedish Academy, an organization founded in 1786 by King Gustaf III in order to work for the “purity, vigour and majesty” of the Swedish language. Alfred Nobel, who in 1900 willed his considerable fortune (mostly earned through the invention of dynamite and the manufacture of munitions) to the foundation of the prizes, chose this unlikely body of scholars as the arbiters of the literature honor. At the time, the academy was nearly moribund, but it’s never been a font of youthful, or even middle-aged, vigor. Members serve for life, have always tended to be elderly and in the beginning set themselves firmly against the upstart writers of the 20th century. You can pretty much write off the first 20 years of winners, a disproportionate number of which were Swedish or Scandinavian.
Today, the academicians are still mostly old men, some of whom wearily, and publicly, long for retirement. Two others — Kerstin Ekman and Lars Gyllensten, have boycotted the meetings since 1989 to protest academy secretary Sture Allen’s refusal to allow the body as a whole to denounce Iran’s fatwah on Salman Rushdie. Literature professor Knut Ahnlund is also boycotting the proceedings until Allen is replaced, and has accused the secretary of hogging a spot on every committee. Allen does seem to be a flashpoint: Unnamed academicians described him to New Yorker contributor Michael Specter as “an intellectual accountant” and as someone “who doesn’t even read.”
This year, however, another academy member suffered the spotlight, as critics called attention to Goram Malmqvist’s stake in the career of the 2000 winner of the literature Nobel, Gao Xingjian. As Gao’s Swedish translator, the retired professor of Chinese language and literature helped negotiate Gao’s switch to a new Swedish publisher, abandoning one that Malmqvist deemed hadn’t done enough to promote the Chinese writer’s work. The problem is, he did this before the 2000 literature Nobel was announced, which suggests that Malmqvist had leaked the top-secret identity of the laureate before its official announcement in order to interest the new publisher.
All this infighting and scandal doesn’t seem to tarnish the Nobel’s luster much, though. Most observers see a greater danger in the possibility that the prize will come to seem irrelevant. As the academy struggles to make up for an early history of ignoring those who write in non-European languages, the winners tend to be unfamiliar to Western readers and not immediately available in translation — which tends to dampen the excitement. “I don’t know anyone who takes Nobel seriously,” says Newsweek book critic David Gates. “It’s obvious that the committee’s outlook is very global and very politically correct. I always assume it’s someone I’ve never heard of who is only marginally in English translation. Toni Morrison was a good choice, the ideal Nobel laureate: high profile, politically OK and a good writer.” Charles McGrath, editor of the New York Times Book Review, feels the prize has become a less entertaining spectacle: “You can’t dope it out anymore at all. Now it’s just a great mystery.”
For American readers, the second tier of literary awards belongs to the Pulitzer and the National Book Award. Publishing insiders differ on which is the most desirable, though most say they’d be happy to see a book they wrote, edited or published get either one. Tell that to Sinclair Lewis, who refused the Pulitzer awarded to his 1925 novel “Arrowsmith.” The reasons Lewis gave were lofty — “All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous,” he declared, comparing the administrators of the Pulitzers to a potential “supreme court” or “college of cardinals.” He urged writers to regularly refuse the Pulitzer as the only way to “keep such a power from being permanently set up over them.”
In reality, Lewis had been harboring a grudge against the Pulitzers ever since his novel “Main Street,” strongly recommended by the Pulitzer’s fiction jury in 1920, got the kibosh from the Pulitzer Advisory Board in favor of Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence.” The wisdom of the board’s choice may seem obvious now, but once again appearances deceive. Then-president Nicholas Murray Butler had actually altered the mandate for the novel prize as it was specified in Hungarian-born U.S. publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s 1904 will. Pulitzer specified that the prize be given to a novel that would represent “the whole atmosphere of American life”; Butler made the “slight” amendment of changing the word “whole” to “wholesome.” (That word has since been changed back to “whole.”) There was a definite strain of decency crusading in the early incarnations of the Pulitzer board, causing critic Malcolm Cowley to dub the prize the “Mid-Victoria Cross.” Lewis’ fictional attack on small-town American mores was considered insufficiently “wholesome.” The author’s own fastidious objections to literary prizes did not extend to the Nobel, which he accepted four years later.
