2008 Nobel Prize in Literature

[beer good]

OK. Do you hear something about Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet, who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature, or Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist, who won the 1988, or Ferit Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist, who won the 2006?

I know Pamuk has released at least one novel since and from what I can tell, he's widely read - then again, he was fairly widely read before the Nobel too. He's quite good, btw. I haven't read Brodsky or Mahfouz (I plan on reading Mahfouz though) but they are dead, so I'd be very surprised if we heard something new from them.

 

[antony48]

What about books these authors that were previously published? I think it was political decision… I am talking about Brodsky or Mahfouz…

 

[antony48]

A lot of brilliant authors like Erich Maria Remarque or Lion Feuchtwanger never were nominated. I think that Remarque should be nominating for novels All Quiet on the Western Front, Three Comrades, and The Night in Lisbon and so on.

And I think for Nobel Prize you know a lot of world famous authors (more famous than Brodsky or Mahfouz…) like Orwell, Feuchtwanger… Maybe it was a good new thread: Writers for Nobel Prize in Literature who never was nominated.
I have a big list of preferences….

 

[beer good]

What about books these authors that were previously published? I think it was political decision… I am talking about Brodsky or Mahfouz…

Which books of theirs have you read that have led you to that conclusion? If you haven't read them, how do you know they didn't get it on literary merits?

A lot of brilliant authors like Erich Maria Remarque or Lion Feuchtwanger never were nominated. I think that Remarque should be nominating for novels All Quiet on the Western Front, Three Comrades, and The Night in Lisbon and so on.

And I think for Nobel Prize you know a lot of world famous authors (more famous than Brodsky or Mahfouz…) like Orwell, Feuchtwanger… Maybe it was a good new thread: Writers for Nobel Prize in Literature who never was nominated.
I have a big list of preferences….

How do you know they weren't nominated? Nominations for the Nobel are never made public (well, technically they're only top-secret for 50 years, but by then most of the people who could tell you which ones were discussed are dead anyway).

I agree that there are a ton of worthy writers, starting with people like Tolstoy, Zola, Ibsen and Strindberg, who could and perhaps should have won the prize but didn't (funnily enough, at least two of those were discarded because they were considered too political...) But then, they only give it out to one writer per year, and given how many authors there are world-wide they're always going to miss out on a bunch. I actually prefer it when it goes to an author who's not already a huge name.

At the end of the day, why the big fuss? It's one of many literary prizes, given out by a small group of people, paid for by private funds. It's never going to be more than a glorified reading recommendation.

 

[antony48]

I agree... Tolstoy, Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg... Remarque, Feuchtwanger... every reader knows these names... but I am not sure that you could say the same about Brodsky or Mahfouz

 

[beer good]

I agree... Tolstoy, Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg... Remarque, Feuchtwanger... every reader knows these names... but I am not sure that you could say the same about Brodsky or Mahfouz

Perhaps, though I understand they're quite well-known in their parts of the world - especially Mahfouz - and it's an international award, after all. But luckily, quality isn't determined by number of readers. If it were, Dan Brown and Stephen King would be Nobel laureates.

 

[antony48]

You bet! Quality isn't determined by number of readers. Tolstoy died almost 100 years ago, Feuchtwanger – 50 years ago. But in 2007 Knopf prints a new translation of War and Pease by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Time is determined quality of a book.
You say ‘Nominations for the Nobel are never made public (…they're only top-secret for 50 years’.
For Tolstoy and Zola are double 50. I had never heard about their nominations. The other way, I am not sure that after 100 years books some of the Nobel laureates (like Brodsky…) will be printed.

 

[beer good]

You say ‘Nominations for the Nobel are never made public (…they're only top-secret for 50 years’.
For Tolstoy and Zola are double 50. I had never heard about their nominations.

How hard did you look? It's right there on the wikipedia page. From the article they link to:

The set of criteria which resulted in Prizes to Bjørnstierne Bjørnson, Rudyard Kipling and Paul Heyse, but rejected Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen and Émile Zola, is characterized by its conservative idealism (a domestic variation of Hegelian philosophy), holding church, state and family sacred, and by its idealist aesthetics derived from Goethe's and Hegel's epoch (and codified by F.T. Fischer in the middle of the nineteenth century).

In short, like I said above: they didn't get it because they were too radical... too political. How about that.

The other way, I am not sure that after 100 years books some of the Nobel laureates (like Brodsky…) will be printed.

Since you haven't read him, I don't know how you come to that conclusion. But yes, it's quite possible, just like few people (AFAIK) read Sully Prudhomme or Giosué Carducci today. Tastes in literature change, and the members of the Academy are only human. I still don't know why that makes Brodsky an exclusively political choice, though; for all we know, 100 years from now nobody will read Morrison or Grass either.

Now, if you want to talk why Churchill got it, I'll happily agree that it was political... :innocent:

As for my personal list of authors who should have gotten the Nobel, a top 10 would look something like this:
Tolstoy
Bulgakov
Orwell
Woolf
Borges
Nabokov
Vonnegut
Calvino
Kafka
Hrabal

They didn't get it. Others did. Yet somehow, we still read them. What would have been different if they'd gotten the Nobel?

 

[antony48]

Thank you, Beer good! I agree with you on 100%
Your list is the same as mine. But in a top 1-2 Bulgakov and Orwell. I had emotional shock after Animal Farm. It’s fantastic!!!

 

[psixonavt]

Nobel Prize in Literature - 50% is a political award, 50% - is a literature award.

Antony48, I think you are right 100%.
But.

OK. Do you hear something about Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet, who won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature, or Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist, who won the 1988, or Ferit Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist, who won the 2006?

