Irving Wallace

The Prize

First US hardback published by Simon & Schuster, 1961. First US paperback by Signet (and New American Library), 1963 June 1. First published in Great Britain by Cassell & Company Ltd, 1963

Like many authors, Irving Wallace started writing professionally as a journalist. Before long, his range broadened, and he shifted away from reporting towards features and stories, then moved to Hollywood as a screenwriter for mostly-forgotten movies. His breakthrough to popular recognition came in 1960 with The Chapman Report. This very successful blockbuster told how an academic research project affected the lives of several rather different women, and was clearly much influenced by the real-life "Kinsey Reports": Sexual Behaviour of the Human Male and Sexual Behaviour of the Human Female. Although there is some nudity in The Chapman Report, it is all - to the best of my recollection - purely sexual nudity. Hollywood recognised a lucrative box-office recipe, and in 1962 the novel was filmed by George Cukor, with Claire Bloom, Glynis Johns and Shelley Winter. Meanwhile, Wallace had dug out some old notes of an interview with a Nobel prize committee advisor, carried out a substantial amount of further research, and produced The Prize - which was again turned into a major Hollywood film, starring Paul Newman, Edward G Robinson and Elke Sommer.

The hero of The Prize is Andrew Craig, an American writer whose private life is a mess - in which respect, at least, he is very definitely not an autobiographical figure. However, some of his characteristics do seem to be those of his creator. Craig tells one of the other characters: "When it comes to knowledge, there are three kinds of writers. First, the one who knows only one field - himself. Remember Flaubert's admission? 'I am Madame Bovary'. Second, the writer who knows two or three fields in depth - the Civil War, Zen, and Palestrina - and nothing else. Third, there is the one who knows a little about very many things - from European rivers called Aa to the biological name for ovum with is zygote - and Lucius Mack [a close friend] puts me in that category." Wallace simply cannot resist providing the reader with detail. Generally the detail is relevant, but it just goes on and on - contributing significantly to the book's 750-odd pages. It also makes for unconvincing dialogue. Certainly, some people are unstoppable fountains of facts and figures, but - even in such erudite groups as Nobel laureates and the awards officials - it seems unlikely that so many would be given to conversation consisting primarily of substantial paragraphs. To try to be fair to Wallace, the extract is substantial, so that you can experience the full force of his style for yourself. Even after a lot of editing, this extract is significantly longer than some of the original short stories reviewed on this site!

In the edition reviewed (British book club hardback), there is a page listing "Principal characters in order of appearance", and it may be helpful to refer to the following, taken from that list:

Note that Lilly is described here as a "naturist", yet all references in the rest of the book are to "nudism" and "nudist" - perhaps the dramatis personae information was added for the benefit of British readers?

It seems to me that Wallace found nudism interesting (or intriguing), and it gave him an opportunity to comment (at length) on aspects of lust, desire, sexuality and morals. While he gives nudist arguments a fair platform (and, in the person of Lilly, an advocate who is unequivocally on the side of the angels throughout), the arguments are not uttered with conviction. They generally have, in Wallace's own words, "the quality of pamphlet phrases being recited". Perhaps he is happy for Lilly to seem rather thick in comparison with the intellectual heavyweights?

As blockbusters go, The Prize is neither wonderful nor awful. Wallace was not well regarded by literary critics, but his books sold hundreds of millions of copies, so I doubt he was particularly bothered! If you are happy with tales of this length, and want to find out all sorts of titbits of information about the Nobel Prize and those who have and have not won it, then by all means pick up a copy from a charity shop, or buy the eBook. Readers will discover some interesting information about attitudes showing that the sixties really hadn't arrived in 1961, but may also end up shaking their heads over why nudity was such a taboo, since many of the references to 1961 clothing show that it was neither comfortable nor convenient a lot of the time. In such a huge book, even the part-chapter devoted to nudism is almost insignificant (although a variant of the scene in the nudist club was included in the film, albeit with not even a nipple on show), reflected in the ratings below.

An edited version of this review appeared in the 2006 June issue of H&E Naturist magazine.

Ratings:

Nudity	Naturist nudity	A good read?

Last updated 2004 February 12.
 
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