It's a new year, a new look at the Pulitzers and Governor Generals.  I realize, as I did towards the end of last year(wow, that's a weird thing to say), that I still have a long ways to go, and like everyone who has their New Year's resolutions, I too, have mine.  I think the plan has always been to complete these lists as soon as I could; this morning I woke up and decided to try to complete them before I turn 30.  That's only about 2 1/2 more years to go.  And, if I want to write a book about all of this as an experiential review/memoir, I'd like to do that sooner rather than later as well...Mmm...Since I last wrote in this blog, I've read 2 Pulitzer Prize winners: Katherine Anne Porter's Collected Stories back in the middle of December, and Bernard Malamud's The Fixer.  Malamud's book I finished just yesterday now, my mom's birthday.  

  Katherine Anne Porter's book is interesting in the sense that it took me almost 5 months to finally finish.  I started it back when Keren went to New Zealand.  But, I was lonely and distracted from so much work, that I couldn't get through the around 500 page book.  I put it down and resolved to read it another time.  I finally picked it up again around Thanksgiving and just persevered through it.  I ended up not hating it as much as I did in the beginning, but I'm still not totally sold on the book.  I did however, like the story "Noon Wine" a lot, it was engaging and the characters(a husband and wife, their hired man and an encounter with an outsider)were absolutely fascinating.  That was a story I couldn't put down.  The rest of the stories were interesting, but not gripping.  I think that so far the short story collections that are my favorites are The Roaring Girl and The Interpreter of Maladies.  But, I read it, I've now been exposed to another author that I wouldn't have normally read, since I no longer take classes in English literature, and I have another book off the list.  This book also is important to note because it and A Jest of God won in the same year, 1966.  There were only 3 times in the entire history of both awards that two women won in the same year(PP and GG).  It's also a book that I picked up while Chris and I were on our two day nine movie marathon that we had for his birthday almost two years ago.  It's one of the many books I've picked up in this quest that until now had gathered a bit of dust on my shelf.  

  Bernard Malamud's The Fixer was a much different experience.  I started reading The Fixer when I was waiting for blood work at Swedish Hospital in Ballard, after a physical, way back in October.  But, I didn't really feel like reading it then.  It has languished on my shelf all this time, until I picked up again last week.  It was due at the Seattle Public Library back in early December.  I may have amassed the most amount of overdue fines yet for this particular book, but I didn't want to give it up, postponing the reading of something that was in my grasp for so long.  So of course literally I will have to pay the price.:)  It was a great book.  I was really surprised, because the premise was not something that I thought I was going to enjoy.  It's about a Jewish man who is wrongfully accused of murder during the last few years of Tsar Nicholas II's reign when anti-semitism was rampant and disgustingly tortuous and frightening.  Yakov Bok spends the nearly the entire book in jail, awaiting his INDICTMENT, which takes forever to come.  It's a HELLISH purgatory, waiting, wondering, losing his mind, but never ever does he deny his innocence, regardless of what is put before him in the form of tortures or promises of release if he confesses.  This book made me sick to my stomach and very proud.  I was sick because of all the horrible things that Yakov has to face, but proud because he continues to stay his ground and never waver.  Yakov's thoughts are what take prominence in this book and there were some very amazing quotes:  "Nobody can burn an idea even if they burn the man" (61).  "'There's something cursed, it seems to me, about a country where men have owned men as property.  The stink of that corruption never escapes the soul, and it is the stink of future evil'" (172).  I find this quote to be particularly interesting because not only was slavery commonplace in Russia before the Emancipation of the Serfs, but of course slavery plays a HUGELY prominent role in US history.  This quote to me seems extremely prophetic for our future as well.  The only difference in the case of the US vs. Russia is the color of the persecuted's skin.  The final quote makes reference to Jews, which in this particular novel is very salient, but I think applies more generally to all who are in some state of persecution or discrimination.  "Why? Because no Jew was innocent in a corrupt state, the most visible sign of its corruption its fear and hatred of those it persecuted.  Ostrovsky had reminded him that there was much more wrong with Russian than its anti-Semitism.  Those who persecute the innocent were themselves never free" (315).  This book is about humans and human rights.  I agree with the writer of the introduction, it makes you want to DO something about all of the injustice in the world, and interestingly enough, the novel, even though at times it seems so terribly bleak, offers hope for some of the members of humankind.  This is one of the books that makes me glad I do this project.  I'm glad that it is the first winner of the new year that I have read.  I was so moved by it that I told my mother(I'm home in Vermont now for my mom's birthday, I surprised her:))about it, and she's expressed a desire to read it.:)  We'll see.  It's not exactly a light read, but a very rewarding one.  PPs-33, GGs-31.