The prize for fiction has always been the most controversial of the Pulitzers; a nonfiction book can be judged on the depth of its research and other quantifiable matters, but imaginative art eludes measuring-stick evaluations. The postmodern novelist William Gass denounced the Pulitzer in a notoriously dyspeptic 1985 essay, charging that the prize “takes dead aim at mediocrity and almost never misses,” and complaining that it caters to “a large, affluent, mildly educated middle class which has fundamentally the same tastes as the popular culture it grew up with, yet with pretensions to something more, something higher, something better suited to its half-opened eyes and spongy mind.” Although Gass’ jeremiad prompted immediate cries of sour grapes, it’s true that the Pulitzer is seen as the most middlebrow American literary prize.
The most important thing readers should keep in mind about the Pulitzer Prize is that it’s awarded by a board of journalists, and that journalism is the primary focus of the Pulitzer Prizes. Some publishers feel that the Pulitzer gets better publicity than the NBA because when the prizes are announced, they make the front page of newspapers nationwide. True, but many newspapers (including last year’s New York Times) don’t list the winners of the letters prizes (fiction, nonfiction, American history, autobiography or biography and poetry) on the front pages with the winners for feature writing and beat reporting — they wind up relegated to the back of the paper, on the “jump” page. The press may be Pulitzer-crazy, but they’re mostly interested in the awards they’re eligible for themselves.
Three-member Pulitzer juries are appointed annually to each letters category, and the juries — usually a mix of critics, academics and authors — recommend three candidates to the board, which is made up of newspaper editors and journalism professors; the board makes the final choice. The fiction jury and the board often haven’t seen eye to eye, though it’s hard to say who’s got a better record for picking real winners. In 1941, the board rejected all three unmemorable titles recommended by the jury in favor of Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which the chair of the jury had faulted for “a style so mannered and eccentric as to be frequently absurd.” In 1974, a jury of formidable literary cred — Elizabeth Hardwick, Alfred Kazin and Benjamin DeMott — enthusiastically endorsed Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow,” but the board hated the book so much they decided not to award a prize at all that year. So, a rule of thumb: The journalism-oriented Pulitzer Board shows much better judgment when the novelist in question writes like a journalist.
The 1974 National Book Award, however, did go to “Gravity’s Rainbow” (though Pynchon shared the prize with Nobelist Isaac Bashevis Singer). By contrast, the NBAs are judged by five-member panels composed of writers who practice the art in question: Fiction writers judge the fiction prize, children’s books authors pick the best kid’s book, etc. While the NBA isn’t as readily recognized outside the book business as the Pulitzer is, the award is, according to Bill Thomas, editor in chief of Doubleday, “an industry badge of honor.” In a ceremony held annually in early November, publishers and literary journalists gather for a black-tie dinner and ceremony in Manhattan. “It’s smart of the NBA to do that,” says David Gates. “The NBAs are very show biz, like the Academy Award. The Pulitzer is more along the Nobel line, chosen in deepest secrecy, and the word comes down from on high.” (Gates has served as a Pulitzer juror.)
The National Book Award was launched 51 years ago by a “consortium of publishing groups” (according to the National Book Foundation, which now administers the awards). Rebecca Sinkler, former editor of the New York Times Book Review and a veteran Pulitzer juror, recalls that the initial incarnation of the NBAs wasn’t impressive: “It seemed more commercial. It started off being run by publishers, and in the early years they gave about 500 prizes and every book in the world got a prize. Journalists thought it was a way to stamp ‘National Book Award winner’ on every book you could sell. But they cleaned that up. The last few years they seem almost the same as the Pulitzer.” The nonprofit National Book Foundation was formed to run the awards along with other literacy programs in 1989, and the current executive director, Neil Baldwin, was brought on in part to help lift the awards’ profile and make the annual ceremony a glittering event.
Morgan Entrekin, publisher of Grove Press, thinks the NBA fiction prize carries slightly more weight than the Pulitzer’s, although the Pulitzer counts more when it comes to nonfiction. Many feel that the NBA’s judging panel of fellow fiction authors makes for more “literary” and “surprising” winners. David Kipen, book review editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, says, “The Pulitzer is judged and approved by journalists, who tend to be smart people and unimpeachable in their opinions on journalists and critics, but when it comes to the writing of fiction or poetry I’m a little more skeptical about them than I would of the National Book Foundation.”
Others wonder if fiction writers really make the best judges of each other’s work. “They all know each other and have reviewed each other,” says Sinkler, who also notes that the Pulitzer jurors remain anonymous until the prizes are announced, and thereby free of outside pressures, while the names of NBA judges are made public. “Editors have a set of fairly objective standards — it’s part of the job. There’s so much unconscious stuff going on when you’re competing.” Percival Everett, a novelist who served as an NBA judge in 1997, found the experience frustrating — and irresistible material for his forthcoming novel. He feels the winner that year, Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain,” deserved to win “given the other finalists, but as good as it might be it doesn’t represent a work that was clearly superior to other books that weren’t finalists.” Getting to that list of finalists meant negotiating with authors who didn’t fully grasp their responsibility. “One judge, who I won’t name, actually said that a certain book should be a finalist because ‘the author is a friend of mine and just got a bad review in the New York Times and this will make my friend feel better.’”
