Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 Speculation

[Septularisen]

The nationality of a poet is LANGUAGE! Celan belongs to the German language. Citizenship is mere bureaucracy, and the rest is chauvinism.

So if I follow your reasoning, Elias CANETTI is German? It's strange, though, when you read the list of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature it clearly says that he's English!
So, what do you think? Bureaucracy or chauvinism, on the part of the SA?

 

[Seelig]

So if I follow your reasoning, Elias CANETTI is German? It's strange, though, when you read the list of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature it clearly says that he's English!
So, what do you think? Bureaucracy or chauvinism, on the part of the SA?

Mere confusion: Canetti belongs mostly to the german/vienese landscape, even though he also wrote in English. But I was specially writing about poets: Brodsky is Russian; Milosz is Polish… both wrote in English (at the end of their careers).

 

[Ben Jackson]

The truth is, while the Nobel Prize in Literature could have been awarded to "better" writers in retrospect, there's hardly a name on the list that makes one go, "Huh?"

Of course Tolstoy should have received it, and of course Woolf should have won instead of Pearl Buck, but this doesn't make Pearl Buck a bad writer: just that history has gently "corrected" Woolf's status, bringing her to the front like the genius she truly was/is, and Buck has been moved to the back.

We can complain and torture ourselves until the end of time over the question of who should have won instead of Churchill, Fo, Bob Dylan, etc, but purely objectively, all of these choices probably made sense to the selecting committee at the time. You can't really argue against the zeitgeist, can you. Or else they might have been compromise choices, pure and simple.

Another thing to remember is the bureaucratic nightmare surrounding any and all such procedures.

I know this will seem paltry in comparison, but I've served on a couple of graduate committees that awarded prizes to undergraduates (Best Freshman Essay of the Year, that type of thing), and you won't believe how often somebody's petty nature (on the committee that is) trumps real student talent on paper.

What can you do? That person is part of the committee. You work around it and you settle on a compromise, which often means not awarding the prize to the one paper, the one student essay, that really deserved it, all because somebody simply wanted to say no. It's sad, but true, and probably happens more often than we realize.

Agree with your thoughts definitely. I think voting/choosing candidates, especially for a prize with such magnitude like Nobel is both subjective and objective. Subjective in the sense that some writers' vision might be too bleak, like Beckett or Cela (that's for people like Anders Osterling who doesn't find such works appealing), or objective in the sense that it describes society or social structures either nationally or geographically: Vargas Llosa or Grass comes to mind. It's just like the decisions we take during deliberations for WLF Prize. Some people, like myself, like Cela, but I know some people who doesn't. If one should look at the case of Dario Do, he was chosen because he was considered "innovator of farce and court jesting plays" which was a throwback to dramatic works during Italian Renaissance. I personally wasn't pleased about Fo's victory over Miller because I always see Fo's work as "not serious, too comical and not in-depth," unlike Arthur Miller (though I have read only a work each: Fo's masterpiece Accidental Death of Anarchist and Miller's Death of Salesman and his autobiography Time Bends, but I always rate Miller's work as the better, although I know fully well that one work isn't enough). We know that Woolf wasn't nominated at all, but Pearl Buck main rivals for that year was Aldous Huxley, Ethel Richardson (who wrote the Australian classic Fortunes of Richard Mahoney), Stijn Streuvels and Hermann Hesse. I think the reasons why the Nobel Committee waits for 50 years before unveiling their decisions for the candidates is due to fear of backlash from writers and critics (imagine Salman Rushide discovering he was shortlisted for the Nobel during his lifetime!), otherwise it could have made a whole lot of sense for the public to know who was shortlisted each year few weeks after Nobel announcement for that year.

 

[Verkhovensky]

main rivals for that year was Aldous Huxley

He would be an interesting winner!

(imagine Salman Rushide discovering he was shortlisted for the Nobel during his lifetime!)

