Nobel Prize in Literature 2010

[anchomal]

It seems, given the general consensus so far, that he is a popular choice and a worthy one. Personally, I'm delighted he has won. I remember reading the War at the End of the World a few years ago and thought it a stunning novel. The other books I've read of his haven't disappointed me wither.
But I'd given up on his chances. The reason? Both Le Clezio and Mueller winning the in last two years and both being younger than him. I thought that if the Nobel people wanted to honour him they'd have done it before now and wouldn't have risked waiting.
Of course, this was my own mistake... I had somehow gotten it into my head that he was older than he actually is (74).

 

[Stewart]

I'd given up on his chances. The reason? Both Le Clezio and Mueller winning the in last two years and both being younger than him. I thought that if the Nobel people wanted to honour him they'd have done it before now and wouldn't have risked waiting.

I don't believe age even enters their [the Academy's] mind in a oh-we-must-award-this-guy-before-he-dies way because the process is as simple as taking recommendations from relavant authorities and then whittling it down to five for serious consideration that year. The four left unrecognised one year are not all likely - if any - to appear in the following year's unpublished shortlist. For all we know, this could be the first year that Llosa has made the shortlist.

 

[anchomal]

That's not really what I'm saying.
The way I had been looking at it, Mario Vargas Llosa has done nothing in the past year to make him more deserving than he would have been last year or the year before. I suppose the Nobel committee (or whatever they are) have their own agendas from year to year, so maybe this year they felt that it HAD to be a Spanish language writer and maybe next year it will HAVE to be a poet, or an African writer, or an Asian (probably not an American...).
It's just that (and remember, this was in my own head, and based on a faulty detail at that) I was thinking all the oldies had blown their chances after a couple of relatively youngish laureates.
Of course we don't know if the shortlists carry over from year to year, but it's a bit difficult to believe that to some degree or another they don't.

 

[Daniel del Real]

I don't believe age even enters their [the Academy's] mind in a oh-we-must-award-this-guy-before-he-dies way because the process is as simple as taking recommendations from relavant authorities and then whittling it down to five for serious consideration that year. The four left unrecognised one year are not all likely - if any - to appear in the following year's unpublished shortlist. For all we know, this could be the first year that Llosa has made the shortlist.

My question is, what if a writer reaches the shortlist but he's not selected to win that year. Assuming that what Stewart tells is correct and he is taken automatically out of the list for next year, how long this writer has to wait in order to be eligible again? Or maybe he isn't anymore.

But that was my last question, no more speculation for this year. After so many years I'm happy with a Nobel decision so let's enjoy it.

 

[Stewart]

Assuming that what Stewart tells is correct and he is taken automatically out of the list for next year,

No, I'm not saying that's a shortlistee one year is automatically dropped for the following year, but noting that there's no longer term strategy than the year in question and suggesting that not every writer seriously considered one year will be seriously considered the following year. The following year will be a clean slate, hence the starting over of canvassing nominations, and the Committee will decide, based on these nominations, who to award.

 

[Peeping Tom]

I'm so glad Vargas Llosa won. He has an impressive body of work and has been a candidate for the prize year after year, but to no avail. At last! He truly deserves the honor.

 

[waalkwriter]

Well Daniel, what should I read of his? What is his best work? It all looks interesting but I don't know where to start?

 

[Daniel del Real]

Well Daniel, what should I read of his? What is his best work? It all looks interesting but I don't know where to start?

I'd start with something of his more recent work like The Feast of the Goat or The Way to Paradise. I don't recommend to start with his earlier novels because as good as they are they can be more daring to an initial reader and as Peter Englund said, dialogues and characters tend to fade in, fade out, disappear and appear again without nice. Not too complex either, you just have to read more carefully and slower. This is the case with The Green House for example. Haven't read Conversations in the Cathedral but I've heard it's like that also.
So there you go, there are two options depending on what kind of reader you are and where you want to start.

 

[Stewart]

For info, Peter England recommends starting with The Feast Of The Goat. There's a five minute interview with him here.

