ENGL397 Journal 1: What did you think prior to this course about literary prize culture, and what do you think of it now following a week of discussion?
I don't think I ever really spent any time thinking about literary prizes and literary prize culture prior to enrolling in this course. I know that prior to doing any analysis on the topic, if I was looking to read a contemporary book, its having received a prize is certainly something that would have increased the likelihood that I would have read it because I would have taken that to be an indicator of quality and something that made a book more worth reading. Prizes attach some kind of prestige to a work, but also, something like the book having been a New York Times bestseller or that it had been chosen to be made into a movie also would have attracted my attention--anything that made it stand out from the sea of new books out there and marked it as something noteworthy. (On that same note, if a book is going viral or attracting a lot of controversy, that might make me want to read it as well, to see what all the fuss is about. For instance, back in 2018, when American Dirt by Janeane Cummins was released, it created a large controversy about the ethics of telling a story that some saw as important to tell, and others saw as not her place to tell. I wound up reading it out of curiosity, because I wanted to make up my own mind about the debate, and see if I felt that the criticism that she was receiving, as well as the amounts of praise, were worth it).
I think the reason why I typically won't read a contemporary work unless a factor like the above is present is because there are just so many books being printed nowadays, and they are so expensive, that something has to communicate a feeling to me like a book is worth reading. I know some people have favourite book genres and read books by genre, but my interests span virtually all genres, so I need something to narrow down the available works there for me to read. This is going to sound pretentious, but I just love writing that is good regardless of genre. I like creative and traditional storytelling techniques, I love Medieval through postmodern works, I love British and Irish and American and Canadian and Russian literature and works translated from Greek and Latin and recently I've been learning more about Nigerian, Japanese and Indigenous writers as well and I am so excited to keep reading and keep learning as much as I can. I love all of it. I would read everything if I could, but there is not enough time in the world for that, so I am reliant upon several external factors that direct me towards what I should read. That includes professors, course reading lists, trusted friends, things I hear at me and my friends' bi-weekly poetry reading night, things I find in Little Free Libraries that look interesting, books that people give to me. So, I have my sources, but I really struggle to 'keep up' with what is happening, on the whole, in contemporary literature. I don't know what websites I should be reading, or what literary critics I should be following. I hate spending time online and on social media and so what gets back to me is pretty much all coincidence and word of mouth. So prizes are a great me for me to get a sense that a book is significant in some way or another and is marked as one that stands out above the crowd, and indicates that I should give it a chance.
I don't think this attitude has really changed much after thinking about this following the first week of our class discussion. Because even though I'm incredibly sympathetic to each and every one of the concerns that were raised in class, I know that I am still going to be influenced the same way to be more likely to read a book that has won a prize than to read a book that has not, because, at the end of the day, books that have won prizes tend to say something that makes me think, and that's the first thing that I want to get out of a book, even beyond whether I enjoyed it or not. I know that prize culture is extremely problematic, but still, the books that win prizes are still, from what I can tell, very good books, even though there are many good books out there that haven't won prizes I probably won't even find out about what those books are unless I fall upon them by coincidence. I see prize winning books as books that are reliably thought provoking and timely, and so, I think we can maintain these criticisms while still seeing that this can be beneficial for people like me, who just want to read good works and don't have a whole lot of time to figure out what those are.
On that note, please please let me know if there are certain sites/social media feeds that are worth following for information on what kinds of books that are coming out that are worth reading!