Did the Wrong Book Win the First Pulitzer Prize for Fiction? A Pulitzer Prize Deep Dive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
- Ernest Poole won the first Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel 'His Family,' published in 1917. But 'His Family' lives in the shadow of a different novel by Poole. Did it deserve to win? Expand for more information. 👇
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Further Viewing 🎥
My Full Review of Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: • Discover This Hidden C...
What Is the Great American Novel? • What Is the Great Amer...
1917: The Origins of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: • The Origins of the Pul...
1935: Now in November: Was the Youngest Pulitzer Winner Blacklisted? • Was the Youngest Pulit...
1937: Is Gone With the Wind Racist? • Is Gone With the Wind ...
1986: Is Lonesome Dove the Great American Novel? • Is Lonesome Dove the G...
1988: Beloved and the Ghosts of Slavery: • Can America Reckon Wit...
The 2012 Pulitzer Controversy: • Do Book Prizes Owe Us ...
2018: What Type of Book Deserves to Win Book Awards? • What Type of Book Dese...
Time Stamps ⏰
Snapshot: 1917: 02:47
What Is His Family About? 04:57
Why Is This Book Important? 09:17
Is His Family a Good Book? 12:45
Who Was Ernest Poole? 19:25
What Does The Harbor Have to Do With This? 22:36
Did Ernest Poole Win a Pulitzer for the Wrong Book? 28:29
Is His Family the Great American Novel? 30:26
What Was His Family‘s Competition for the Pulitzer? 31:31
Should His Family Have Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction? 37:02
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Loved your analysis of The Family. It’s always interesting to think about the historical context around an older novel.
It is definitely interesting!
Fascinating discussion! Well done.
Thanks!
Great observations, enjoyed this discussion.
Thank you! It was fun to put together.
Hi Greg, Interesting detailed video about this Pulitzer Prize author. Aloha
Thank you!
Excellent video Greg!
Thank you so much!
Need this on podcast please! 😊
“Hammer into the earth without remorse” 🤣🤣🤣
🤣😂
I love that you criticized that every page was so busy with symbolism. So often that is used for praise; “there is not a wasted word”. But sometimes I think authors don’t trust their readers or because the standard is every word must be doing something, you get a lot of unnecessary allusions or metaphors that just feel like busy work for the reader.
That’s definitely the case in Poole’s books (for me).
Good morning. Have you read King Coal by Upton Sinclair? It does the same thing to the coal industry that The Jungle did to the meatpacking industry.
I have not read that one and I haven’t read The Jungle either!
This such a great deep-dive. I love contextually reading books. I imagine the difficulty with the family definition is tied to the over all change of society. The idea that biology ranks higher than self-created connection is still being seen today; it's the reason so many couple go through the difficult IVF treatments rather than bringing in a child from outside. I would imagine her concern for all the other children comes from Poole's social philosophy, but her wanting a child "of her own" is merely a personal philosophy.
That makes sense. Glad you enjoyed the video!
Thanks for the well researched and exciting deep dive into the first winning title. The only thing I can compare it with is the first winner of the Newbery Award, which would occur a few years later in 1922 to Hendrik Willem van Loon for The Story of Mankind. Looking back it too is somewhat an anomaly and an outlier to later titles, being a book on the history of Western Civilization, more akin to a text book then something one would expect to be embraced, read and enjoyed by child readers. The evolution of the winning books of literary awards is a fascinating glimpse into the world at that time and what was valued and deemed important. As much as the secrets behind the processes about how the committees arrived at those decisions piques my interest, I kind of like that we will never really know and it’s left to speculation.
It is kinda nice that we’ll never really know but not gonna lie, if someone offered me access to the notes I would LEAP at the opportunity. 😂🤣
How interesting about the Newbery!
You made it sound like an interesting idea for a book anyway, even though the execution was terrible. Any chance the about-face at the end was just very a cynical attempt to appease his critics after spending the earlier part of the book on more progressive ideas? But, like you said, it does go out of its way to undermine itself in a rather heavy-handed way.
Just read a review of a later book of his and it was described as a political pamphlet disguised as a novel as well. Anyway, a great video. Enjoyed it.
Thank you! I would love to think that the about-face with biological children was intentional meta-commentary, but it feels like a sincere revelation for the character in the book. It was disappointing.
Most anything written by Edith Wharton is excellent. I read Summertime. Her ghost stories are better, as well as her major novels.
agree -- the book is Meh.
I’m glad I’m not alone!