Many book editors say they prefer the National Book Critics’ Circle awards to either of the Big Two. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of the NBCC and participate in judging the winners.) “The judges have better taste, or at least theirs are closer to my sensibility,” says Nan Talese, editor of Nan Talese Books. For Entrekin, though the NBCC is lower profile, “It’s a more discerning group of judges. As conscientious as the other awards’ judges may be, I can’t believe they have time to read with the depth of critics every year. The NBCC are professionals. It’s their profession to follow what’s going on, so it’s a more esoteric, refined award.”
But David Ulin, an NBCC board member, sounded a cautionary note about the awards in a 1999 essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education. “We in the judging business rely on each other to fill the gaps in our own reading, using the awards panel as a kind of giant collective mind … Unfortunately, though, that approach can fail us. A few years ago, one major novel went disregarded because almost nobody had read it.” When the group of 24 NBCC board members meets, as Kipen puts it, “A hell of a lot depends on a judge’s powers of persuasion,” in convincing the rest of the board to put a title on the short list.
Everybody, though, seems to relish Britain’s Booker Prize, whether or not they consider the winner to be “the best novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland” that year. “The Booker is my favorite in some ways because it’s the wackiest, the most contentious,” says McGrath. “The judges will publicly get up and deride each other, and the other great thing is that the British can bet on it. If we could once a year legalize gambling, that would be great, then people would actually have to read these books.” Booker judges have made headlines with such high jinks as drunkenly admitting at the celebratory dinner to never having read either James Joyce or Proust (Richard Cobb); pronouncing that all modern novels are essentially worthless (John Bayley); neglecting to mention that one of the novels on the “long short list” was written by his wife (James Wood); resigning to protest the sexual explicitness in novels in general (Malcolm Muggeridge); declaring the winner an unreadable “disgrace” (Rabbi Julia Neuberger); and being a television personality (this year’s Mariella Frostrup).
British literary culture is notoriously more rambunctious and feud-ridden than its American counterpart, and as a result, more entertaining, so the public takes more notice. As Kipen says of the Booker, “It’s covered live on TV, it’s a holiday for books. It’s just such a carnival. This is what the NBA should be like.” Surely the bookmakers and their famous prognostications on each short-listed title’s odds provide incentive for everyone to watch the awards closely, but it’s the overall gusto of the Booker that makes America’s literati gaze so wistfully across the pond.
Although its plethora of smaller literary awards is nothing compared to the prize-giving frenzy lamented by French readers, the United States does have its share of what Gates calls “mystery meat” prizes. PEN, a writers’ organization, sponsors no less than 17 different awards, for categories as discreet as “a woman writer early in her career, at work on a book of general nonfiction marked by high literary quality.” The two best-known PEN awards — the PEN/Faulkner (for fiction) and the PEN/Hemingway (for first fiction) — have struck me as something of a crap shoot, with the winners as likely to be tedious as riveting, but Everett, who has judged for the PEN/Faulkner, prefers it to the NBA because “the lack of an entry fee meant that many more presses were able to submit work for consideration. Once you’re reading 400 or 500 novels in a stretch of time, what’s another 100?”
If I had to pick one prize to watch, it wouldn’t be any of these, though. It would be the remarkably low-profile annual Whiting Awards, in which prizes of $35,000 are given to “emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise” (including fiction and nonfiction writers, as well as poets and playwrights). The Whiting selection committee, “a small anonymous group of recognized writers, literary scholars, and editors, appointed annually” by the Mrs. Giles Foundation, has the tricky task of picking the writers who are just about to do great work. So far, they’ve got a fine record, spotting Michael Cunningham, Mary Karr, Kent Haruf, Alice McDermott, Stanley Crouch, David Foster Wallace, Mona Simpson, Tony Kushner, Denis Johnson and Jorie Graham, and many more before any of these came to national prominence. Do they have a Web site? Alas, no, but watch for a tiny item proclaiming the Whiting winners in the New York Times each October, and you’ll be reading the future winners, and should-be winners, of Pulitzers and National Book Awards before the judges themselves.
