Nobel Questions

[Liam]

I'm sure all of these have come up individually in various threads over the years, but I'd be interested to see what other people thought about it. The only criterion to answer these questions is your familiarity with the author's work. "Ties" are OK but I wouldn't encourage too many of them,

Also, please no judgement

1. Who is your [personal] favorite winner?
2. Who is your least favorite winner?
3. Who do you think is the most overrated winner?
4. Who do you think is the most underrated winner?
5. Who is the one author you would remove from the list (if you could)?
6. Who is the one author, living or dead, whom you would add to the list?
7. What is your favorite Nobel "decade"? (i.e. you are mostly happy with the winners)--

...​

I suppose I'll start--

1. Wislawa Szymborska (one of my favorite poets of all time)
- runner-up: Tomas Tranströmer
2. Elfriede Jelinek (acerbic and occasionally funny; I can see why somebody would enjoy her)
- runner-up: Mikhail Sholokhov
3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (very uneven oeuvre, and Shalamov should have gotten it instead)
- runner-up: Pearl S. Buck
4. F. E. Sillanpää (a very tender and peaceful writer whose books no one seems to have heard of)
- runner-up: Maurice Maeterlinck
5. Bob Dylan (still in my "How the Fuck Did This Happen?" category)
- runner-up: the Johnson/Martinson duo from 1974
6. Virginia Woolf (I don't think this needs an explanation)
- runner-up: Robert Graves
7. the 1990s (with the exception of Dario Fo, whom I haven't read, I am mostly in love with all of the winners!)
- runner-up: the 1980s (another great decade)

 

[JCamilo]

1 - Yeats
2 - Churchill
3 - Neruda
4 - Kipling
5 - Churchill
6 - Drummond
7 - 40's, even with the missing years.

 

[Bartleby]

That’s a nice idea and tho I’m yet to read a lot of the winner’s works, I’ll just give it a try.

starting with (and not just to spite Liam, but that too ):

1: Bob Dylan (I’ve been reading him in chronological order, yes reading — some of his old songs don’t appeal to me musically, not to mention his voice, sometimes jarring — and I just love the way he in a playful way with words capture the voice of America: the downtrodden, the lovesick, the wanderers; some of it reminded me of what I read from Ko Un in Maninbo, in that he’ll paint a picture of a person or event in eloquent but carefully written manner - think The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol; that and his rich imagery, his inventive use of rhyme, his thought-provoking lines, his domain of rhythm [say, Spanish Harlem Incident — never even have heard this one sung LOL], and memorable refrains make me want to read ever more of him, and come back to the things I’ve read)
-runner up: Handke, but that would be too obvious a choice.

2. Dunno, for the sake of providing an answer tho I should say: Seamus Heaney (I guess in due time I’ll be more fond of him, personally; I guess his poetry will improve in his later books, but having read only his first two publications, even tho I could see a fine use of rhythm, his rural-heavy vocabulary made for very hard labour to little rewards. I’m sure there will be writers who won the prize I’ll come to like less. And I’m definitely willing to reading Heaney’s later output.)

3. Olga Tokarczuk (tho I haven’t yet read Flights, nor obviously her long Jacob book, and still being in the middle of House of Day... [a rather fascinating but slightly flawed work, so far at least], I find her stuff to have a distinct voice that deserves to be there for sure, but so far none of the stuff I read was really Great, I’m kind of agreeing with that Complete Review guy that she’s a good enough writer to be worthy of the prize).

4. Astúrias (I’ve only read one of his works, most certainly not his greatest, but his lush language and the subtle way he incorporates magical realism into it made for a very fascinating read, one that stuck to my memory to this day and it saddens me he’s not more broadly read, nor translated).
- runner up: Elfriede Jelinek (I guess she’d be more suited for a ‘controversial’ category, if there was one)

5. this one I’ll have to leave empty; I’m sure there are a lot of boring winners of this prize, especially those very early ones, but I haven’t read them and it would be unfair to name someone just because of their reputation or the things I might think of them, without being acquainted with their works.

