Worst Pulitzer fiction winner survey

[Bonzo]

What is the worst Pulitzer winner (fiction) you have ever read? It doesn't count unless you read the whole thing.

My vote is for "Beloved" by Toni Morrison. I remember how disappointed I was when I finished what I thought was the last chapter, turned the page, and discovered there was another page and a half. Almost stopped there.

I think what annoyed me the most was the lack of quotation marks in the dialogue and the over-the-top metaphor. That and the wacky "Roots" meets "Friday the 13th" plot. Several other Pulitzer novels were almost as bad, but I think that was the one I liked the least (not having read them all, but having read many of them).

 

[Bonzo]

I must be the only one dumb enough to continue reading a book I don't like! Seriously, I figure there must be some redeeming quality in these things, or they wouldn't win a Pulitzer, so I stick with them hoping I will learn to appreciate something different. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen.

How about if we broaden it up to include books other than Pulitzer winners? Somebody other than me must have read something they didn't like, that other people liked. What was the worst, most over-hyped book you have read? Why did you hate it?

Anybody?

 

[a_unique_person]

Sorry Bonzo, can't say I go out and select books on the Prize status. I have wondered about doing sometimes, but I can't say I find it to be a reliable guide for my tastes. Not that I get much time to read these days anyhow.

 

[S. D. Youngren]

I had to consult a list of prizewinners to answer that one. Sooo... I thought The Old Man and the Sea was extremely dull, though not actually painful. The Reivers (Faulkner, definitely not his best) was pretty close to pointless. The Color Purple, on the other hand, I did actually hate. It was just SO pleased with itself.

There was a Booker Prize winner some years back--I can't find it listed anywhere here--title something like The God of Small Things, I think; author's name I believe Roy. I haven't read it because when it won NPR ran an excerpt which I couldn't bear to listen to. It was some sort of love/sex scene, all about his darkness and her lightness and his roughness and her smoothness and his bigness and her littleness and on and on and On for what seemed an hour or so, until I began to really wonder about that year's Booker committee.

Maybe the rest of it wasn't so bad. But I'm not sure I can afford to take the chance.