What is the purpose of literary prizes and how do we determine the excellence of a book? Those two questions have been cropping up a lot lately, from discussion of the National Book Award in the U.S. to the unfolding kerfuffle over the Booker Prize in the U.K.
Booksellers often say that the Booker has more credibility with American readers than the NBA, citing a track record that includes Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi,” Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things” and A.S. Byatt’s “Possession” as titles introduced to an enthusiastic stateside readership during the prize’s 43-year history. Chosen by a panel with varied backgrounds (scholars, novelists, critics, booksellers and the occasional broadcaster), the Booker shortlist tends to be a blend of acclaimed and relatively undiscovered works that many Britons (and quite a few Americans) make a habit of reading in its entirety.
This year is a particularly contentious one, with the panel chairwoman, Dame Stella Rimington (a former director of MI5 and author of spy novels), announcing that the judges prioritized accessibility: “We want people to buy these books and read them, not buy them and admire them.” Another judge said a book had to “zip along” to make the cut. Like the typical NBA short list, the 2011 Booker shortlist includes mostly little-known titles, but this time the complaint is that the criteria used were too “populist” and that more “challenging” titles by bigger names were neglected. (On Wednesday, Julian Barnes won for his novel “The Sense of an Ending.”)
To make the dispute even more confusing, the “challenging” title most often noted as an omission from the Booker shortlist, Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child,” has been shortlisted for the Galaxy Prize, which is dedicated to “books with wide popular appeal, critical acclaim and commercial success.” Furthermore, in response to what they regard as the creeping lowbrowism of the Booker, a group of malcontents, led by literary agent Andrew Kidd, is floating the idea of an alternative, to be called the Literature Prize, for novels that are “unsurpassed in their quality and ambition” without regard to popular appeal.
So it’s no wonder that all of this (and a commentary I wrote last week on the NBA shortlist) prompted author and academic Anne Trubek to write a blog post complaining that no one sufficiently explains “upon which criteria are the novels being judged … What makes a masterpiece? Are there objective grounds or is it relative? What role do race, gender, etc. etc. play in which literary works are elevated to the ranks of the great? Who gets to make those decisions? Which formal attributes are lionized over others? (difficulty = good; sentimentality = bad).”
Trubek then goes on to recall a conversation with a friend on the board of the National Book Critics Circle who was ruminating over a possible nominee for that organization’s annual fiction prize. The friend ultimately decided against the book because it lacked memorable characters, which Trubek immediately seized upon (at last!) as a definite criterion. If we all agreed that what distinguishes a great novel is great characters, she writes, we could really get down to work. (Although without Trubek, who notes, “memorable characters do not, for me, make a great novel.”)
Of course, not all novels are about character — take, for example, David Markson’s “Reader’s Block,” a book we put on Salon’s best-of-the-year list back in 1996. It has no characters — at least no conventional characters — since it’s made up of discrete anecdotes, quotations and epigrams, each one no more than a few sentences long. It went on our list because I, for one, was impressed that a work so fragmented could seize my interest so entirely that I couldn’t resist reading it while walking down the street (not a good idea in my neighborhood).
So that’s an example of my criteria, but the ability to fascinate one particular literary critic is not the basis for judging a national prize, which is a reason why these awards use panels of judges. The space between the poles of personal preference and the notion of objective merit is where the electricity of literary prizes is generated. We can all agree on how to measure the tallest building or the fastest car, but on the question of how to determine the best novel we will be arguing ’til the end of time.
Trubek is right, though, that we should more clearly state the criteria we bring to that argument. All judges say, “We just picked the best books,” when controversy arises around their choices, but shrouding their deliberations in mystery only invites more speculation. Like Trubek, I’m a fan of the the Morning News’ annual Tournament of Books precisely because its judges are asked to explain in detail why they prefer one book over another.
Talking about the standards we apply would at the very least make the discussion a lot more interesting. Whatever the merits of their shortlist, this year’s Booker judges have succeeded in getting their fellow countrymen to talk about what constitutes a “great” book. That people want to argue with those choices isn’t, in my opinion, a sign of dysfunction. Instead, it shows that we care not only about our literary culture but about the idea of sharing it with a world full of fellow readers.
