Nobel Screw Ups

[maidenhair]

If you are going to continue in this fashion and put up a list for each country around the world, you will end up with a list of several hundred names worldwide for the 20th century. And then of course one problem will turn up, namely that there are only exactly one hundred free spots per century. If one tried to limit the number of authors to the number of free spots the fun would begin...

 

[Cleanthess]

If you are going to continue in this fashion and put up a list for each country around the world, you will end up with a list of several hundred names worldwide for the 20th century. And then of course one problem will turn up, namely that there are only exactly one hundred free spots per century. If one tried to limit the number of authors to the number of free spots the fun would begin...

Game on, sister.

Okay, let's divvy up the 115 spots (112 years + 3 spots for doubled up years)

England + Commonwealth + USA = 20 spots.

France + Francophonie nations = 12 spots.

Spain + Latin America + Italy = 15 spots.

Nordic Countries = 10 spots. (I know, it's unfair, but let's be realistic, they're biased).

Germany + German Writers outside of Germany = 15 spots

Portugal + Brazil + Lusophonia countries = 13 spots.

Russia + Baltic + Balkans = 10 spots. (They got the short end of the stick).

Poland + Hungary + Czech + Greece + assorted Mittel-Europe nations = 10 spots.

Rest of the World = 10 spots.

Now the question is who gets the awards?

For the Lusos I'd propose:

Fernando Pessoa,
Miguel Torga,
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen,
Jose Saramago,
Antonio Lobo Antunes
Jorge Amado,
Joao Guimaraes Rosa,
Clarice Lispector.
Craveirinha,
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Haroldo de Campos,
Ferreira Gullar
Adelia Prado.

For the Frenchies:

Anatole France
Marcel Proust
Maurice Maeterlinck
Louis Ferdinand Celine
Albert Camus
Jean Paul Sartre
Margarite Yourcenar
Paul Elouard
Nathalie Sarraute
Philippe Jaccottet
Claude Simon
Pascal Quignard

For the Spanish and Italian:

Federico Garcia Lorca
Jorge Luis Borges
Cesar Vallejo
Pablo Neruda
Octavio Paz
Nicanor Parra
Ernesto Sabato
Julio Cortazar
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mario Vargas Llosa
Manuel Puig
Luigi Pirandello
Giuseppe Ungaretti
Eugenio Montale
Italo Calvino
Antonio Tabucchi

 

[Daniel del Real]

Señor Del Real, thank you for your carefully thought out response. Of course you're right.

Last night while watching the debate at my Mexican landscaper neighbor's house. We started a discussion about the great Mexican writers (he used to teach Mexican History or 'historia patria' to kids in high school back in Mexico). He explained to me that the great Mexican writers of the 20th Century were Ramon Lopez Velarde and Octavio Paz, in poetry; and Juan Rulfo and Fernando del Paso in fiction, not that gr**go wanna-be Carlos Fuentes I so admired. Needless to say, these preferences surprised me.

As for Fernando del Paso, I'll have to take my friend's word for it: last time I looked at 'Palinuro de Mexico' (A Mexican Palinurus) and its close to 900 pages I trembled in fear.

Ramon Lopez Velarde I always thought was a minor if charming poet.

Now, about Juan Rulfo I must admit he had a point. Word for word, nobody has written a more perfect book than Pedro Paramo, but that is ONE book. Add to it a handful of excellent short stories ('Diles que no me maten/Ask them not to kill me' being one of the most brilliant, but the whole Llano en llamas book is delirious good fun).

I think there are three Mexican novels that out stand the rest of XX century. One of them is for sure Pedro Páramo. But for the great it is, not only as a novel but as a narrative universe, you cannot give Rulfo for just one slight volume plus some short stories. I'm sure that's what the Academy also contemplated if Rulfo was ever discussed or considered for this Award.

In case you ask for the other two Mexican novels, IMO, La Región Más Transparente by Carlos Fuentes y Los Detectives Salvajes de Roberto Bolaño

I haven't read López Velarde but I have to admit he is in a very high esteem, specially by the official cultural parties in México, just like CONACULTA, INBA, all of the Government dependencies. I think he is also an obliged read at elementary school or junior high, not sure about it. I think I read him at school without knowing it was López Velarde.

Game on, sister.

Okay, let's divvy up the 115 spots (112 years + 3 spots for doubled up years)

England + Commonwealth + USA = 20 spots.

France + Francophonie nations = 12 spots.

Spain + Latin America + Italy = 15 spots.