Interestingly, Günter Grass almost lived to see unveiling of his first nomination - he died in 2015, and IIRC was first nominated in the late 1960s. Of course he eventually won so he woudn't be mad after finding out.

 

[ministerpumpkin]

Lookee what I found:

And no, I'm not the one person already waiting.

 

[GLewis]

I've mentioned in the past that I usually make a couple of strategic book purchases just before the Nobel announcement in order to snag a cheap copy of a first edition before the price zooms upward if the author were to be named the winner. So far, I've ordered a $5.00 copy of The End of a Family Story by Peter Nadas. Still deciding on my second book. Is anyone else planning to do some strategic buying? If so, do have any particular books in mind?

Great idea, and a big saving if you snag it. I collect signatures for the Literature Nobel and do something similar, just picked up Nadas for about $30.

 

[nagisa]

I personally wasn't pleased about Fo's victory over Miller because I always see Fo's work as "not serious, too comical and not in-depth," unlike Arthur Miller (though I have read only a work each: Fo's masterpiece Accidental Death of Anarchist and Miller's Death of Salesman and his autobiography Time Bends, but I always rate Miller's work as the better, although I know fully well that one work isn't enough)

IMHO, Fo is better approached with Mistero Buffo.

 

[Stevie B]

Great idea, and a big saving if you snag it. I collect signatures for the Literature Nobel and do something similar, just picked up Nadas for about $30.

A pretty uncommon signature. On the Advanced Book Exchange, there are only ten books signed by Nadas for sale, and many of them are very spendy. I'll have to settle for my $5.00 unsigned copy.

 

[Leseratte]

I've mentioned in the past that I usually make a couple of strategic book purchases just before the Nobel announcement in order to snag a cheap copy of a first edition before the price zooms upward if the author were to be named the winner. So far, I've ordered a $5.00 copy of The End of a Family Story by Peter Nadas. Still deciding on my second book. Is anyone else planning to do some strategic buying? If so, do you have any particular books in mind?

No, but if I where to bet on an author, I would bet on Fosse.

 

[Leseratte]

So if I follow your reasoning, Elias CANETTI is German? It's strange, though, when you read the list of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature it clearly says that he's English!
So, what do you think? Bureaucracy or chauvinism, on the part of the SA?

Cannetti's oeuvre certainly belongs to the canon of the authors who write in German.

 

[Leseratte]

Mere confusion: Canetti belongs mostly to the german/vienese landscape, even though he also wrote in english. But I was specially writing about poets: Brodsky is Russian; Milosz is Polish… both wrote in english (at the end of their careers).

Fernando Pessoa wrote poems in English and if I remember rightly also some in French. Yet the most important part of his oeuvre is in Portuguese.

 

[Ludus]

Fernando Pessoa

, the frenchman

 

[Liam]

the frenchman

And don't you forget it!! ?

 

[GLewis]

A pretty uncommon signature. On the Advanced Book Exchange, there are only ten books signed by Nadas for sale, and many of them are very spendy. I'll have to settle for my $5.00 unsigned copy

I use Bookfinder which can throw up a few more options. There's also some German antiquariat book stores that aren't scooped up by the search engines. It's fun searching. I notice within minutes of the prize announcement that all of the winners' cheap first editions are gone, never to return at that price! For the signatures I try to get them on ephemera or cheap reprint editions, have 69-70 so getting up into the pricier brackets now.

 

[alik-vit]

Concerning Canetti we have direct and obvious witness of the SA. In press release they said: "The exiled and cosmopolitian author, Canetti has one native land, and that is the German language". From here: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1981/press-release/

So, if there is some chauvinistic hints somewhere, not in the SA.

P. S. By the way, it's again the day of their gathering. One more step to laureate.

 

[nagisa]

Bureaucracy or chauvinism, on the part of the SA?

On the part of the SA? Bureaucracy, based the hard-to-escape fact of citizenship.