Further reading:
Website for the Man Booker Prize
The article in the Guardian newspaper in which Stella Rimington describes the criteria used in judging this year’s Booker Prize
Also in the Guardian, former poet laureate and Booker chairman Andrew Motion questions the premise that “readability” and literary quality are mutually exclusive
The Galaxy National Book Awards website, announcing the shortlisting of, among others, Alan Hollinghurst
Anne Trubek asks for more clarity about the criteria for excellence in discussions of literary prizes
Last year’s Tournament of Books at the Morning News website
The short lists for the National Book Awards were announced in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday, with the annual ritual head-scratching following closely behind. As usual, it was the fiction list that provoked the most comment; it’s an assortment of low-profile and/or small-press offerings, with the exception of Tea Obrecht’s bestselling debut, “The Tiger’s Wife.”
Over the next day or two, expect to see observers pointing out the absence of two widely praised fall novels — “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach and “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides — and the fact that four of the five shortlisted titles are by women. (Those with longer memories will hearken back to the much-discussed all-female short list of 2004.) However, two prominent new novels by women, Ann Patchett’s “State of Wonder” and Amy Waldman’s “The Submission,” were passed over, as well.
Although the judges for the NBAs change every year, the sense that the fiction jury is locked in a frustrating impasse with the press and the public is eternal. (One notable recent exception: the selection of Colum McCann’s “Let the Great World Spin” as the winner two years ago.) The press, assuming that the amount of media coverage a novel gets is a reliable indicator of its merit, expresses bafflement. The judges, if they respond at all, defend their choices as simply the best books submitted.
Neither view is entirely persuasive. While it’s certainly true that celebrated novels are not necessarily good, it’s also true that they aren’t necessarily bad, either. Whatever policy each panel of judges embraces, over the years, the impression has arisen that already-successful titles are automatically sidelined in favor of books that the judges feel deserve an extra boost of attention. The NBA for fiction often comes across as a Hail Mary pass on behalf of “writer’s writers,” authors respected within a small community of literary devotees but largely unknown outside.
It’s understandable that the judges (all fiction writers themselves) want to correct this neglect, and that the press interprets this as a rebuke to its own judgment. However, the larger reading public has also proven recalcitrant. If you categorically rule out books that a lot of people like, you shouldn’t be surprised when a lot of people don’t like the books you end up with. This is especially common when the nominated books exhibit qualities — a poetic prose style, elliptical or fragmented storytelling — that either don’t matter much to nonprofessional readers, or even put them off.
If outsiders fail to sympathize with the judges’ perspective, the judges often have a distorted sense of the role literature plays in the lives of ordinary readers. People who can find time for only two or three new novels per year (if that) want to make sure that they’re reading something significant. Chances are they barely notice media coverage of books — certainly not enough to see some titles as “overexposed” — and instead rely on personal recommendations, bookstore browsing and Amazon rankings.
Prizes are one part of this mix, if an influential one, and the public mostly wants the major awards to help them sort out the most important books of the year, not to point them toward overlooked gems with a specialized appeal. In a culture dominated by film and television, all literary novels are so obscure as to be virtually invisible, and books that seem ubiquitous to people embedded in the publishing world are anything but to those who aren’t. (The next time you’re waiting for a bus, ask the person next to you if he or she has heard of Jeffrey Eugenides or “The Art of Fielding.” Hell, ask them if they’ve heard of Jonathan Franzen.)
For these reasons, the National Book Award in fiction, more than any other American literary prize, illustrates the ever-broadening cultural gap between the literary community and the reading public. The former believes that everyone reads as much as they do and that they still have the authority to shape readers’ tastes, while the latter increasingly suspects that it’s being served the literary equivalent of spinach. Like the Newbery Medal for children’s literature, awarded by librarians, the NBA has come to indicate a book that somebody else thinks you ought to read, whether you like it or not.
As a kid, after several such medicinal reading experiences (“… And Now Miguel” by Joseph Krumgold was a particular chore to get through), I took to avoiding books with that gold Newbery badge stamped on their covers. If it weren’t for a desperate lack of alternatives one afternoon, I’d never have resorted to E. L. Konigsburg’s “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” which became one of my favorites. Today’s adult readers, with millions of titles a mere click away, are unlikely to find themselves in such straits.
I don’t doubt there have been similarly wonderful books scattered throughout the NBA’s famously esoteric short lists over the years. (I can also attest that there’s been more than one pretentious turkey.) Whether the NBA will hold onto its fading ability to get anyone to read them is another matter.
Last week, Carmen Callil resigned as a judge for the Man Booker International Prize because she disagreed with the other two judges’ choice for the winner: Philip Roth. The prize, which is awarded every two years, commends a single author for a body of work making an “overall contribution to fiction on the world stage.” When she announced her departure, Callil was reported saying of Roth that she didn’t “rate him as a writer at all” and that “he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It’s as though he’s sitting on your face and you can’t breathe.”
