Nothing Worthy Of A Prize

What's this, cry the literati, no Pulitzer this year in fiction?

Did it never occur to them that there wasn't any fiction published in 2011 that was worthy of any sort of prize?

Author Ann Patchett sees the point, but she doesn't believe it.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Ms. Patchett lists several books that she feels are prize-worthy. I am a a voracious reader, but I never even heard of half the things she mentions. As for the rest, I picked them up, read the flap copy, and put them back as not right for my list.

Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is filled with perfectly crafted sentences, she says. But if you look over the reviews of people who read for enjoyment, the sentences don't matter.

Writers who have studied how to write are hung up on the words. Readers want a story. They want to be entertained.

The sentences can be pure poetry, but if there's no plot, no connection to the characters, the readers don't much care. What good is a hard-carved bookcase, even one that is a masterpiece of carpentry, if there is only one shelf?

Publishers are looking to turn profits, and they want blockbuster novels that follow the right formula. They want manuscripts that are ready to go so they don't have to pay for editors to smooth rough edges. That gives an edge to a writer who can create the product that matches the specifications.

What it doesn't give the reader is a story worth hearing, even if the words fall softly on the ear.

Ms. Patchett believes that literature suffers because it lacks the scandal factor that gets everyone's attention. It's all about The Hunger Games, so beloved of the common folk, rather than The Pale King.

It isn't scandal that's needed. It's stories told well, even stories that are literary.

Charles Dickens took the Victorians to task for the way the lower classes were treated and the poor ignored. He did it within the context of good stories with people the reader could warm to. He didn't beat his readers over the head with his point, as if they were too dumb to get it.

Would Dickens have been Pulitzer worthy? Or would he have been considered more of a Hunger Games kind of writer, appealing to the masses but not making the cut for sentences that were less than perfectly crafted?