The chauvinism, insisting that multiple, fragmented and overlapping identities should be subordinated to this hard-to-escape fact, no matter how much violence it does to those identities or how absurd the result may sound ("Celan, the FRENCH poet"), is coming from somewhere else.

 

[Stevie B]

I use Bookfinder which can throw up a few more options. There's also some German antiquariat book stores that aren't scooped up by the search engines. It's fun searching. I notice within minutes of the prize announcement that all of the winners' cheap first editions are gone, never to return at that price! For the signatures I try to get them on ephemera or cheap reprint editions, have 69-70 so getting up into the pricier brackets now.

In recent years, I've been quick enough on the draw to be able to order books immediately following the announcement, only to be later told by a seller that the book is no longer available. In one case, I noticed a seller relisted the book at a much higher price a few days later. One of my luckiest pre-announcement purchases was a like new copy of Night Rounds by Patrick Modiano for less than $10. The price skyrocketed after he won, to the point where I almost considered selling it. Prices have since come back to earth, but the book is still worth considerably more than what I paid for it. On the flip side, I traded in a nice paperback copy of Annie Ernaux's Cleaned Out shortly before she was awarded the Nobel (probably for a dollar or two). That title is now so rare that both the hardcover and paperback sell for $400 or more. I also resold my paperback copy of Fosse's Boathouse after reading it last year, and I've never seen another copy of that book for sale since, even on Bookfinder, and Fosse hasn't even won the Nobel (yet). I didn't love the book, so I don't regret not keeping it, but selling it for a decent profit would have allowed me to buy some more expensive books that I do love.

 

[Stevie B]

No, but if I where to bet on an author, I would bet on Fosse.

I had been tempted by a recently published hardcover copy of Fosse's Septology, but I noticed two purchasers complained about the poor production quality of that book. One lamented that their new copy was already starting to fall apart. I'm now leaning toward buying another Jon Kalman Stefansson book, since he's the Scandinavian author who is closer to my heart, anyway. If he were to be awarded the Nobel, something I don't anticipate happening, I could take my three signed books by him and retire early.

 

[GLewis]

In recent years, I've been quick enough on the draw to be able to order books immediately following the announcement, only to be later told by a seller that the book is no longer available. In one case, I noticed a seller relisted the book at a much higher price a few days later. One of my luckiest pre-announcement purchases was a like new copy of Night Rounds by Patrick Modiano for less than $10. The price skyrocketed after he won, to the point where I almost considered selling it. Prices have since come back to earth, but the book is still worth considerably more than what I paid for it. On the flip side, I traded in a nice paperback copy of Annie Ernaux's Cleaned Out shortly before she was awarded the Nobel (probably for a dollar or two). That title is now so rare that both the hardcover and paperback sell for $400 or more. I also resold my paperback copy of Fosse's Boathouse after reading it last year, and I've never seen another copy of that book for sale since, even on Bookfinder, and Fosse hasn't even won the Nobel (yet). I didn't love the book, so I don't regret not keeping it but selling it for a large profit would have allowed me to buy some more expensive books that I do love.

Wow, yes, the Modiano seems quite scarce. I picked up a first of Le Clezio's The Interrogation a few years ago for a good price. I got a couple of signed Fosse bookplates this year too. I was blown away by Septology. What do you think is currently underpriced and in future quite collectible? I got a first of Eco's Name of the Rose in English as well as Italian awhile ago. Also Ali Smith's Autumn which already seems hard to find.

 

[Leseratte]

I had been tempted by a recently published hardcover copy of Fosse's Septology, but I noticed two purchasers complained about the poor production quality of that book. One lamented that their new copy was already starting to fall apart. I'm now leaning toward buying another Jon Kalman Stefansson book, since he's the Scandinavian author who is closer to my heart, anyway. If he were to be awarded the Nobel, something I don't anticipate happening, I could take my three signed books by him and retire early.

I have The Sorrow of Angels in my TBR line up. Its digital and not signed.