It took Callil a few days to present a fuller explanation. In the meantime, it was fascinating to watch various commenters respond to the kerfuffle. “I’m discouraged by what I assume is her ideologically inspired illiteracy,” Wendy Kaminer assumed for the Atlantic Online. “Is there a terrible scar of monotonous male sexuality in these inventions that limits their power or makes Roth deserve Callil’s dismissal?” fulminated Jonathan Jones in the Guardian. “To claim that,” he went on, “is to misunderstand what a novel is.” Eileen Battersby, in the Irish Times, sniffed, “The sexism and ego of Roth can certainly offend, and obviously bothers the irate Booker judge Carmen Callil.”
Not so obviously, in fact. Nothing in Callil’s initial statements about the affair indicated that her opposition to Roth’s work had anything to do with sexism or raunch. When she published a full account of her objections in the Guardian on Saturday, she expanded on a complaint that she’d mentioned from the start: Roth is the second North American (after Alice Munro) to receive the prize in its four-year history. Given that this variation on the Booker Prize is labeled “International,” and that it provides an additional grant that the winner may use to fund further English-language translations of his or her work, Callil had hoped that it would go to a less usual suspect.
She also doesn’t like Roth’s work very much, as she made abundantly clear. For the record, while I’m more or less in Callil’s camp when it comes to Roth’s fiction (particularly the face-sitting bit), her first remarks were thoughtless and high-handed. Perhaps Callil believed she was acting in the hallowed tradition of British literary prize judges who have aired their dirty laundry in the press, but insulting an author (any author) by name in such a context is uncalled for. There are enough readers who love Roth’s work to make him a reasonable choice for an important award, even if Callil can’t personally endorse that choice.
However, the really interesting aspect of the story is the straw woman erected by pro-Roth commenters like Kaminer, Jones and Battersby (among others) before Callil explained herself at length: the dour feminist scold who’s incapable of separating art from “ideology.” Instead, it turned out that Callil finds Roth’s fiction “narrow. Not in the Austen, Bellow or Updike sense, because they use a narrow canvas to convey the widest concepts and ideas. Roth digs brilliantly into himself, but little else is there. His self-involvement and self-regard restrict him as a novelist.”
These are legitimate aesthetic reservations, even if not everyone agrees with them. Yet if you do agree with them, and you happen to be a woman, chances are excellent that — no matter what you say — Roth proponents will assume your aversion is based in politics. This is as frustrating as telling the chef you don’t care for lamb chops and getting a self-righteous lecture on his supplier’s humane farming practices.
As recently as 30 years ago, subjecting a work of art to a political litmus test — is it racist, sexist, classist, homophobic? — was considered the supreme critical method, but fortunately times have changed. Unfortunately, they have changed with a vengeance. Now, in many circles, critiques that can be labeled as “politically correct” can also be summarily dismissed as “not literary arguments but emotional or ideological ones,” to quote Kaminer.
Presumably, literary arguments can also sometimes be emotional and ideological (this one certainly is!), but the point seems to be that if you’re a female reader who hates Roth novels, you must be motivated by (irrational) passion and doctrinaire political animus, whether you realize it or not. Your taste could not possibly arise from anything but “illiteracy” and an inability to understand “what a novel is.” Patronizing? You bet. Why, it’s enough to turn a girl into a feminist.
Further reading
Judge withdraws over Philip Roth’s Booker win: The initial story in the Guardian
Wendy Kaminer’s appreciation of Philip Roth in the Atlantic Online
Jonathan Jones on why Philip Roth deserves the Man Booker International Prize
Eileen Battersby defends Philip Roth in the Irish Times
Carmen Callil on why she resigned from the Man Booker International panel
The 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, with comments from judges:
JOURNALISM
Public service: The Los Angeles Times for its exposure of corruption in the small California city of Bell, where officials tapped the treasury to pay themselves exorbitant salaries, resulting in arrests and reforms. Finalists: Bloomberg News for the work of Daniel Golden, John Hechinger and John Lauerman revealing how some for-profit colleges exploited low-income students, leading to a federal crackdown on a multi-billion-dollar industry; and The New York Times for the work of Alan Schwarz in illuminating the peril of concussions in football and other sports, spurring a national discussion and a re-examination of helmets and of medical and coaching practices.
Breaking news reporting: No award. Finalists: Chicago Tribune staff for coverage of the deaths of two Chicago firefighters killed while searching for squatters in an abandoned burning building; The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, a joint staff entry, for coverage of the Haitian earthquake, often working under extreme conditions; and the Staff of The Tennessean, Nashville, for coverage of the most devastating flood in the area’s history.
