Forgotten Nobel Laureates

[Ben Jackson]

Agree with you there on the category of Laxness and Canetti. I can place Juan Ramon Jimenez there too.

By the way, I'm reading the first volume of Canetti's Memoir, Tongue Set Free, and I'm almost done with the book (about seventy to eighty pages left). I love the work so much. Done with the book, I will definitely review it in the Recently Finished Book Thread.

As for Pontoppidan, I read reviews of Lucky Per on Irish Times around January. I found the reviews and excerpts very interesting. I will put the book on my radar.

 

[Hamishe22]

I have also, coincidentally, started a project to read one book from every winner. So far, I found Blindness to be very overrated and Babbit to be a tad underrated.

There are many Nobel winners who are unknown unknown to me. Looking at the list:
Sully Prudhomme,
Theodor Mommsen,
Frédéric Mistral,
José Echegaray,
Henryk Sienkiewicz,
Rudolf Christoph Eucken,
Paul von Heyse,
Gerhart Hauptmann,
Verner von Heidenstam,
Karl Adolph Gjellerup,
Carl Spitteler,
Jacinto Benavente,
Władysław Reymont,
Erik Axel Karlfeldt,
Ivan Bunin,
Frans Eemil Sillanpää,
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen,
Pär Lagerkvist,
Halldór Laxness,
Saint-John Perse,
Ivo Andrić,
Giorgos Seferis,
Shmuel Yosef Agnon,
Eyvind Johnson,
Harry Martinson,
Eugenio Montale,
Odysseas Elytis,
Czesław Miłosz,
Jaroslav Seifert
Camilo José Cela,
And
Imre Kertész

Are the ones I don't even recognize.

 

[Leseratte]

I have also, coincidentally, started a project to read one book from every winner. So far, I found Blindness to be very overrated and Babbit to be a tad underrated.

There are many Nobel winners who are unknown unknown to me. Looking at the list:
Sully Prudhomme,
Theodor Mommsen,
Frédéric Mistral,
José Echegaray,
Henryk Sienkiewicz,
Rudolf Christoph Eucken,
Paul von Heyse,
Gerhart Hauptmann,
Verner von Heidenstam,
Karl Adolph Gjellerup,
Carl Spitteler,
Jacinto Benavente,
Władysław Reymont,
Erik Axel Karlfeldt,
Ivan Bunin,
Frans Eemil Sillanpää,
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen,
Pär Lagerkvist,
Halldór Laxness,
Saint-John Perse,
Ivo Andrić,
Giorgos Seferis,
Shmuel Yosef Agnon,
Eyvind Johnson,
Harry Martinson,
Eugenio Montale,
Odysseas Elytis,
Czesław Miłosz,
Jaroslav Seifert
Camilo José Cela,
And
Imre Kertész

Are the ones I don't even recognize.

I haven´t read most of them. But Gerhart Hauptmann is Germany`s most important naturalist. I didn´t know he had won the Nobel.

 

[Hamishe22]

I haven´t read most of them. But Gerhart Hauptmann is Germany`s most important naturalist. I didn´t know he had won the Nobel.

I'm ashamed of my lack of knowledge regarding German naturalism

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I haven´t read most of them. But Gerhart Hauptmann is Germany`s most important naturalist. I didn´t know he had won the Nobel.

Hauptmann was a great playwright and absolutely deserved the prize.

 

[Leseratte]

I'm ashamed of my lack of knowledge regarding German naturalism

You absolutely needn´t be. I´m not sure whether Hauptmann is so much known outside Germany these days.

 

[Leseratte]

Hauptmann was a great playwright and absolutely deserved the prize.

He certainly is, but I don´t know how much he is, or ever was, known outside Germany. It was some surprise to me to learn that he was a laureate.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

He certainly is, but I don´t know how much he is, or ever was, known outside Germany. It was some surprise to me to learn that he was a laureate.

I discovered Hauptmann when I was reading lots of Ibsen in high school, and looking around for similar writers. I do love that era.

 

[Hamishe22]

Hauptmann was a great playwright and absolutely deserved the prize.

I'm going to read him soon

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I'm going to read him soon

Your mileage may vary, of course, I seldom make guarantees. I have wide and some would say indiscriminate enthusiasm. ?

 

[Ben Jackson]

I have also, coincidentally, started a project to read one book from every winner. So far, I found Blindness to be very overrated and Babbit to be a tad underrated.

