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#1
10-13-2005, 09:16 AM
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2005 Nobel Literature Prize
And the prize goes to Harold Pinter.
[ QUOTE ] Pinter recently turned his attention to the war in Iraq. He has been an outspoken critic of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and vehemently opposed Britain's involvement in the war. <font color="white"> . </font> In a February interview with the BBC, he said he would continue writing poems but was taking a break from plays. <font color="white"> . </font> "My energies are going in different directions, certainly into poetry," he said. "But also, as I think you know, over the last few years I've made a number of political speeches at various locations and ceremonies." <font color="white"> . </font> "I'm using a lot of energy more specifically about political states of affairs, which I think are very, very worrying as things stand." [/ QUOTE ] 
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#2
10-13-2005, 09:21 AM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
Is this a surprise?
To win a Nobel Prize these days you have to be against the US or US foreign policy. Even if the prize is in a category that has nothing to do with it. Alfred Nobel is turning in his grave at the misuse that his prizes have been put to.
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#3
10-13-2005, 10:01 AM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
[ QUOTE ]
Is this a surprise? To win a Nobel Prize these days you have to be against the US or US foreign policy. Even if the prize is in a category that has nothing to do with it. Alfred Nobel is turning in his grave at the misuse that his prizes have been put to. [/ QUOTE ] I tend to agree with your general point. 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 when I'm not playing poker. ;-) In this particular case I feel compelled to note that Pinter is a great playwright (who also happens to be an outspoken critic of US foreign policy, which has nothing to do whatsoever with the literary quality of his work) , and probably deserved the Nobel Prize, on literary merit, a long time ago. _The Birthday Party_ and _The Dumb Waiter_, just to name two, are some of the seminal works of absurdist theatre. He deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as Beckett and Ionesco, and he's a hell of a lot better than Edward Albee. They could've given the prize to someone a lot worse. That having been said, there were better candidates available. I'd have given it to Philip Roth if it was my choice (actually, I'd give it to Thomas Pynchon, but he'll never win it because he's so reclusive that the Swedish Academy would never vote him the prize for fear of him declining it like he did the National Book Award for _Gravity's Rainbow_), but I think either Joyce Carol Oates or Margaret Atwood would have been just as or more deserving. And one of these days, I really would love to see Stephen King (yes, you read that right, Stephen King) given serious consideration for the Nobel Literature Prize. Some of the book snobs (and I deal with them every day at work) laugh at me when I say that, but with the exception of _The Tommyknockers_, which he wrote when he was self-admittedly on a 6-month cocaine binge, 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 Stephen King. There are authors, a few more but still not many, who are BETTER WRITERS than Stephen King. NO ONE can match the combination. The Nobel Prize in Literature is a lifetime achievement award, and there isn't a living author who's achieved more than Stephen King. But until that day comes, we could do worse than Harold Pinter as a Nobel laureate. --Scott
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#4
10-13-2005, 10:02 AM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
[ QUOTE ]
Alfred Nobel is turning in his grave at the misuse that his prizes have been put to. [/ QUOTE ] 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?
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#5
10-13-2005, 10:06 AM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
"The Literature prize last year was given to some left-wing Austrian hack that I'd never even HEARD of"
How many Austrian writers have you heard of? There are bound to be worthy recipients that the English-language public won't have heard much about. APologies if you are a prolific reader of foreign literature, but I note that you don't mention a single non-English language author in your list of other suggestions. "You might like some less than others, but they're all -at least- entertaining. " I don't think that's what the Nobel prize is really about. I enjoy my trash as much as anyone else (mainly spy and crime stuff rather than horror, although I did used tor ead a lot of King) but I don;t think King is likely to be remembered much in 100 years time.