Nordic Countries = 10 spots. (I know, it's unfair, but let's be realistic, they're biased).

Germany + German Writers outside of Germany = 15 spots

Portugal + Brazil + Lusophonia countries = 13 spots.

Russia + Baltic + Balkans = 10 spots. (They got the short end of the stick).

Poland + Hungary + Czech + Greece + assorted Mittel-Europe nations = 10 spots.

Rest of the World = 10 spots.

Now the question is who gets the awards?

For the Lusos I'd propose:

Fernando Pessoa,
Miguel Torga,
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen,
Jose Saramago,
Antonio Lobo Antunes
Jorge Amado,
Joao Guimaraes Rosa,
Clarice Lispector.
Craveirinha,
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Haroldo de Campos,
Ferreira Gullar
Adelia Prado.

For the Frenchies:

Anatole France
Marcel Proust
Maurice Maeterlinck
Louis Ferdinand Celine
Albert Camus
Jean Paul Sartre
Margarite Yourcenar
Paul Elouard
Nathalie Sarraute
Philippe Jaccottet
Claude Simon
Pascal Quignard

For the Spanish and Italian:

Federico Garcia Lorca
Jorge Luis Borges
Cesar Vallejo
Pablo Neruda
Octavio Paz
Nicanor Parra
Ernesto Sabato
Julio Cortazar
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mario Vargas Llosa
Manuel Puig
Luigi Pirandello
Giuseppe Ungaretti
Eugenio Montale
Italo Calvino
Antonio Tabucchi

To give the prize to writers like García Lorca & Proust, the Svenska Akademien should have had a crystal ball with a direct view to the future

 

[Cleanthess]

To give the prize to writers like García Lorca & Proust, the Svenska Akademien should have had a crystal ball with a direct view to the future

Excellent point. Let's replace Marcel Proust with Jean Cocteau; and replace Garcia Lorca with Alberto Moravia. Cesar Vallejo can be then replaced with Umberto Saba.

Now the Latin Lovers list looks like:

Jorge Luis Borges
Pablo Neruda
Octavio Paz
Nicanor Parra
Ernesto Sabato
Julio Cortazar
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Mario Vargas Llosa
Manuel Puig
Luigi Pirandello
Umberto Saba
Giuseppe Ungaretti
Eugenio Montale
Alberto Moravia
Italo Calvino
Antonio Tabucchi

 

[Flint]

I cannot speak for the Spaniards from Spain, since other than for Garcia Lorca I don't feel a strong partisan love for any of their 20th Century writers.

Agreed Lorca is probably the greatest, though his untimely death meant he had no chance of being considered for the Nobel Prize. Martin-Santos wahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Martin_Santoss another Spanish literary genius who died too young. But then there were some Spanish (from Spain) writers who were definitely Nobel Prize material. For example Unamuno, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unamunoa great poet, novelist and essayist. For example Baroja, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pío_Barojathe Spanish Chekhov. (There's a charming anecdote about Hemingway and Baroja. Shortly after winning the Nobel Prize, he visited the elderly, ailing Baroja in Madrid, and told him something like You deserve it more than I do. The old man said he agreed, which apparently didn't please Hemingway too much).

Then, to prove the old dictum that there's no justice in this world, the worthless Echegaray was given the Prize, and so was the much overrated Cela. On the other hand, Juan Ramon Jimenez, who got the Prize in 1956, was a worthy winner.

(Parenthesis: The fact that Baroja had stayed in Spain after the end of the Civil War was probably a determinant factor in him not getting the Nobel Prize. Conversely, the fact that Juan Ramon Jimenez was an exile probably counted in his favour)

Apart from Jimenez and Aleixandre who also got the prize there were some other great Spanish poets in mid 20th century, like Damaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego (not likely either of them to win the Prize, for the same reason as Baroja), Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Gabriel Celaya or Jose Hierro.

 

[Cleanthess]

Agreed Lorca is probably the greatest, though his untimely death meant he had no chance of being considered for the Nobel Prize. Martin-Santos was another Spanish literary genius who died too young. But then there were some Spanish (from Spain) writers who were definitely Nobel Prize material. For example Unamuno, a great poet, novelist and essayist. For example Baroja, the Spanish Chekhov. (There's a charming anecdote about Hemingway and Baroja. Shortly after winning the Nobel Prize, he visited the elderly, ailing Baroja in Madrid, and told him something like You deserve it more than I do. The old man said he agreed, which apparently didn't please Hemingway too much).