6. Since Liam already took Woolf I’ll say: Gertrude Stein (she’s way ahead of her time, so it’s understandable she wasn’t even nominated, I think, like Woolf or Joyce; but I’d just love to see her name there, her idiosyncratic and inventive use of the English language is one that influenced many — and continues to do so —, whether one likes her or not, I guess at least that cannot be denied)

7: the 2010’s: I can see the argument for the 90’s as being perhaps the richest overall, but I admittedly haven’t read many of them, and the 10’s is the only decade from which I’ve read at least one of the winner’s books, and many of my favourites are there (the aforementioned Dylan and Handke, Tranströmer’s sensual poetry being a recent great discovery, Munro’s emotionally impactful stories, Aleksievitch’s heartbreaking accounts, the living classic Mo Yan, Modiano’s melancholy etc) so that’s my choice.

 

[hayden]

1. Favourite —

This has been hard to answer since Bob Dylan won. As an artist, my gut says him. I could put on Blonde On Blonde or Blood On The Tracks whenever I want and know I’ll enjoy them, even after who knows how many listens. But he feels like a cheat answer in a sense.

As a writer? Beckett. The more Saramago I read, the higher he climbs though.

2. Least —

JMG Le Clezio or Elfriede Jelinek. Hate to pick on two “newer” winners, but Jelinek almost feels like a correct answer at this point. I don’t think either are on the same level of their contemporaries.

3. Overrated —

Joseph Brodsky. Don’t shoot me. Not too big on him. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s bad, but I’ve never felt he’s up to Nobel standards. He’s a decent poet and all, but I’m not sure how much he did for poetry as a whole.

4. Underrated —

Perhaps Gabriela Mistral. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve ever read by her. Calling any Nobel laureate ‘underrated’ is a little silly, I’m not sure how much higher they can ‘be rated’, but I wish more people (outside of Latin America anyway) read her poetry. I’ve always felt Laxness is a smidge underappreciated too. Maybe Ivan Bunin.

5. Remove—

Any of the first three winners (Prudhomme, Mommsen and Bjornson)… simply because there was far better choices at the time. Looking at the list, I’m still extremely unfamiliar with most of the early winners. I’m not sure I’ve ever even noticed Verner Von Heidenstam won.

6. Add—

There’s… a lot. The list is perhaps even longer than those who have won. Keeping it limited to those deceased and who ‘fit the age range’, Virginia Woolf always comes to mind. Chinua Achebe, Lispector, Mark Twain, Zweig, Tolstoy and Cortazar are all up there too.

7. Decade—

60s. Steinbeck x Andric x Seferis x Sartre x Asturias x Kawabata x Beckett does it for me. 90s are super close.

EDIT: Fixed a typo

 

[Liam]

Great choices, guys

And to bring up one of Hayden's points: I guess by "underrated" I mean exactly what you deduced: that the winner is no longer widely read and most of his/her work is at this point out of print.

 

[Cleanthess]

1 - Tagore. Nobody else comes close, not even Faulkner.
2 - Churchill
3 - Ichiguro
4 - Anatole France and G. B. Shaw
5 - Roger Martin Du Gard
6 - Borges, Kafka, Pessoa and Yourcenar (tie)
7 - 80's (least favorite the 30's, other than Pirandello).

 

[kpjayan]

1. GGM
2. Pearl S Buck / Churchill
3. Le Clezio
4. Pasternak
5. Alexievich/Dylan
6. Borges / Tolstoy
7. 80s/90s

 

[Verkhovensky]

1. most favourite - Vargas-Llosa/Coetzee
2. least favourite - Dylan/Churchill; just because they are not writers
3. most overrated - not sure; every Nobel-winning writer I've read was at least solid.
4. most underrated - maybe Singer, I have a feeling he is not well known
5. Dylan/Churchill
6. Borges
7. not sure - haven't read enough

 

[nagisa]

"Ties" are OK but I wouldn't encourage too many of them

-> provides a runner-up for each ?


