2005 Nobel Literature Prize

[PoBoy321]

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The Literature prize last year was given to some left-wing Austrian hack that I'd never even HEARD of, and I'm a Barnes and Noble store manager

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I don't really have anything to say about this, but I found that hilarious.

[Cyrus]

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Name a BAD or WORTHLESS book he's ever written. You can't. You might like some less than others, but they're all -at least- entertaining. There are authors, but not many, who are more PROLIFIC than [him]. There are authors, a few more but still not many, who are BETTER WRITERS than [him]. NO ONE can match the combination.

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I can reel off a dozen crime novelists who fit the description.

Your admiration for King is well placed but, perhaps, there is something beyond mere "entertainment" or quantity of output that makes him worthy of the Nobel.

Winston Churchill won it with, practically, one book. Barbara Cartland's output was pure dross but well-written dross. What you described is world class hacksterism.

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If a person who manages a Barnes and Noble for a living and studied comparative literature in college [such as me] HAD NEVER EVEN HEARD HER NAME before [Elfriede Jelinek] won the Nobel, maybe that signifies that the Swedish Academy is going a little obscure and political with their selections.


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I wonder if you had heard of Giorgos Seferis or of Michail Sholokhov before they won their Nobels. (One was absolutely worthy of it, IMO, and the other one not, by the way.)

"Obscure" you say? The Nobel Committee has given the award to Rudyard Kipling, for christ's sakes!

And where is James Joyce?

[cognito20]

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Your admiration for King is well placed but, perhaps, there is something beyond mere "entertainment" or quantity of output that makes him worthy of the Nobel.

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My rejoinder to that is, why does there -need- to be anything else? Why does an author who has provided -that much- quality entertainment, who has brought excitement and suspense and has almost certainly introduced the joy and love of reading to millions and millions of people worldwide, and whose entertainment is always of a high order, need to stand by and watch as the Nobel Prize is consistently (not always, but frequently) awarded to authors like Jelinek, whose own mother probably doesn't crack open one of her books unless it's a particularly rainy day in Vienna?

The fact that an author is popular does NOT necessarily imply that his work has less literary merit than some overly-arty hack who gets prizes thrown in his or her direction merely because five or six prominent Comp Lit department chairmen publicly fawn over his or her political agenda. King's popularity should -not- disqualify him from becoming a Nobel laureate....in fact, I would consider it a factor in FAVOR of giving him the honor.

People who think that King's popularity somehow degrades the quality of his work kind of remind me of a lot of the trust fund hippies I see here every day in Ithaca...people who think that just because something is "exotic", "diverse" or "multicultural", "underground" or not popular with the masses, that means it must be of superior quality. I was in the punk rock scene long enough when I was younger to have learned that that ain't necessarily the case.

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Churchill won it with, practically, one book.

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Not true. Although _The Second World War_ (a 6-book series, incidentally, although it can obviously be counted as one complete work) was cited as his magnum opus in the Nobel announcement, Sir Winston won the Nobel just as much for _The History of the English Speaking Peoples_ and _Life of Marlborough_ (OK, maybe the latter to a lesser extent) as for his war memoirs/history.

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Barbara Cartland's output was pure dross but well-written dross.

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Barbara Cartland on the best day of her life never wrote anything halfway as good or compelling as _Salem's Lot_, _It_, _The Green Mile_, _Night Shift_ (admittedly, the latter is a short story collection, but it's one of the best in that genre I've ever read), and we won't even bring _The Dark Tower_ series or _The Stand_ into the conversation. Is she an -example- of the general "class" of writer King is, or was for the first decade or so of his career? Sure, I suppose you could make a case for it. King, though, is the BEST of the class.

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I wonder if you had heard of Giorgos Seferis or of Michail Sholokhov before they won their Nobels. (One was absolutely worthy of it, IMO, and the other one not, by the way.)

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Seferis, I admit, no, I hadn't heard of him until I went to college, and even then I just knew -of- him, hadn't (and haven't to this day) read any of his works. Mikhail Aleksandrovich? You're barking up the wrong tree with that one. I mentioned that my minor in college was Comp Lit...my other minor was in Russian language and my major was in History, with a concentration in Russian and Soviet studies. (My father is of German ancestry and my mother Russian, hence my early and continued interest in both languages and cultures.) I not only have read Sholokhov and have known of him since I was about 13, but have read a number of his works, including _Tikhi Don_ (the Russian name for the 2-part _And Quiet Flows the Don_ and _The Don Flows Home to the Sea_), _Podnyataya Tselina_ (the 2-part _Harvest on the Don_ and _Virgin Soil Upturned_) and _Oni Srazhalis za Rodinu_ (_They Fought For Their Motherland_, his WW2 epic) in the original. I was never a huge fan of his since I was never into the whole Stalinist "Socialist Realism" thing, but I'm quite familiar with his work.

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"Obscure" you say? The Nobel Committee has given the award to Rudyard Kipling, for christ's sakes!