 

[Stiffelio]

I'd start with something of his more recent work like The Feast of the Goat or The Way to Paradise. I don't recommend to start with his earlier novels because as good as they are they can be more daring to an initial reader and as Peter Englund said, dialogues and characters tend to fade in, fade out, disappear and appear again without nice. Not too complex either, you just have to read more carefully and slower. This is the case with The Green House for example. Haven't read Conversations in the Cathedral but I've heard it's like that also.
So there you go, there are two options depending on what kind of reader you are and where you want to start.

Further to Daniel's comments I'd add that Vargas Llosa's early novels are more formally experimental, somewhat influenced by Faulkner and Onetti, while his later ones are more classical realistic novels, which take more after Stendhal, Flaubert and Hugo. If you'd like a comic twist added to it I'd recommend starting with Pantale?n y las Visitadoras (Captain Pantoja), an hilarious satire with a strong social message.

 

[Stiffelio]

Nobel academy also recognizes his work as essayist and dramatist as they state in the main page:



We've already commented here how good he is as essayist making literary analysis. I've read his works about Les Miserables and Juan Carlos Onetti and he's able to deconstruct in a very intelligent way such complex minds like Hugo and Onetti.
Unfortunately I haven't read any of his plays. If someone does, please let us know how you find it as a playwright.

I didn't read but I saw a wonderful production of La Se?orita de Tacna many years ago. It is his best known most often represented play. I remember it was about dreams, fulfilled and not, about memory and about the decadence of a social class.

 

[Taleb]

I would say better late than never, but would you all agree that it could have gone to him at least 15-20 years ago? does he represent latin american literature nowadays with all it's themes and issues?
Does the award seems outdated?

 

[Eric]

Suddenly, everyone is saying what a wonderful lad Mario Vargas Llosa is. Even if they've never read anything by him. Because he's a Latin American, and Latin America, led by the world's greatest democrats Morales, Ra?l Castro, and Ch?vez, is going to liberate itself from the hegemony of the wicked Yanks.

But hold on a minute, neo-armchair revolutionaries, Mario the Magician ain't no revolutionary. Hear the grumbles of intellectuals from Sweden, brought to you from the pages of Upsala Nya Tidning:

Leonardo Rossiello, Spanish lecturer:

He is quite conservative, neo-liberal [Yanks, remember that "liberal" means centre-right in Britspeak]. I shall be commenting positively about the prize to my colleagues and students. But I'm not opening any bottles of champagne. I still wish the Argentinian Juan Gelman had wond the prize.

G?ran Greider, Sweden's last revolutionary poet and the editor of the newspaper Dala-Democraten:

I'm not pleased. Latin America is the home of all progressive authors and Llosa even tried to become president on a neo-liberal ticket. He is out of step with everything positive that is occurring in the countries of Latin America.

So, if you're a leftie, you can stop all the cheering, slime, and smarm about how wonderful it is that a Latin American has won that capitalist funded prize, the Nobel. He's a centre-rightie. Now, after people saying for ages that authors are above politics, you will see people starting to snarl and moan as soon as they realise that they been tricked by the Swedish academy of reactionaries into thinking that Latin American writer = revolutionary in Che Guevara T-shirt.

A more balanced comment comes from chief political editor of Upsala Nya Tidning, H?kan Holmberg:

Others can comment on literary matters. But Vargas Llosa's writing has a clearly political dimension. He was once presidential candidate for a party of liberal colouring [Yanks, remember "liberal"!] against the authoritarian right and the Maoist guerrilla with its romanticising of violence. The Nobel committee's motivation also includes a description of Vargas Llosa's political development from Marxism to reformism and democracy.

Hurray for Holmberg! Not all Swedes mince their words or v?nder kappan efter vinden (are turncoats).

 

[Mirabell]

I would say better late than never, but would you all agree that it could have gone to him at least 15-20 years ago? does he represent latin american literature nowadays with all it's themes and issues?
Does the award seems outdated?

No, I would not agree. It is not always done (Pamuk), but often, the prize is awarded late in a career these days. Grass won several years after his last great book (and hadn't written a great one before that for decades), Lessing was mostly awarded for NOtebook, and as as few buffoons keep pointing out in a negative way, Pinter, too has written his last great plays in the middle/late 1970s.