1. favorite - Beckett/Alexievitch. Both absorb me completely and take my breath away, while inventing totally new styles.
2. least favorite - with the caveat that there are many that I haven't read, I'd go with Pamuk or Grass because they just didn't captivate me... I'll revisit them at some point though.
3. overrated - Ishiguro. Some of his stuff is very good, but the totality is not great. Alternatively, I agree with Liam on Solzhenitsyn vs Shalamov.
4. underrated - Patrick White. One of the very greats, though it takes a bit of patience to get into and be swept away. Alternatively, Jelinek: she seems quite disliked, but I think (apart from her style and themes, which can be challenging) that maybe inferior English translations of her ferociously sarcastic and complex wordplay from German make her less accessible?
5. remove - agree with Liam on Bob Dylan and Johnson/Martinson. The optics! Rewarding two members of the Academy is inexcusable, and if they wanted to go down the route of expanding the contemporary definition of literature by bringing it back to its sung roots they could have chosen someone better, or arranged/presented/explained the whole thing better by having a double (or multiple) win.
6. add - So many! I agree with everyone who said Woolf, it's criminal she's not on the list. To contribute further, I'd say Sebald.
7. favorite decade - 90's-00's

 

[Johnny]

I’m surprised at some of the slight negativity towards Ishiguro, in my view he’s an outstanding writer, one of the very best alive. Interesting thread, I’ll post response later once I have a proper think on it, but definitely the name I would add is WG Sebald, without doubt he would have won in the early 2000s if not for his untimely death and it’s fascinating to think of what he would have written since then.

 

[hayden]

Just to comment on Churchill popping up everywhere, the reason I don't have him for any of my answers lies in the fact I've never read anything by him. Didn't think it would be fair to say he doesn't belong otherwise. He's one of the ten or so laureates I've never picked up a work by.

Have to admit, it's a lot more fun reading lists of writers people think should have won compared to writers people think should't have, but I'm enjoying the perspectives nonetheless.

Pessoa

Pessoa and Bulgakov would have been great choices, but they both fault from their magnum opus being released long after their (somewhat) young deaths. I think their writings have become far more popular since they passed away.

 

[Liam]

provides a runner-up for each

Hehe, a runner-up is a second choice, if you can't have the first one. A tie is basically equal, you can't decide between the two choices.

 

[redhead]

1. Favorite: Surprising absolutely nobody, it's Kenzaburo Oe
2. Least Favorite: Bertrand Russell. Churchill is a close second, but the Latin student in me who studied Cicero alongside Virgil likes the idea of speeches as literature. Also, Russell won in large part due to A History of Western Philosophy, a horribly inaccurate book with slightly above average prose.
3. Overrated: Solzhenitsyn. I haven't read Shalamov, but when Solzhenitsyn won it, he had been publishing for less than ten years and had a really small body of work. One Day... is a decent novella, but it's far more interesting for its political content rather than its literary merit.
4. Underrated: Claude Simon. Incredible writer who receives far too little attention (probably because of the difficulty of his work).
5. Remove: Russell.
6. Probably Borges or Calvino (can't choose between them).
7. I guess the 90's? Oe won then, and Gordimer, Heaney, and Morrison are great. I haven't delved too deeply into many of the other winners from that decade, but the works I've read from them really impressed me (The Tin Drum, Blindness, Mister Buffo).

 

[JCamilo]

I am up with literature being way more than poetry or fiction, my beef with Churchill is less about the genre, more about the attempt to reinforce a after-war narrative than anything else. I could have left it blank, as I think "the owners" of Nobel had their motivations, I rather would be critical to those motivations than the individual, when talking about the award.

I also must add that Virginia, Joyce, Borges, Pessoa, Kafka, etc. are to me bigger than the Nobel. They never needed the prize to be read. Drummond is great, I think level up with Pessoa, but how many of non-brazilians read him? The Nobel would make all difference (as would with Guimarães Rosa, Lispector, Manuel Bandeira, Ariano Suassuna or all the great brazilian writers that wrote during the Nobel times, picked Drummond because he is the bigger name alongside Rosa, but Rosa at least we even talked about him). I like when awards function as a bait to a new perspective, culture, tradition, etc.

