October 06, 2009

Nobel Prize Season, 2009

Who will join the list of winners for Literature? We'll find out on Thursday. The bookmakers include several Americans among the favorites, but this is such a strange prize one never knows who will emerge with the award.

Posted by armand at October 6, 2009 10:26 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Books


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And the winner is . . . 50/1 shot Herta Muller. Interesting to go down the list of all the long shots. William Gass (100/1), by far, is my favorite of the bunch, but it occurs to me that, given the "definition" attached to the award, the work of Rushdie or Transtromer more warrants consideration than Roth or Oates. It's the "toward and ideal" thing that throws me. Oates is the literary Stephen King, publishing whatever spews forth, regardless of quality, topic, or aesthetic; and Roth's only identifiable ideal appears to be American jewishness generally, and dirty old man syndrome. Don't get me wrong: he's brilliant in his way, and I've enjoyed countless hours of pleasure immersed in his work, but I don't see his work as having much of a focus that one would care to state in polite company.

Posted by: moon at October 8, 2009 01:07 PM | PERMALINK

Another European, what a shock. But yeah, that "toward an ideal" thing ... what do you do with that? I guess I could see DeLillo, but most Americans wouldn't seem to obviously fit with that. I'd really have thought Rushdie would have won by now. And I'd like to see Atwood get it at some point.

Posted by: Armand at October 8, 2009 01:28 PM | PERMALINK

Yeah, in light of his story as well as his ongoing post-colonial who-ha -- I'm sure a lit scholar would do better in characterizing his work, which I do think militates towards _something_ more substantial than Oates or Roth -- Rushdie has to be counted as probably the closest thing to a sure bet as anyone. But then again, all of it was true a few books ago, and by all accounts his work has diminished somewhat in quality over the last couple of books, so maybe he's not as sure a thing as I would have thought.

Posted by: moon at October 9, 2009 11:00 AM | PERMALINK

Also, although I don't think he's been handicapped, the likely success of The Road might put McCarthy into the conversation. And his work, collectively, again exceeds by my assessment Oates or Roth. Truly a poet, he's been exploring what he imagines to be the dark, violent core of human nature relentlessly for 30 years, give or take -- and he's been doing it with breathtaking skill and an unblinking moral honesty. Or, you know, something like that.

Posted by: moon at October 9, 2009 11:02 AM | PERMALINK
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