Then, to prove the old dictum that there's no justice in this world, the worthless Echegaray was given the Prize, and so was the much overrated Cela. On the other hand, Juan Ramon Jimenez, who got the Prize in 1956, was a worthy winner.

(Parenthesis: The fact that Baroja had stayed in Spain after the end of the Civil War was probably a determinant factor in him not getting the Nobel Prize. Conversely, the fact that Juan Ramon Jimenez was an exile probably counted in his favour)

Apart from Jimenez and Aleixandre who also got the prize there were some other great Spanish poets in mid 20th century, like Damaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego (not likely either of them to win the Prize, for the same reason as Baroja), Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Gabriel Celaya or Jose Hierro.

Mr. Flint thank you for your careful analysis and reasonable views. You're absolutely right about Miguel de Unamuno. It was a careless oversight on my part not to remember him. Unamuno used to say that 'yo no quiero tener razon, quiero tener verdad' (I don't want to be right, I want to be truthful): may Don Miguel be now in a better place where rightness and truth are the same.

I have not read Baroja yet, but as for the 20th. Century Spanish poets other than Lorca and Antonio Machado their poetry rings false to me, like warmed up French translations, pale fires, things not alive but reflected.

Also, I'd like to say 'Amen Brother' to miobrien for his comments on another thread regarding John Ashbery and other poets like him. These writers just string along impressive-sounding phrases at random and hope nobody notices that there's no meaning there. Their poems are composed of Idola Fori and little else. Sadly, opposing miobrien's opinion, I also include James Merill among the group of poets with sonorous sentences but with no real meaning behind their words (even worse Merill's phrasing is clumsy a lot of the time).

 

[Daniel del Real]

Agreed Lorca is probably the greatest, though his untimely death meant he had no chance of being considered for the Nobel Prize. Martin-Santos was another Spanish literary genius who died too young. But then there were some Spanish (from Spain) writers who were definitely Nobel Prize material. For example Unamuno, a great poet, novelist and essayist. For example Baroja, the Spanish Chekhov. (There's a charming anecdote about Hemingway and Baroja. Shortly after winning the Nobel Prize, he visited the elderly, ailing Baroja in Madrid, and told him something like You deserve it more than I do. The old man said he agreed, which apparently didn't please Hemingway too much).

Then, to prove the old dictum that there's no justice in this world, the worthless Echegaray was given the Prize, and so was the much overrated Cela. On the other hand, Juan Ramon Jimenez, who got the Prize in 1956, was a worthy winner.

(Parenthesis: The fact that Baroja had stayed in Spain after the end of the Civil War was probably a determinant factor in him not getting the Nobel Prize. Conversely, the fact that Juan Ramon Jimenez was an exile probably counted in his favour)

Apart from Jimenez and Aleixandre who also got the prize there were some other great Spanish poets in mid 20th century, like Damaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego (not likely either of them to win the Prize, for the same reason as Baroja), Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Gabriel Celaya or Jose Hierro.

I want to add two other names to the deck, two tremendous writers that should have been Nobel prize winners.

Ramón del Valle Inclán. His plays, specially the late ones, redefined theater. The social impact of his plays was huge as he portrayed the lower classes of an impoverished Madrid and the grotesque life their citizens were living at that time. Not only it was drama and his creation of the "esperpento", but also his novel Tirano Banderas inaugurated the Latin American dictatorship novel, that was brilliantly followed by amazing writers like Vargas Llosa, Roa Bastos, Asturias, GGM, etc. Probably he couldn't have won the prize at the moment it was awarded to the grey figure of Echegaray, probably not even when the forgettable Benavente did as some of his stronger works came a few years later, but I'm sure he is a way larger drama figure these days than those two questionable Nobel prizes.

Miguel Delibes. In my opinion the best novelist Spain gave to the world the XX century. It was outrageous, in my perspective, he wasn't even mentioned a lot to be a real contender to the novel in his long life of 89 fruitful years. I like the works I've read by Camilo José Cela, but I'm totally sure Delibes deserved more that 89 Nobel Prize. If you don't believe me try El Hereje, Las Ratas, Los Santos Inocentes or Señora de Rojo sobre un Fondo Gris.

 

[Flint]

Talk about oversights. I forgot to mention Antonio Machado. And I forgot Galdos, who ought by all rights to have been the first Spanish Nobel Prize (I have no objections, though, to Benavente who was a remarkable playwright).

I totally agree with Daniel on Valle Inclan and Delibes. My, how could I have not mentioned them. Of course Delibes deserved the Nobel Prize. And Torrente Ballester would have been a worthy winner, too.