I think that distance is a good idea to see whether a writer's work holds up, whether we can say with any kind of surety that it will hold up in the future. Llosa, from what I read about his work, has entered a new phase in his work with The Bad Girl, in the sense that his work before, the early and middle phases, that this can apparently be seen much clearer and more of a piece than earlier criticism did. This is a great time for him to win, and I don't think that there is a 'too late' in the Prize. As someone pointed out in the speculation thread: the overwhelming majority of writers produced their major work before getting the prize. The prize is about the past, not about the present. And the past stays, well, past, forever.

 

[Liam]

...they been tricked by the Swedish academy...

Could also be that the Swedish academy is trying to balance things out by awarding Llosa. Perhaps they had agreed to do it, amongst themselves, after much gnashing of teeth and wild hand gestures. This way, at least, the Prize seems more legitimate. Especially after they repeatedly awarded all these political nutcases in the early years of the decade--Jelinek, Pinter, et al.

At least now they can claim to have NO leftist bias whatsoever.


Not having read a single book by Llosa I can't really comment on whether or not he's "worthy" of the Prize (personally, I think the Nobels are rotten to the core; the only nice thing about them is the money), but I placed a hold on The Feast of the Goat at my local library.

 

[Liam]

He is quite conservative, neo-liberal... I still wish the Argentinian Juan Gelman had wond the prize.

Note that Rosiello does NOT comment on the literary qualities of either "candidate." Presumably, Gelman should have won based on the strength of his politics alone, and Llosa should NOT have won, based on the "weakness" of his politics, respectively. My god, what a zoo.

 

[waalkwriter]

No, I would not agree. It is not always done (Pamuk), but often, the prize is awarded late in a career these days. Grass won several years after his last great book (and hadn't written a great one before that for decades), Lessing was mostly awarded for NOtebook, and as as few buffoons keep pointing out in a negative way, Pinter, too has written his last great plays in the middle/late 1970s.

I think that distance is a good idea to see whether a writer's work holds up, whether we can say with any kind of surety that it will hold up in the future. Llosa, from what I read about his work, has entered a new phase in his work with The Bad Girl, in the sense that his work before, the early and middle phases, that this can apparently be seen much clearer and more of a piece than earlier criticism did. This is a great time for him to win, and I don't think that there is a 'too late' in the Prize. As someone pointed out in the speculation thread: the overwhelming majority of writers produced their major work before getting the prize. The prize is about the past, not about the present. And the past stays, well, past, forever.

Ouch Mirabell, that hurt. All I meant when I said that was that Edward Albee continued writing great, and extremely influential plays all the way up until the mid-1990s and to 2003 and was still passed over for Pinter because of Pinter's vitriolic anti-Americanism and anti-Iraq War position.

 

[Mirabell]

Ouch Mirabell, that hurt. All I meant when I said that was that Edward Albee continued writing great, and extremely influential plays all the way up until the mid-1990s and to 2003 and was still passed over for Pinter because of Pinter's vitriolic anti-Americanism and anti-Iraq War position.

Ha. I didn't mean you specifically. I guess I lumped you in with all kinds of people who complain along these lines. you can recognize the usual buffoonish complaints for example if people list Kafka (!) and Proust among the 'overlooked' writers.
and no, it was not likely to have been a decision Pinter vs. Albee, and taken by itself, Pinter WELL deserved a Nobel prize for his extraordinary work up to the end of the 1970s. Full stop. Does Albee deserve one, too? Maybe. I am amazingly under-read as far as roughly contemporary American drama is concerned.

 

[lionel]

All I have to say is that people should use Mario Vargas Llosa's surname(s) correctly: it's Vargas Llosa, and not just Llosa.

BLOG

 

[anchomal]

The Complete Review makes interesting reading today...
Apparenly, Swedish Academy member Knut Ahnlund has said that Vargas Llosa has been in contention for the Nobel since the 1970s and that the reason he was passed over was his active involvement in politics.
So maybe he was actually honoured for the quality of his work.