Thursday, October 13, 2005
Largely Political Prize for Literature
The Nobel Prize for Literature this year goes to has-been, lefty Brit playwright Harold Pinter, it was announced today. Thus the Lit prize joins the Peace Prize as an award given largely for a political position, general opposition to American interests. It's not a huge step down for the Lit Prize.
The search committee for the Nobel Prize for Literature over the years, never strong on finding talent, usually gravitated towards seldom-read Norse novelists with a sprinkling of never-heard-of-them or just plain bad lefty poets, like Pablo Neruda. They managed, however, to ignore true giants like Proust, Joyce, Nabokov and Borges (even though Borges lingered on for almost 90 years), but found such members of the immortal pantheon as Bjornstjerne Bjorrison, Carl Spitteler, Frans Sillanpaa, Henrik Pontoppiden (who shared the prize with Karl Gjellerup) and Pearl Buck. In 1974, it was all Swedish, all the time with co-winners Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson.
Pinter is another weak choice. Has Stanislaw Lem died and no one told me?
Even some of the good choices are not what you'd call a barrel of laughs. Knut Hamsun (good, if you ignore the Nazi sympathies), Samuel Beckett, Haldor Laxness, Elfriede Jelinek, and Sinclair Lewis are best read when you're feeling great and need to sadden down a little.
I never liked Pinter, even when he was a hot literary property, and to know that he won it for America-bashing doesn't sweeten the bitter pill a bit.
The search committee for the Nobel Prize for Literature over the years, never strong on finding talent, usually gravitated towards seldom-read Norse novelists with a sprinkling of never-heard-of-them or just plain bad lefty poets, like Pablo Neruda. They managed, however, to ignore true giants like Proust, Joyce, Nabokov and Borges (even though Borges lingered on for almost 90 years), but found such members of the immortal pantheon as Bjornstjerne Bjorrison, Carl Spitteler, Frans Sillanpaa, Henrik Pontoppiden (who shared the prize with Karl Gjellerup) and Pearl Buck. In 1974, it was all Swedish, all the time with co-winners Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson.
Pinter is another weak choice. Has Stanislaw Lem died and no one told me?
Even some of the good choices are not what you'd call a barrel of laughs. Knut Hamsun (good, if you ignore the Nazi sympathies), Samuel Beckett, Haldor Laxness, Elfriede Jelinek, and Sinclair Lewis are best read when you're feeling great and need to sadden down a little.
I never liked Pinter, even when he was a hot literary property, and to know that he won it for America-bashing doesn't sweeten the bitter pill a bit.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 5:47 PM 