 

[Liam]

I also must add that Virginia, Joyce, Borges, Pessoa, Kafka, etc. are to me bigger than the Nobel.

Hear, hear! Completely agree--

 

[Septularisen]

1. Jaroslav SEIFERT
- runner-up: Tomas TRANSSTRÖMER // Odysséas ELÝTIS // William Butlear YEATS
2. Winston CHURCHILL
- runner-up: Bob DYLAN // Bertrand RUSSELL
3. William GOLDING
- runner-up: Pearl S. BUCK
4. Ernest HEMINGWAY
- runner-up: William FAULKNER // Hermann HESSE // Thomas MANN
5. Bob DYLAN
- runner-up: Bertrand RUSSELL // Winston CHURCHILL
6. Umberto ECO
- runner-up: Philip ROTH // Amos OZ // Norman MAILER...
7. The 1970s
- runner-up: The 1980s

 

[Liam]

Great choices, but do you think that Hemingway is underrated? I don't know, I just remember reading so much of him and Steinbeck all throughout High School,

 

[redhead]

1. Jaroslav SEIFERT

What are your thoughts on Seifert? I read a collection of his poems with selections from most of his books and really enjoyed it. He's never pretentious, but always lyrical and almost always surprisingly deep.

Great choices, but do you think that Hemingway is underrated? I don't know, I just remember reading so much of him and Steinbeck all throughout High School,

This is anecdotal, but although he was required reading in my high school, I feel like few people really appreciated his craft (not that I did at the time...). Usually when I've seen recent discussions of his work, it's bashing him or talking about his problematic side and I don't feel like many in my generation hold him in high regard any more (although, like I said, this is purely anecdotal). So I can totally see why Hemingway could be considered underrated.

 

[Bartleby]

I don’t understand what was said against Churchill’s Nobel on the account that he is not a writer. This doesn’t seem to make much sense to me, since the thousands of pages he wrote for his war accounts, his Marlborough biography (cited on the Nobel presentation speech as a great work) prove otherwise. I can in a way understand the lack of love for the Dylan prize, but it fails me to comprehend also his being said not to be a writer — his written material is there for every one to check, it’s not an illusion

again about Churchill, Kjell Espmark wrote about him saying at the time the Nobel Committee chose him for his literary merits as a historian an orator (I guess he can be trusted, since being a member of the academy and thus having access to its records); whether one sees said merits in his written output is something else entirely, just us some here don’t believe Russell to possess them. Anyway I very much want to read Churchill sometime to have my own opinion on his prose.

in the meantime, here’s the full Espmark quote:

The history of the Literary Prize offers a case where this delicate balance was endangered, the prize to Winston Churchill. When the decision was taken in 1953, after many years of discussion, it was felt that a sufficient distance from the candidate’s wartime exploits had been gained, making it possible for a Prize to him to be generally understood as a literary award. The reaction from many quarters showed that this was quite a vain hope.

Now, there can be no doubt that the Committee and the Academy attributed exceptional literary merits to Churchill the historian and the orator. They certainly concurred in the address to the Laureate, “a Caesar who also had the gift of wielding Cicero’s stylus”. The problem was how this Caesar, a mere eight years after the war, could be mentally separated from the Ciceronian prose. After all, Churchill was not only the winner of World War II but prime minister and leader of one of the key powers in the cold war world. It can be asked if any of the Academy’s choices has put its political integrity at such risk. At any rate, one well-known conclusion was drawn: ever since, candidates with governmental positions, such as André Malraux and Léopold Senghor, have been consistently ruled out.

 

[Liam]

I think what was meant by "the two of them not being writers" was that their primary careers encompassed other things entirely--politics in the case of one, music in the case of the other. Most winners, good or bad, were writers in their primary choice of occupation (I could be wrong though: I haven't studied each and every winner's biography in any detail).