There are many Nobel winners who are unknown unknown to me. Looking at the list:
Sully Prudhomme,
Theodor Mommsen,
Frédéric Mistral,
José Echegaray,
Henryk Sienkiewicz,
Rudolf Christoph Eucken,
Paul von Heyse,
Gerhart Hauptmann,
Verner von Heidenstam,
Karl Adolph Gjellerup,
Carl Spitteler,
Jacinto Benavente,
Władysław Reymont,
Erik Axel Karlfeldt,
Ivan Bunin,
Frans Eemil Sillanpää,
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen,
Pär Lagerkvist,
Halldór Laxness,
Saint-John Perse,
Ivo Andrić,
Giorgos Seferis,
Shmuel Yosef Agnon,
Eyvind Johnson,
Harry Martinson,
Eugenio Montale,
Odysseas Elytis,
Czesław Miłosz,
Jaroslav Seifert
Camilo José Cela,
And
Imre Kertész

Are the ones I don't even recognize.

I recommend this work from these writers I've read:

Federic Mistral: Memoirs
Kertesz: Fatelessness
Cela: Family of Paschal Duarte
Milosz: Collected Poems
Lagerkvist: Barrabbas
Sienkiewicz: Quo Vadis
Montale: Selected Poems
Elytis: Collected Poems
Seferis: Collected Poems

Apart from these writers that I listed their works, I haven't read the rest.

Agree with you on Babbitt, a very beautiful novel.

 

[Americanreader]

I second Milosz’s Collected Poems, and I’d recommend The Hive and San Camilo, 1936 by Cela.

 

[Hamishe22]

I recommend this work from these writers I've read:

Federic Mistral: Memoirs
Kertesz: Fatelessness
Cela: Family of Paschal Duarte
Milosz: Collected Poems
Lagerkvist: Barrabbas
Sienkiewicz: Quo Vadis
Montale: Selected Poems
Elytis: Collected Poems
Seferis: Collected Poems

Apart from these writers that I listed their works, I haven't read the rest.

Agree with you on Babbitt, a very beautiful novel.

Thanks a lot!

 

[hayden]

I recommend this work from these writers I've read:

Montale: Selected Poems

Collected Poems* ?

(He's too good for selected)

Hamishe, if you also wanted to start with his volume 'Cuttlefish Bones', that would get my full recommendation. It's usually what's cited as what won him the Nobel.

 

[hayden]

And here's my picks for some of the others on your list—

Ivan Bunin — Collected Stories
Frans Eemil Sillanpää — People in the Summer Night
Halldór Laxness — Independent People, The Fish Can Sing, World Light, & Under The Glacier
Saint-John Perse — Anabasis
Ivo Andrić — The Damned Yard
Jaroslav Seifert — The Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert

You don't need to listen to me by any means, but I've also read the collected poems of Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and the dude was kinda boring. If you skipped him, no big loss. Jacinto Benavente's plays really aren't that interesting either. He's probably one of the weakest laureates.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Collected Poems* ?

(He's too good for selected)

Hamishe, if you also wanted to start with his volume 'Cuttlefish Bones', that would get my full recommendation. It's usually what's cited as what won him the Nobel.

As I am scarcely original in pointing out, that generation of Italian poets - Saba (1883), Campana (1885), Ungaretti (1888), Montale (1896), Quasimodo (1901) - is as gifted a group as has ever appeared so close together in world literature.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

And here's my picks for some of the others on your list—

Ivan Bunin — Collected Stories
Frans Eemil Sillanpää — People in the Summer Night
Halldór Laxness — Independent People, The Fish Can Sing, World Light, & Under The Glacier
Saint-John Perse — Anabasis
Ivo Andrić — The Damned Yard
Jaroslav Seifert — The Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert

People in the Summer Night practically has a cult in this Forum. ?

 

[hayden]

Ungaretti (1888)

I'm still waiting for an English translation of his collected poems ? (a proper one, like Montale's, etc). Think I've read everything by him that I can at this point though. Allegria is phenomenal.

Had he been nominated in 1959, I think he would have split the award with Quasimodo.

 

[hayden]

People in the Summer Night practically has a cult in this Forum. ?

It's a gorgeous novel. Maybe it's because I went into it with basically no expectations, but I was genuinely surprised by how good it was.

Incidentally, I'm about 3/5 of the way through his novel Meek Heritage at the moment. It's... not as good. It's fine, I guess, but it's one of those books that feels a little bit more like a chore. Bit miserable, bit laborious— kinda like the plot actually. Somewhat reminiscent of Hamsun, who did it better.

 

[ministerpumpkin]

People in the Summer Night practically has a cult in this Forum. ?

I read it over the summer after finding a link to it somewhere on the forum. A beautiful novel about simple people.