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In 1907. Things were a little different back then. And may I remind you that on each year either side of the Kipling award the Committee recognized such geniuses of longstanding importance as Giosue Carducci and Rudolf Eucken, authors whose timeless works are found in literary companions in alternate universes everywhere. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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And where is James Joyce?

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Six feet underground in a Zurich cemetery, IIRC. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] To paraphrase _The Five-Minute Iliad_ and apply it to the book of his that it deserves to be applied to, _Finnegan's Wake_ is one of the seminal works of literature....and as soon as someone translates it, we'll know for sure. _Ulysses_ is a great novel, though I don't know if I would've ranked it the #1 novel of the 20th century like the Modern Library did a few years back. I didn't get very much out of _Dubliners_, and although I enjoyed _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ I didn't like it nearly as much as _Ulysses_.

--Scott

[Cyrus]

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The fact that an author is popular does NOT necessarily imply that his work has less literary merit ... King's popularity should *not* disqualify him from becoming a Nobel laureate.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree wholeheartily.

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In fact, I would consider [his popularity to be] a factor in FAVOR of giving him the honor.

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I strongly disagree. In the sense that popularity should play no role whatosever in the choice; neither, in favor of the candidate (for, as you say, "introduc[ing] the joy and love of reading to millions and millions of people worldwide" -- sorry but this would be the Humanitarian Award for Helping Literacy or something), nor against him on account of snobbery.

I asked for something beyond mere "entertainment" or quantity of output - but you seem satisfied when these two criteria are met.

What did Alfred Nobel himself think? His guidelines to the Swedish Academy were, IMHO, sufficiently balanced between the specific and the vague, thus enabling the award to change with the times and the personalities (of the Academy) : The candidate should have bestowed "the greatest benefit on mankind" with "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (the latter term being the cause of much debate ever since).

I suppose you could find grounds to argue in favor of awarding the Nobel to "popular" writers, on the merits of their popularity alone and I could find grounds in favor of others, in the criteria of Alfred Nobel... Nobelprize.org

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...authors like Jelinek, whose own mother probably doesn't crack open one of her books unless it's a particularly rainy day in Vienna.

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Any critic who comes down inappropriately hard on an author in order to praise another, loses both the argument and credibility, in my book (if you'll excuse the pun). I have been guilty of that practice myself in the past, but I do try to mend my ways. My point? Don't knock Elvis to praise Chuck Berry.

As to the Austrian writer who got the Nobel award in 2004, I did not know Elfriede Jelinek's work either before she got it, though I knew she was the author of the novel on which The Piano Teacher was based, directed by one of the most interesting European directors, Michael Haneke. I had seen the movie in 2001 and thus got to know the name -- the same way I was turned on to Patricia Highsmith when I laid eyes on (and was mesmerised by) The American Friend of Wim Wenders.

My point? The 2004 recipient was seemingly unknown to most, but probably not as obscure as you make her out to be.

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Seferis, I admit, no, I hadn't heard of him until I went to college, and even then I just knew -of- him, hadn't (and haven't to this day) read any of his works.

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Similar to what I said about Elfriede Jelinek, though, by now, I have been intrigued enough to buy into her "output".

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Mikhail Aleksandrovich [Sholokhov]? You're barking up the wrong tree with that one.

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I was making a point about generally unknown writers, you understand. In any case, I am glad to have landed in that "minefield", where you have worked on Soviet and Russian literature specifically!

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Finnegan's Wake is one of the seminal works of literature....and as soon as someone translates it, we'll know for sure.

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[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Seriously, after getting to know how the process is carried out, I see that un-translatable writers do get to be nominated and awarded the prize. (Seferis is but one such example. A Greek poet whose merit, as a poet, relies heavily on the very words themselves! I mean, any poet cannot be translated, by definition. It's as if the committee members for the Oscars decide on the award without seeing the films but getting the main story told to them, in detail. Ergo, we compromise -- and award.)

Speaking of the Oscars, and your point about Giosue Carducci and Rudolf Eucken [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] (I second the emoticon!), this is precisely (although for somewhat different reasons than yours) what the Nobel Literary Prize reminds me of : They both get it somewhat right and spectacularly wrong in equal measures.

--Cyrus

[John Cole]

I'm not sure how you don't get much out of The Dubliners, especially after reading Ulysses. Did you get as far as The Dead, for my money, perhaps the best short story in English?

[Il_Mostro]

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Alfred Nobel is turning in his grave at the misuse that his prizes have been put to.

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So you don't think Pinter was worth it then? Not that I know anything about him, but he doesn't seem that bad a choice?

[John Cole]

Gilbert Sorrentino dissed again. Oh, well.

[partygirluk]

The anti-war poetry he released a couple of years back was dire stuff.

[nicky g]

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The anti-war poetry he released a couple of years back was dire stuff.

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Agreed. But I think it's based on a writer's positive contributions rather than the combined net merit of his entire work.

[bholdr]

silly intellectual-elitist, left-wing, bleeding heart, commie-loving, tree-hugging, liberals... when will they ever learn? [/sarcasam, if you couldn't tell]

personally, i don't like his writing as much as others do, but, good for him.