National Book Award’s daily blog on fiction winners has been going on a while, so sorry I’m a little late — but it’s kinda good in a way, since now the majority of the content is already there. It’s a great in depth resource for those who like to tap now and then the esteemed list of winners. If you’ll grant me a commentary (as I always seem to have one), it’s funny how some of the titles shine throughout history, while others become completely obscured over time. One wonders if the former ones are simply written by authors with greater career trajectories, or if the “inherent quality” of the works is at matter. There’s this idea we have that capital T truth takes time to show us who was right all along, never mind that political despots and religious fanatics subscribe to this same idea of “in the end I am right.” Just pointing this out because I see a lot of “aesthetic/artistic fundamentalism” in creative circles. Pretty scary way to think, I think.

And for every winner there are the oh-so-close runner ups and the oh-kinda-close shortlist. In this numbers game of cultural eternity, disappointment is on one’s side; and even when one wins, one may not even be remembered — and that’s all one wants right? to be remembered? The ego is like a first relationship: we want to be remembered forever for just okay sex.