Cleanthess, as regards 20th century Spanish poets you can't have read Damaso Alonso's 'Hijos de la ira' ('Children of Wrath') or Leon Felipe's 'Antologia rota' - or Miguel Hernandez's sonnets.

 

[nagisa]

While you're all debating hispanophone oversights, may I say on behalf of the Frenchies that it's unforgivable to have overlooked Julien Gracq ?

 

[Cleanthess]

Talk about oversights. I forgot to mention Antonio Machado. And I forgot Galdos, who ought by all rights to have been the first Spanish Nobel Prize (I have no objections, though, to Benavente who was a remarkable playwright).

I totally agree with Daniel on Valle Inclan and Delibes. My, how could I have not mentioned them. Of course Delibes deserved the Nobel Prize. And Torrente Ballester would have been a worthy winner, too.

Cleanthess, as regards 20th century Spanish poets you can't have read Damaso Alonso's 'Hijos de la ira' ('Children of Wrath') or Leon Felipe's 'Antologia rota' - or Miguel Hernandez's sonnets.

Flint, oversights and mistakes is the price we pay to post real time during little 3 minute breaks from work.

I must admit that Benito Perez Galdos is a Balzac or Dickens level writer, there could hardly have been ten writers in the whole history of the Nobels more deserving than him.

And of course, 'Me llamo barro aunque Miguel me llame' Hernandez was a true poet, an enormous talent who died too young at 32. And that 'old, ugly, forgotten' poet (as his obituary was read over the news during Franco's Regime) Leon Felipe is another unforgivable oversight; specially unforgivable since I wrote a paper in College about Leon Felipe's poetry. And to completely clear the air, Rafael Alberti occasionally wrote truly beautiful poetry. But we part company on Damaso Alonso's poetry. Alonso was a great writer of Literary Criticism, whose insights into Gongora's poetry I particularly appreciate. (For example, he explained why 'infame turba de nocturnas aves' is so effective: the 2 main stresses fall in the same syllable: 'tur').

 

[Cleanthess]

While you're all debating hispanophone oversights, may I say on behalf of the Frenchies that it's unforgivable to have overlooked Julien Gracq ?

I know. I also left out Jean Genet and Yves Bonnefoy. I just did not want to be accused of being biased towards the Francophone writers, so I granted the Francophonie too few slots to properly represent the greatness of 20th Century French literature.

 

[Stevie B]

While you're all debating hispanophone oversights, may I say on behalf of the Frenchies that it's unforgivable to have overlooked Julien Gracq ?

Nagisa,

The school library has two Gracq novels: An Opposing Shore and The Balcony in the Forest. Would you recommend one book over the other?

 

[nagisa]

I wholeheartedly recommend The Opposing Shore (The Syrtes Shore, in a better translation of the title). I haven't read The Balcony in the Forest yet, though it's on my shelf. It's deeply, deeply hypnotizing prose ; I hope it's well translated.

 

[adaorardor]

I know. I also left out Jean Genet and Yves Bonnefoy. I just did not want to be accused of being biased towards the Francophone writers, so I granted the Francophonie too few slots to properly represent the greatness of 20th Century French literature.

Jean Genet has to be in there...you could make a case for him as one of the greatest dozen writers of the century in any language

 

[redhead]

I just looked Gracq up on Wikipedia. It seems like he refused the Prix Goncourt and made a point of refusing awards for his writing, so it's probable that the Academy didn't award it to him for the same reason they aren't giving it to Pynchon: they didn't want him to refuse the prize.

 

[Cleanthess]

Jean Genet has to be in there...you could make a case for him as one of the greatest dozen writers of the century in any language

Amen. As a fellow Nabokov fan to another I ask, is there a better start to a novel than?:

Weidmann appeared before you in a five o’clock edition, his head covered in white cloths like a nun, like a wounded pilot fallen into the rye fields one September day like the day when the world came to know the name of Our Lady of the Flowers. His beautiful face, multiplied by the printing presses, rained all over Paris and all over France, reaching even the deepest corners of lost villages, over huts and castles, revealing to the sad bourgeois the fact that at every moment their everyday life brushes against charming murderers stealthily climbing up some side ladder into their dreams, dreams that the beautiful murderers will cross, ladder that being their accomplice will not creak under their weight.

