1972 1974 National Book Award

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, welcome to The Old Man and the Read. My name is Jerry.

[00:00:06]Well, today I'm going to continue talking about the books I read from the National Book Award.

[00:00:13]This will be between the years 1972 and 1974 and I'll show you the winners and then any of the finalists I read for each of those years.

[00:00:25]So, in 1972, the winner was The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor.

[00:00:33]And this is really a fantastic collection of probably just about all of her short stories. Uh So, I'll tell you a few of them.

[00:00:45]The first I'll mention is The Crop. This is about a woman trying to write a book about a man attacking his wife.

[00:00:55]But then she changes her mind after a visit to the grocery store and she decides to write about something else.

[00:01:06]Then another story is A Good Man Is Hard to Find, one of her better-known stories.

[00:01:14]This is about a grandmother and her family who are out driving when they encounter a escaped convict. And this leads to some really tragic results.

[00:01:27]And then another of her well-known stories is Everything That Rises Must Converge.

[00:01:34]And this is basically about the integration of the bus system in the South. And it's about a young man and his mother who get on a bus and but they sit in different seats because they've been having a little tiff.

[00:01:52]Then a black woman and her son get on the bus. And because there is no seats available other than next to the mother and this young man, they each sit by beside them.

[00:02:11]And the the the the mother of the young man, the white mother, and her son, she's overtly racist and he's mildly more subtly racist and it describes what occurs afterwards.

[00:02:39]The next book, finalist in 1972 was Lion Country by Frederick Buechner.

[00:02:48]This follows Antonio Parr and he sets out to write a journalistic exposé of a former Bible salesman named Leo Beebe.

[00:03:00]He believes Beebe is selling fraudulent ordination certificates. However, the more he becomes involved in this investigation, the more he becomes caught up in Beebe's world.

[00:03:20]Another finalist in 1972 was The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow.

[00:03:27]This follows Daniel Isaacson who is investigating the conviction and execution of his parents and that was for spying.

[00:03:38]And the story is loosely based around the actual true story of the Rosenbergs.

[00:03:44]And this is both a story about a family as well as a story of the political the politics of the time.

[00:03:58]Another finalist in 1972 was The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories by Cynthia Ozick.

[00:04:05]These are just really exceptional short stories. Couple of them I'll mention, the title story, The Pagan Rabbi, is about a rabbi who committed suicide.

[00:04:17]But instead of leaving a suicide note, he left a brilliant letter.

[00:04:23]And then another titled Virility is about a man who wanted to be a poet but he didn't seem to have the talent for it until he suddenly discovered a source for his poems and he became successful.

[00:04:42]And the last finalist I have from 1972 is Rabbit, Run and this uh takes place uh 10 years after the events of Rabbit, Run.

[00:04:56]And it's another Harry Angstrom story, but Harry's wife, Janice, has run off with her lover, so Harry starts a small commune and he attracts some really strange characters to that to the commune.

[00:05:14]Now, the story takes place in the '60s, so it's full of drugs and sex and and about the politics of the time. But his wife then or his wife's lover then has a heart attack and uh she and Harry get back together again and then they continue on with their boring life.

[00:05:42]The next the winner in 1973 was Chimera by John Barth.

[00:05:50]And this is three interrelated novellas written in Barth's just totally incomprehensible prose.

[00:06:01]I'll the first one I'm going to talk about got some words I can't pronounce but I'll do my best. It's titled Dunyazadiad and this is a story based around 1001 Nights by Scheherazade and told by his sister Dunyazade or something.

[00:06:29]Who is visiting and who is visited by John Barth when he goes back in time.

[00:06:38]Then the next story is novella is Perseid and this is about the life of Perseus of Greek mythology.

[00:06:50]And the last novella in the book is Bellerophoniad iad And this is about Bellerophon also from Greek mythology.

[00:07:07]In there was co-winners in 1973, so the co-winner with Chimera was Augustus and this is by John Williams and it's just a brilliant story about Augustus and he was considered one of the greatest emperors of ancient Rome.

