The Pulitzer went to Tinkers, so maybe I'm the odd man out

It wouldn't be accurate to say that the ending of "Tinkers" is disappointing, as it was obvious that Paul Harding was feeling his way through the material and did not plan to bring this gentle novel to any grand culmination. I'm actually glad that he didn't try anything hokey or coincidental. He does introduce the odd extraneous element at the end - that George's father, Howard, who had left his family when George was a child, had somehow kept his eye on them and on George's development over the years. He could have foreshadowed this (maybe he did and the shadowing was too light or I was too dense to even see it), but as it happens the presence of Howard as an observer as no effect whatsoever on George's life. This is a novel that tells of 3 generations of men, but tells very little about them in the direct sense. The central character, George, slowly approaches his death (he's about 90 I think) over the course of the novel, but we never actually learn about his feelings about his father, about his guilt or confusion over the abandonment, in which he played a role. The strand here are left loose, perhaps intentionally, as this book more than any other I've read recently is about its own style, about relishing the beautiful sentences and cadences. Harding sketches in the lives of the 3 men much the way a poet would I suppose - he's a novelist as poet manque. But as a novelist - well, I'd say the jury's out but the (Pulitzer) jury resoundingly endorsed Tinker, so maybe I'm the odd one out but I found it very beautiful at times but wan as a novel. Novels are not compilations of sentences.