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#6
10-13-2005, 04:55 PM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
[ QUOTE ]
"The Literature prize last year was given to some left-wing Austrian hack that I'd never even HEARD of" How many Austrian writers have you heard of? [/ QUOTE ] Quite a few, actually. I did an undergraduate minor in comparative literature at Cornell, and wrote my honors thesis in that subject on Gunter Grass's _Danzig Trilogy_, so I'm rather well-versed in German-language literature. There aren't a great number of well-known Austrian fiction writers (the Austrian-born American Vicki Baum, the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, and Austrian Jewish dissident writer Stefan Zweig are the three that come right to mind) but quite a few in other fields, like Sigmund and Anna Freud, Alfred Adler and Viktor Frankl in psychology, just for starters. My point was that I had never even -heard- of Elfriede Jelinek before she won the 2004 Nobel, and you're talking to a guy who spends 1/3 of his waking life with his family, 1/3 playing poker, and the other 1/3 working and living in and around the literary world. It's no big deal if the -average American-, or even the average 2+2er, hadn't heard of Jelinek. But if a person who manages a Barnes and Noble for a living and studied comparative literature in college HAD NEVER EVEN HEARD HER NAME before she won the Nobel, maybe that signifies that the Swedish Academy is going a little obscure and political with their selections. Just a thought to ponder. [ QUOTE ] There are bound to be worthy recipients that the English-language public won't have heard much about. [/ QUOTE ] True, but -I- certainly would have heard of them. Maybe not read their works (and in most cases, probably not, but there's only so many hours in the day), but the name of any worthy candidate for the Nobel Prize would at least have reached my ears. [ QUOTE ] APologies if you are a prolific reader of foreign literature, but I note that you don't mention a single non-English language author in your list of other suggestions. [/ QUOTE ] That's because the best candidates this year all happen to be English-language authors. Why? Dunno. Joyce Carol Oates has been at or near the top of the literary world since she was an undergrad at Syracuse, although the fact that she's never really written an out-and-out classic novel hurts her. Few authors are more consistent, though. Atwood has one novel (actually, not one of her better ones), _The Handmaid's Tale_, that has received far more attention than anything else she's written, plus the fact that she's Canadian probably hurts her in the "American publicity" department, but she is almost as prolific and consistent as Oates. My vote would go to Roth basically because of four novels..._Goodbye Columbus_, _Portnoy's Complaint_, _The Great American Novel_ and _The Plot Against America_. His work may not be as consistent as Oates or Atwood, but the highlights are incredible. And the actual winner, Pinter, is almost indisputably the greatest absurdist writer living (I think Albee is incredibly overrated, and while Tom Stoppard's best stuff is great, he's also written some real clunkers). I cannot think of a single non-English language author who has not already won the Nobel who's achieved anywhere -near- what any of these four have. If you gave me a while, maybe I could come up with a couple, but I have a limited amount of time here. If there was a Gao Xingjian, Kenzaburo Oe or Jose Saramago (or Gunter Grass :-) ) out there this year, I certainly would have mentioned them. But there isn't. Incidentally, I think that the greatest black mark on the Nobel Literature Prize's history is that it was never awarded to Jose Luis Borges. So I don't have anything against non-English language writers. "You might like some less than others, but they're all -at least- entertaining. " [ QUOTE ] I don't think that's what the Nobel prize is really about. I enjoy my trash as much as anyone else (mainly spy and crime stuff rather than horror, although I did used tor ead a lot of King) but I don;t think King is likely to be remembered much in 100 years time. [/ QUOTE ] Anyone who thinks that Stephen King is a writer of "trash" stopped reading his work after _It_, or just hasn't been playing close attention. I think King is similar to Herman Melville in that, while he's certainly a popular writer while he's alive, he will really begin to be taken -seriously- as the all-time great writer he is only after his death. (Melville, while he was alive, was basically thought of only as a travel writer, much like King is pigeonholed as a horror and "trash" writer now.) You're right, though, that the Nobel Prize doesn't generally recognize writers of his "reputation", deserved or not. Incidentally, another writer who would also be a worthy Nobel laureate although he is generally pigeonholed as a "spy novelist" (although his reputation among the "literary elite", whatever that is, is much higher than King's) is John Le Carre. I also would be very happy to see him win it, and unlike King I think there's a chance in hell that that might happen. Also, to the person before who implied that anti-American views help one to win the Literature Nobel...if that is the case, why did a universally-respected writer like Graham Greene (certainly deserving in a literary sense) never win it.....a man who, when asked in an interview what word in the English language he disliked the most, replied, "America"? --Scott
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#9
10-13-2005, 06:58 PM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
You should join in the OOT "What book should I read next" threads. Please. [/ QUOTE ]
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#10
10-13-2005, 07:03 PM
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Re: 2005 Nobel Literature Prize
[ QUOTE ]
And one of these days, I really would love to see Stephen King (yes, you read that right, Stephen King) given serious consideration for the Nobel Literature Prize. Some of the book snobs (and I deal with them every day at work) laugh at me when I say that, but with the exception of _The Tommyknockers_, which he wrote when he was self-admittedly on a 6-month cocaine binge, 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 Stephen King. There are authors, a few more but still not many, who are BETTER WRITERS than Stephen King. NO ONE can match the combination. The Nobel Prize in Literature is a lifetime achievement award, and there isn't a living author who's achieved more than Stephen King. [/ QUOTE ] Entertainment is a four-letter word among the literati. I think that many believe that being unread and unknown is a mark of honor for authors. What most of them would never admit is that almost every author of "classical literature" that we hold in esteem today wrote the popular entertainment of his era. Starting with Homer, through Shakespeare, and to the like of modern masters like Dickens and Twain, these people were storytellers, writing for a mass audience, not for the elite. I'd venture to say that not one was recognized as a master of literature in his lifetime. I'd also bet big money that King will be studied in graduate courses after his demise, and will be the subject of many a Ph.D. dissertation.
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