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Latimer
Newbie Poster
Username: Latimer
Post Number: 5
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 09:40 am: | 
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Could anyone tell me why it is that authors who win the McArthur Fellowship seem to publish so little? Colson Whitehead has not even published five books, Edward P. Jones has not even published four, Josephe Brodsky barely had five books published and also Z.Z. Packer was given a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship based on only one book. I mean I really think that these scholarships are wasted on people who will hardly go on to published many books. I thought that these awards are given to people who have produced a large body of work and I don't mean two or three books. I am talking thirteen books minimum. No author who has not produced at least fourteen books deserves such awards. What say ye? |
Jmho
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Jmho
Post Number: 167
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 12:52 pm: |
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Are you suggesting quantity should trump quality? |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6324
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 01:07 pm: |
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Latimer,
Perhaps part of what these foundations are attempting to do is expand the depth and breadth of discourse and they feel it that supporting NEWER/FRESHER voices and perspectives better helps to achieve such than simply supporting a perspective that is much more established.
Also, perhaps they think that those who've already been published many times are much less in need of the PR and financial help that a one who's less published requires. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 5032
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 01:11 pm: |
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Judging from the authors you name, these foundations favor books that are palatable to the white mainstream literati. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2673
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 02:16 pm: |
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Latimer:
I don't agree. Ralph Ellison published bascially one novel--what a novel it was--Invisible Man. Gwendolyn Brooks did not published much--5 or 6 books of poetry--however one of them won the Pulitzer Prize. Robert Hayden's poetry could be contained in one slim volume of less than 200 pages--but what gems.
Look at the whites--Joyce--what four or five books, one is Ulysees. Whitman basically published and republished the same book, adding to it over the years. Melville. Poe. How many books did he put out in his life time.
Homer. Two books.
There is no correlation between output and quallity or longgevity. Over in the SF field, there are people who have published dozens of books and nobody has ever heard of them outside the field.
Obviously the award is not given out for humber of books published, else Isaac Asimov and Barabara Partland would have won it hands down.
What are the criteria for the grant?
Enlighten us.
Cynique:
You are starting to sound like a sad parody of Ellijah Muhammad. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 5035
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 03:10 pm: |
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What did what I say have to do with Elijah Muhmmad, crissyboy? Your mind is really blown. Nothing you say about me ever has any relevance or makes any sense. tsk-tsk. poor ol guy. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2675
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 04:34 pm: |
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Maybe it's because you LOOK like Elijah Muhammad I got it twisted up. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 5036
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 05:21 pm: |
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Stop while you're ahead, numb-nuts. Face it, you've lost it, crissyboy. Cynique really shakes you up. LMAO. |
Latimer
Newbie Poster
Username: Latimer
Post Number: 6
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 01, 2006 - 12:38 am: |
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JMHO what is quality about The Known World? This book is a pastiche of philosophical ramblings and the prose is monotonous and archaic. In addition,he goes over old territory here we don't already know. One critic mentions that the book shows how slavery destroys but can transcend. What can slavery transcend? As regards the prose:
"He was the only man in the real, slave or free, who ate dirt, but while the bondage women particularly the pregnant ones, ate it for some incomprehensible need, for that some thing that ash cakes and apples and fatback did not give their bodies, he ate it not only to discover the strength and weakness of the field, but because the eating of it tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own live."
You call this quality? This is clumsy not to mention bad, bad writing. I know high school students who can write much better than this.
And what is this so called "incomprehensible need" for pregnant women eating dirt?
You know what, I will bet you a thousand dollars that eighty-five percent of the people on these boards are better read than both the Pulitzer prise jurors and the McArther Fellowship jurors. These people know very little about literature.
Percival Everett:
Erasure
Grand Canyon, Inc.
Clyph
Frenzy
The body of Martin Aguilera
God's Country
Big Picture
For Her Dark Skin
Zulus
The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair
Cutting Lisa
Walk me to the Distance
Suder
The One That Got Away
Wounded
Edward P. Jones
The Known World
Lost in the City
All Aunt Havar's Children
How on earth does a writer like Percival Everett with such a body of work has not been able to win a Pulitzer Prize nor a McArthur Fellowship and Edward P. Jones has? And don't tell me that his work is high quality because The Known World is a piece of Junk and the prose is silly. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1298
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 01, 2006 - 09:11 am: |
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And what is this so called "incomprehensible need" for pregnant women eating dirt?
Pica? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2678
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 01:42 am: |
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Latimer:
To rail against the choices of such bodies that award the McArthur Fellowship, or for that matter, the bodies that award Emmys, Oscars, Nobels, Pulitzers or any other kind of award or prize for choices that fly in the face of their stated goals is to rail against Hurricanes because they are unpredictable--
They make their decisions for many reasons some which are not known--sometimes they got an agenda but just as often some strong member gets on there and sways the rest of the body because somebody gave him a blow job--or nowadays the members' votes are flat out bought since the legend, "Winner of the McArthur Fellowship" on the cover could mean increased sales.
This is Art--it is all subjective. It is not like a foot race where there is an obvious winner--and even then we have found out some of the contestants have been taking banned substances.
Try to get whatever you can and be grateful for what you got. |
Latimer
Newbie Poster
Username: Latimer
Post Number: 7
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 02:19 am: |
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Chrishayden, point well taken. Thanks a million for the input. Well said, suppose I get too worked up about things out of my control. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2682
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 10:14 am: |
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Latimer:
No you are not getting too worked up. You are still at the point where you are taking people at their word that they mean what they say and stand for what they believe in.
There is nothing wrong with that.
But in George Bush's America it's best to remember that good ol' latin saying, Caveat Emptor.
Maybe you can establish your own awards some day that will really mean something |
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