Investigative reporting: Paige St. John of the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, for her examination of weaknesses in the murky property-insurance system vital to Florida homeowners, providing handy data to assess insurer reliability and stirring regulatory action. Finalists: Walt Bogdanich of The New York Times for his spotlighting of medical radiation errors that injure thousands of Americans, sparking national discussion and remedial steps; and Sam Roe and Jared S. Hopkins of the Chicago Tribune for their investigation, in print and online, of 13 deaths at a home for severely disabled children and young adults, resulting in closure of the facility.
Explanatory reporting: Mark Johnson, Kathleen Gallagher, Gary Porter, Lou Saldivar and Alison Sherwood of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for their lucid examination of an epic effort to use genetic technology to save a 4-year-old boy imperiled by a mysterious disease, told with words, graphics, videos and other images. Finalists: The Wall Street Journal Staff for its penetration of the shadowy world of fraud and abuse in Medicare, probing previously concealed government databases to identify millions of dollars in waste and corrupt practices; and The Washington Post staff for its exploration of how the military is using trauma surgery, brain science and other techniques both old and new to reduce fatalities among the wounded in warfare, telling the story with words, images and other tools.
Local reporting: Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times for their immersive documentation of violence in Chicago neighborhoods, probing the lives of victims, criminals and detectives as a widespread code of silence impedes solutions. Finalists: Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun for their compelling reports on patients who suffered preventable injuries and other harm during hospital care, taking advantage of print and digital tools to drive home their findings; and Stanley Nelson of the Concordia (La.) Sentinel, a weekly, for his courageous and determined efforts to unravel a long forgotten Ku Klux Klan murder during the Civil Rights era.
National reporting: Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica for their exposure of questionable practices on Wall Street that contributed to the nation’s economic meltdown, using digital tools to help explain the complex subject to lay readers. Finalists: David Evans of Bloomberg News for his revelations of how life insurance companies retained death benefits owed to families of military veterans and other Americans, leading to government investigations and remedial changes; and The Wall Street Journal Staff for its examination of the disastrous explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, using detailed reports to hold government and major corporations accountable.
International reporting: Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry of The New York Times for dogged reporting that put a human face on the faltering justice system in Russia, remarkably influencing the discussion inside the country. Finalists: Deborah Sontag of The New York Times for her coverage of the earthquake in Haiti, steadfastly telling poignant, wide-ranging stories with a lyrical touch and an impressive eye for detail; and The Wall Street Journal staff for its examination of the causes of Europe’s debt crisis, taking readers behind closed doors to meet pivotal characters while illuminating the wider economic, political and social reverberations.
Feature writing: Amy Ellis Nutt of The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J., for her deeply probing story of the mysterious sinking of a commercial fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean that drowned six men. Finalists: Tony Bartelme of The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C., for his engaging account of a South Carolina neurosurgeon’s quest to teach brain surgery in Tanzania, possibly providing a new model for health care in developing countries; and Michael M. Phillips, of The Wall Street Journal, for his portfolio of deftly written stories that provide war-weary readers with fresh perspective on the conflict in Afghanistan.
Commentary: David Leonhardt of The New York Times for his graceful penetration of America’s complicated economic questions, from the federal budget deficit to health care reform. Finalists: Phillip Morris of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, for his blend of local storytelling and unpredictable opinions, enlarging the discussion of controversial issues that stir a big city; and Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune for her versatile columns exploring life and the concerns of a metropolis with whimsy and poignancy.
Criticism: Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe for his vivid and exuberant writing about art, often bringing great works to life with love and appreciation. Finalists: Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly for his delightful, authoritative restaurant reviews, escorting readers through a city’s diverse food culture; and Nicolai Ouroussoff of The New York Times for his well-honed architectural criticism, highlighted by ambitious essays on the burst of architectural projects in oil-rich Middle East countries.
Editorial writing: Joseph Rago of The Wall Street Journal for his well-crafted, against-the-grain editorials challenging the health care reform advocated by President Barack Obama. Finalists: Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post for his insightful editorials on foreign affairs, marked by prescient pieces critical of America’s policy toward Egypt well before a revolution erupted there; and John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune for his relentless campaign to reform an unsustainable public pension system that threatens the economic future of Illinois.