 

[errequatro]

Shaw, despite having as his birthplace Ireland, he has to be considered english (or british, if you want). He wrote in England and spend most of his time there. Shaw is great, by the way! On this note, you are forgetting T.S Eliot, who, is English to the bone. OK, he was born in America and so forth, but his Identity. Sorry, that's English!

I do think that Pinter did deserve the prize! and so did Kipling and Lessing.

 

[Julgranskrille]

Nordic Countries = 10 spots. (I know, it's unfair, but let's be realistic, they're biased).

Henrik Ibsen
August Strindberg
Verner von Heidenstam/Selma Lagerlöf - Heidenstam is better but too local, so they can share
Knut Hamsun
Karen Blixen
Gunnar Ekelöf
Halldór Laxness
Väinö Linna
William Heinesen
Tove Jansson

Germany + German Writers outside of Germany = 15 spots

Frank Wedekind
Rainer Maria Rilke
Robert Musil
Thomas Mann
Bertolt Brecht
Ernst Jünger
Paul Celan
Heiner Müller
Günter Grass
Thomas Bernhard
Max Frisch
Christa Wolf
W. G. Sebald
Elfriede Jelinek
Durs Grünbein

 

[Cleanthess]

Henrik Ibsen
August Strindberg
Verner von Heidenstam/Selma Lagerlöf - Heidenstam is better but too local, so they can share
Knut Hamsun
Karen Blixen
Gunnar Ekelöf
Halldór Laxness
Väinö Linna
William Heinesen
Tove Jansson


Frank Wedekind
Rainer Maria Rilke
Robert Musil
Thomas Mann
Bertolt Brecht
Ernst Jünger
Paul Celan
Heiner Müller
Günter Grass
Thomas Bernhard
Max Frisch
Christa Wolf
W. G. Sebald
Elfriede Jelinek
Durs Grünbein

Thank you so much for your lists, they're much appreciated. I really don't know enough about the German/Nordic/English languages/literatures to even begin to compile those lists.

My only regret is that there were not enough spots for German writers for you to include the great Anne Seghers. And there is just one little disagreement we have; I'm a great fan of the East German poet Peter Huchel, so I'd prefer him to Durs Grünbein to represent East German poetry, but I'm clearly on the side of the minority here, since even Wikipedia claims 'Grünbein is hailed as the most significant and successful poet to emerge from the former East Germany.'

On the other hand, congratulations on passing Hellas' Male-Judge-Blindness rule. A greatly admired childhood friend of mine, feminist, painter, poet and the person who introduced me to Eastern Thought, once explained to me that whoever puts together a list of great/favorite writers from the 20th. Century and does not include at least 20% female writers suffers from Male-Blindness on his judgment. You included 5 out of 25 female writers in your list (Selma, Karen, Tove, Christa and Mrs. Jelinek).

Of course, for the French and Portuguese languages, being literatures that I know well enough, I came up with a similar distribution of 5 out of 25 writers being female (Sophia, Clarice, Adelia, Margarite and Nathalie).

On the other hand, my ignorance concerning Spanish and Italian language literatures shows up, not only on the many unintentional oversights I had (as opposed to the French side where I intentionally left out Apollinaire, Gracq, Genet, Michaux, Tournier, Maalouf, Quignard and Bonnefoy); my ignorance shows up above all in the fact that I could not come up with ONE female writer to include on those lists, I'm ashamed to say.

Lastly, I'd like to send a shout-out to American and British fellow WLF members: come on, list the great 20th. Century writers from your language (I can only think of ten: Henry James, Kipling, Faulkner, Wodehouse, Auden, Larkin, Coover, Dillard and Ozick).

 

[Daniel del Real]

Going through the history of the Nobel Prize, from the 105 laureates so far, only 18 have been awarded 75 years or +. That is only a 17%! (Of course we have to consider that starting at 1901 the expected life average was way below 75, something that has improved significantly through a century)

I researched for that information because of the following: We always complain that this or that writer was a good choice, but that he or she could have waited, giving chance to older writers. Actually this situation happened this year, when Mo yan at 57 was awarded, relegating this list of 75+ writers for future occasions:

Cees Nooteboom	79
Adonis	82
Ko Un	79
Ismail Kadare	76
Philip Roth	79
Cormac McCarthy	79
Alice Munro	81
Chinua Achebe	81
Assia Djebar	76
Thomas Pynchon	75
Umberto Eco	80
Don DeLillo	75
Yves Bonnefoy	89
Milan Kundera	83
John Ashbery	85
Juan Goytisolo	81
William Trevor	84

So the main question is, do you see any of these guys getting the Nobel?