[00:07:27]But the book begins with Julius Caesar and he orders the mother of Octavius and that was Augustus' name that given name when he was born. But he Julius Caesar has ordered his mother to send him to military college.

[00:07:51]And much of the story is told through letters by various people in the life of Augustus.

[00:07:59]And these include memoirs, poems and documents.

[00:08:04]And through all of those different letters and such, we get a full picture of the emperor.

[00:08:17]A finalist in 1973 was Transparent Things by Vladimir Nabokov. This is kind of a disturbing read that tells the story of Hugh Person.

[00:08:33]He's a big is becoming increasingly more mentally unbalanced and then he makes a visit to Switzerland.

[00:08:46]And the last finalist of 1973 I'll mention is Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

[00:08:59]This follows Herman Broder. He's survived the Nazis by hiding in a hayloft through the war. He had or he believed that his wife had been killed by the Nazis. And so after the war, he marries the woman who had been hiding him in her in the hayloft. They then move to New York.

[00:09:25]And after a while, he takes up a mistress. So, he's in a very delicate balancing act trying to hide his mistress from his wife. And then who should appear in his life?

[00:09:40]His first wife who had survived and come from Poland. And now he has two wives and a mistress which sets his whole deceptive life into a tailspin.

[00:09:57]And the last finalist in 1973 is The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty.

[00:10:05]This story is the story of a daughter who is reminiscing about her father after his death. This is this memory also triggers memories of her mother who had died several years before.

[00:10:23]But unfortunately, while sitting at her father's death bed and then later his funeral, she has to sit sit by and deal with her father's young, self-centered and very unpleasant second wife.

[00:10:45]Then in 1974, again there were two winners.

[00:10:52]So, one of the winners is Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

[00:10:57]And this is an exceedingly difficult book to decipher. But it's Pynchon, so that's to be taken for granted. But the book is so full of distractions and side stories with sentences that sometimes make no sense and uh become rather incomprehensible at times.

[00:11:24]But it's most the story mostly follows uh US Army Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop.

[00:11:33]Uh And there seems to be some kind of connection between his sexual activity and rocket explosions.

[00:11:43]He then begins journeying through Europe meeting numerous characters and as he does he has lots or he takes lots of drugs and has lots of sex.

[00:11:59]Then in the co-winner in 1974 is A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Bashevis Singer.

[00:12:11]And this is a short story collection that mostly deals with the occult and demons. And the title story, A Crown of Feathers, is a about a young woman who refuses a marriage contract after the spirit of her grandmother has told her not to marry the man.

[00:12:33]Then the spirit of her grandfather appears and he insists that she honor that contract. So, now she knows that one of these is the devil.

[00:12:49]A finalist in 1974 is Beast of the Southern Wild or Wild by Doris Betts.

[00:12:56]And this is a collection of some good and some kind of bad stories.

[00:13:02]One of them, The Ugliest Pilgrim, is about a young woman who is traveling by bus to see a faith healer to cure her of her ugliness.

[00:13:13]And then Beast of the Southern Wild is a story with narratives.

[00:13:19]One of them is about a world in which black and white people had reversed roles and whites were the enslaved.

[00:13:28]But then uh inserted or this would have been really a great story, but it inserted into it is another story that spoiled it and it's uh it's kind of a uh completely pointless tale.

[00:13:50]And the last finalist is Burr by Gore Vidal.

[00:13:57]And it's a story that's told through the eyes of a young journalist uh from interviews of Aaron Burr. And these interviews were when Burr was in his 70s. And although it's a fiction, it's adheres fairly closely to the actual facts of Burr's life. But Burr recounts events in his turbulent life including his vice presidency and the famous duel he had with Alexander Hamilton.

[00:14:32]But those are the books I've read from the National Book Award from 1972 to 1974.

[00:14:42]I want to thank you for watching and hopefully I'll see you again.