But you arguments are
(It's better to remember other names here, Churchill, Dario Fo, - after them it's strange to dispute that the award is politicized)

Look:
Orkhan Pamuk IS well-known, enough to be a nobel-calibre. For example, you can read the discussion in this forum on Nobel-2005, he is named there.
Brodsky. Well, Brodsky is the gratest russian poet of the last third of XX century, a poet, equal to Pasternak, Akhmatova. If it is not known, well... cultural horizon...
Mahfouz - really, if he isn't known must mean, that may be my problem. But, on the other hand, K.Oe, Tagor and Kawabata are well-known, so, maybe if the author is really important, he is translated, and if he wins a "political" Nobel, he is forgottened. I cant' say something definite.

 

[silverseason]

I haven't read Brodsky, but I have read Pamuk and Mahfouz. I don't know how much literary quality I am losing because of reading translations, but I admire them both. Mahfouz is a true story teller. His trilogy, set in Cairo, gave me an intimate feeling of a family, living as well as they can, enduring conflicts, meeting the world as they know it. As to "political correctness" it depends on whose politics are correct. Mahfouz was actually stabbed by a reader who objected to him -- as too western. I think.

I have read less of Pamuk. I admired Snow and can well understand why it would irritate many in Turkey. It is a book with many characters and many layers, some of them well covered by the snow. I am currently reading Istanbul, a memoir of his family and also of a city. These are serious efforts to understand, to explain and to portray.

The Nobel is not some sort accolade which guarantees literary immortality. It is judgment made by fallible humans at a point in time. I would loosen up. Consider each year's prize as bringing to your attention an author you may come to appreciate if you give him or her a chance.

 

[psixonavt]

However, the awarding of Pamuk or Brodsky incontestably is a politic gesture, even if they are worth of this prize. The same story happened with other writers.

 

[beer good]

Funnily enough, there was a story in a Swedish paper today about when Boris Pasternak got it back in 1958 - one of the most politically controversial awards. Since 50 years have gone by, the Academy's notes have been made public (see?) and surprise surprise - they don't seem to have the possible political value of the award into account at all. They simply read Doctor Zhivago (banned in the Soviet Union until 1988) and decided they couldn't not give it to Pasternak.

I cannot but see that this artistically remarkable, intensely experienced work, through its pure and powerful spirit, rising above political party squabbles, and if anything with an apolitical purpose, fulfills the demands put upon the Nobel prize for literature to an extraordinary degree. (...) [The Academy] can make its decision with a clean conscience, without worrying about the temporary issue that Pasternak's novel has not yet been allowed to be published in the Soviet Union.

The resulting political shitstorm resulted in Pasternak being forced to choose between refusing the award and being exiled for life (he chose the former) and the Swedish Prime Minister calling the Academy "unbelievably scatterbrained" and implying that Österling was senile for not taking politics into account.

 

[psixonavt]

I don't speak swedish... hope, I'll read it soon in translation.
I don't understand, how they can explain this:
they could not award him, because of missing a russian edition of the novel. So, there was prepared a "faked" edition in Netherlands - it was edited the draft version of the novel (with errors in text) - in Netherlands!? What for!?

 

[beer good]

I'm not sure what you're referring to exactly; I don't think there's anything in the Nobel Prize rules that says a novel has to be published in the writer's home country (especially since the Nobel isn't usually given out for one specific book). Maybe you've got more info on Dr Zhivago, but according to Wikipedia, Pasternak's manuscript was smuggled out and first published in Italy in both the original Russian and Italian; according to the article, Österling read the Italian translation. Are you saying that this first edition is faulty, and was this known in 1958?

(If it is, then that still makes it a literary decision, though... just a misinformed one. )

 

[psixonavt]

OK, I've read it with Promt.
Thank you for this link!

Beh, what can we wait from them? Words like "Oh, we've studeied the archive, and found, that the award was extremely politicized, and all this story is very "yellow", and we're ashamed". :lol:
Never! :lol:

 

[psixonavt]

Yes, there is a rule, that the novel must be published "in it's native" language.
Zhivagi was published in Italy, than in France and other countries- but in translation.
"Somewho" "wanted" to publish it in original, and succeeded to get it's bad version of the text. It was published in Netherlands.

 

[beer good]

Yes, there is a rule, that the novel must be published "in it's native" language.

Where is that rule? I've checked the Academy's site, and there's nothing there about requiring that something be published in the writer's native language. Nobel's will certainly doesn't state anyting like that. Also, it doesn't make much sense when you look at how the prize is awarded.

For starters, which novel would we be talking about? The Nobel Prize isn't awarded for any particular novel (or written work) but for an entire body of work, so that would be a very peculiar rule.

Furthermore, how do you determine what a writer's native language is? For example, Wole Soyinka's native language is Yoruba, but he writes in English. Bellow apparently had Jiddisch as his native language, but wrote in English. And yet both of them got the prize.

Zhivagi was published in Italy, than in France and other countries- but in translation.
"Somewho" "wanted" to publish it in original, and emerged to get it's bad version of the text. It was published in Netherlands.

That's interesting, and in direct conflict with what Wikipedia says - then again, Wikipedia has been known to be wrong. Do you have a source for that?

 

[psixonavt]

biondirarebooks.com/articles/zhivagoarticle.html
"Feltrinelli allowed Mouton to go to press, but over his imprint. This edition of a few hundred copies was published on 24 August." [1958]

 

[psixonavt]

"First Edition in Russian
[title page in Cyrillic:] Boris Leonidovich Pasternak/Doctor/Zhivago/A Novel/G Feltrinelli - Milan/1958. [actually:] [The Hague: Mouton, 1958]"