{"id":2078,"date":"2015-06-05T09:11:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T16:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=2078"},"modified":"2016-10-14T16:56:27","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T23:56:27","slug":"are-pulitzer-prize-winning-novels-for-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2015\/writing\/are-pulitzer-prize-winning-novels-for-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Pulitzer Prize Winning Novels For Everyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"all-the-light-we-cannot-see-9781476746586.in01\"I recently read All The Light We Cannot See<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0by Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer prize winner 2015. Though his book wasn\u2019t a page turner, I didn\u2019t want to stop reading once I’d started. I’ve read many books set during World War II<\/strong>, the majority showing conflict between the nations at the time or about the Holocaust, but this one is different. It’s about two young people, a blind French girl and a German orphan boy, and how the European battles impact on their lives. Through their journeys, the author takes us behind the scenes of war.<\/p>\n

I find Pulitzer prize winning novels<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0curious. A jury decides which American novel is deserving of the honour, which proclaims to the world that the author of the Pulitzer prize winning novel has risen far above the others in the way the story is told. And yet, are Pulitzer prize winning novels for everyone?<\/p>\n

After I had\u00a0finished reading All The Light We Cannot See<\/em><\/strong>, I told my husband about it, thinking he would enjoy the read, especially since he’s read many books about that period. I was wrong. He didn\u2019t enjoy the read. He read seventy pages and couldn\u2019t get into it. He found the pace slow, and the interweaving of stories too distracting.<\/p>\n

I have to admit it took me awhile as well, and\u00a0I found the author’s flipping from one year to the next hard to follow. He went back and forth in time. <\/strong>There were moments when I had to stop and go back in the story to figure out where the characters were in relation to what was going on. But I stayed with it, because I liked Anthony Doerr<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s use of metaphors and depictions of life back then. I also wanted to see what it took to win a Pulitzer Prize. Not that I have any hopes in that department, but a writer needs to read in order to write well.<\/p>\n

I gave All The Light We Cannot See<\/strong><\/em> five stars. I didn’t read the other contenders for the Pulitzer prize but I do believe this one is deserving. It showed me the greys of war through the stories of two young people on different sides of the conflict, both struggling to make sense of what was going on around them, each one in survival mode.<\/p>\n

With me loving the book and my husband rejecting its storytelling<\/strong>, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion\u2014surprise, surprise\u2014that Pulitzer prize winning novels aren\u2019t for everyone. And isn\u2019t that wonderful? There\u2019s room for writers like myself, and those who tell detective stories or write thrillers, science fiction, Harlequin and on and on. Our world would be very boring if we all loved to read and write the same kind of books. Don’t you agree?<\/p>\n

Thoughts and comments always appreciated.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read All The Light We Cannot See\u00a0by Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer prize winner 2015. Though his book wasn\u2019t a page turner, I didn\u2019t want to stop reading once I’d… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[744,4],"tags":[748,747,25,248,78,746,745,276],"class_list":["post-2078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-writing","tag-all-the-light-we-cannot-see","tag-anthony-doerr","tag-author","tag-books","tag-diana-stevan","tag-novels","tag-pulitzer-prize","tag-writers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/all-the-light-we-cannot-see-9781476746586.in01.jpg?fit=1400%2C1400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-xw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2794,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2016\/books\/homage-to-booklovers-everywhere\/","url_meta":{"origin":2078,"position":0},"title":"Homage to Book Lovers Everywhere","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"9 \u0421\u0435\u0440\u043f\u043d\u044f, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"National Book Lovers Day When I read that there was such a thing as \"National Book Lovers Day\" in the USA (August 9th), I decided to re-blog a post I did four years ago, titled \"The Love of Books.\" Back then I wrote, \"with the advent of e-readers and tablets,\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"National Book Lovers Day","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Shipping-News.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3015,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2017\/uncategorized\/writing-the-setting\/","url_meta":{"origin":2078,"position":1},"title":"Writing Settings For A Novel That Engages The Reader","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"18 \u0421\u0456\u0447\u043d\u044f, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing the settings for a novel is one feature of a Novel Writing Workshop I'll be giving at the North Vancouver library.\u00a0In thinking about my presentation, I thought I'd share a few things I've learned over time. 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