Editorial cartooning: Mike Keefe of The Denver Post for his widely ranging cartoons that employ a loose, expressive style to send strong, witty messages. Finalists: Matt Davies for cartoons in The Journal News, Westchester County, N.Y., work notably original in concept and execution, offering sharp opinion without shrillness; and Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald-Leader, for provocative cartoons that often tackle controversial Kentucky issues, marked by a simple style and a passion for humanity.
Breaking news photography: Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti of The Washington Post for their up-close portrait of grief and desperation after a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti. Finalists: Daniel Berehulak and Paula Bronstein of Getty Images for their compelling portrayal of the human will to survive as historic floods engulfed regions of Pakistan; and Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times for her often haunting images of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, capturing the harsh reality of widespread devastation.
Feature photography: Barbara Davidson of the Los Angeles Times for her intimate story of innocent victims trapped in the city’s crossfire of deadly gang violence. Finalists: Todd Heisler of The New York Times for his sensitive portrayal of a large Colombian clan carrying a genetic mutation that causes Alzheimer’s disease in early middle age; and Greg Kahn of The Naples (Fla.) Daily News for his pictures that show the mixed impact of the recession in Florida — loss of jobs and homes for some but profit for others.
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ARTS
Fiction: “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf), an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed. Finalists: “The Privileges,” by Jonathan Dee (Random House), a contemporary, wide ranging tale about an elite Manhattan family, moral bankruptcy and the long reach of wealth; and “The Surrendered,” by Chang-Rae Lee (Riverhead Books), a haunting and often heartbreaking epic whose characters explore the deep reverberations of love, devotion and war.
Drama: “Clybourne Park,” by Bruce Norris, a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness. Finalists: “Detroit,” by Lisa D’Amour, a contemporary tragicomic play that depicts a slice of desperate life in a declining inner-ring suburb where hope is in foreclosure; and “A Free Man of Color,” by John Guare, an audacious play spread across a large historical canvas, dealing with serious subjects while retaining a playful intellectual buoyancy.
History: “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery,” by Eric Foner (W.W. Norton & Co.), a well-orchestrated examination of Lincoln’s changing views of slavery, bringing unforeseeable twists and a fresh sense of improbability to a familiar story. Finalists: “Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South,” by Stephanie McCurry (Harvard University Press), an insightful work analyzing the experience of disenfranchised white women and black slaves who were left when Confederate soldiers headed for the battlefield; and “Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston,” by Michael Rawson (Harvard University Press), an impressive selection of case studies that reveal how Boston helped shape the remarkable growth of American cities in the 19th century.
Biography: “Washington: A Life,” by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press), a sweeping, authoritative portrait of an iconic leader learning to master his private feelings in order to fulfill his public duties. Finalists: “The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century,” by Alan Brinkley (Alfred A. Knopf), a fresh, fair-minded assessment of a complicated man who transformed the news business and showed busy Americans new ways to see the world; and “Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon,” by Michael O’Brien (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), a graceful account of a remarkable journey by Louisa Catherine Adams, the wife of a future president, who traveled with a young son across a Europe still reeling from warfare.
Poetry: “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems,” by Kay Ryan (Grove Press), a body of work spanning 45 years, witty, rebellious and yet tender, a treasure trove of an iconoclastic and joyful mind. Finalists: “The Common Man,” by Maurice Manning (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a rich, often poignant collection of poems rooted in a rural Kentucky experiencing change in its culture and landscape; and “Break the Glass,” by Jean Valentine (Copper Canyon Press), a collection of imaginative poems in which small details can accrue great power and a reader is never sure where any poem might lead.
General nonfiction: “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner), an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science. Finalists: “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain,” by Nicholas Carr (W.W. Norton & Co.), a thought-provoking exploration of the Internet’s physical and cultural consequences, rendering highly technical material intelligible to the general reader; and “Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History,” by S.C. Gwynne (Scribner), a memorable examination of the longest and most brutal of all the wars between European settlers and a single Indian tribe.
Music: Zhou Long for “Madame White Snake,” premiered Feb. 26, 2010, by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, a deeply expressive opera that draws on a Chinese folk tale to blend the musical traditions of the East and the West. Libretto by Cerise Lim Jacobs (Oxford University Press). Finalists: Fred Lerdahl for “Arches,” premiered Nov. 19, 2010, at Miller Theatre, Columbia University, a consistently original concerto that sustains an extraordinary level of sensuous invention as it evolves from one moment to the next; and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon for “Comala,” recording released in June 2010 by Bridge Records, an ambitious cantata that translates into music an influential work of Latin American literature, giving voice to two cultures that intersect within the term “America.”
Philip Roth and Carmen Callil (inset) 
