Premio Princesa de Asturias de las Letras

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

Well, you wrote yourself that you did not follow his career at all from the ~60s on, the time when it just had started. And in my opinion it does not make sense (i.e. it is nonsensical) to judge the work of an artist "in general" or any jury awarding him prizes for this work when one only knows a small fraction of it (say one decade of a career that spans more than five decades). Or at least it would be a bit arrogant and snobbish (which would perfectly fit the look of Proust on your avatar pic by the way).

You see, I am just getting annoyed by such kind of crude generalisations you tend to make about all kinds of topics.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

In not getting all over your case because you haven't read his novels. I read the poems that you quoted above and find them trite. If you wish, I'll analyze one in detail to tell you exactly what I think is wrong with it.

I said from the beginning that I only know and judge him on terms of his song writing abilities. In the same sense I quoted the "songs" above. I never claimed they would work very well as standalone poems. It is the interplay of the contents and words, how they are spoken or sung and the music that makes the mentioned songs so worthwhile for me. I never claimed that his songs can stand the competition to "real" poems.

 

[lenz]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

Good for old Len! I always found him, like most male confessional song writers, self-indulgent, wallowing in the pain of being too sexy and too sensitive but the swaying rhythm of his bohemian rhapsodies is catchy, seriously fun, pop music for intellectually romantic types. He's always been more appreciated in Europe than in his homeland, Canada, and has, I think a European sensibility that makes him mysterious in North America. Good for the prize-givers for acknowledging the power of song that is the origin of poetry and that has been lost with the hegemony of academic rules of verse.

 

[lenz]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

Now, Alice Munro for the Nobel! We've got to have something to say for our boring country, especially now that we've slipped backward into near totalitarianism.

 

[lionel]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

Thank you for another voice of sanity, Lenz.

BLOG

 

[Daniel del Real]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

I find it much more interesting why you are always giving you opinion about topics you apparently have practically no knowledge about? It always goes a bit like this: "I know one book/movie/whatever of this guy and this was complete shit (in my opinion), so the rest must be also shit, right? And I guess this other guy, of whom I also only know like one book/film/whatever must then be much 'better', because someone stated this in the New York Times lately." Such a crap... I give a shit about this award, I just like it when people get some recognition. And Cohen is great as a songwriter, on par with Dylan or other well known "literary" song writers. If such people should get major literary awards is a completely different question, which I do not care about much.

Totally Agree.

Yesterday I found Flower for Hitler in a local library and purchased it. It is a bilingual edition and it will be a good sample to get my own opinion on Cohen's poetry. I started reading it last night and although I like many poems I still haven't find a true great one. I'll keep on reading and let you know.

 

[Mirabell]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

now that we've slipped backward into near totalitarianism.

that's surely an exaggeration.

 

[Liam]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

that's surely an exaggeration.

Perhaps not. Perhaps she's typing this from a concentration camp to the north of Winnipeg, .

 

[lenz]

Re: Leonard Cohen favorite to win Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 2011

that's surely an exaggeration.

Yes, it is, but you should see the cold gleam in Stephen Harper's eyes when he talks about military hardware. And the blank gaze in the eyes of the masses who see him as their saviour from the "economy" and nasty immigrants

 

[Daniel del Real]

Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

It seems to be Muñoz Molina's year. Previously he had been awarded with the Jerusalem prize, and after a debate if he should go and receive the prize, he did and give a magnificent lecture there.

Now he wins a prize that has distinguished terrific writers in the last decade, curiously none of the in Spanish language (Last was Monterroso in 1999).

Here is the link from El País with other links as well with interviews with the author:

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/06/04/actualidad/1370373026_952988.html

I think this is a call to keep on reading him. I've only read El Viento de la Luna which I enjoyed immensely, but Plenilunio and Sefarad are waiting for me in my father's shelves

 

[Stevie B]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

It seems to be Muñoz Molina's year. Previously he had been awarded with the Jerusalem prize, and after a debate if he should go and receive the prize, he did and give a magnificent lecture there.

Now he wins a prize that has distinguished terrific writers in the last decade.

On top of everything, he stole my wife away from me. The bastard!

 

[Cleanthess]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

Senor Del Real, accept no substitutes or ersatz masterpieces: El Jinete Polaco is the Munoz Molina book to read. I haven't been as impressed by a Spanish language book as I was by the last 200 pages of that novel since I read 100 years of solitude.

A little sample:

Es el cuadro mas raro que ha visto en su vida, aunque no sabe explicarse por que, es muy raro pero tambien se lo encuentra muy familiar, como si lo hubiera visto en un sueño olvidado, no hace mucho, pero uno no sueña con algo que vera dentro de unos meses, no reconoce y extraña al mismo tiempo y con la misma certidumbre, no es alcanzado de improviso por un sentimiento de perdida y de felicidad que le forma un nudo en la garganta y que hasta ahora solo le han deparado con absoluta plenitud unas pocas canciones: como si el tiempo y la realidad no contaran, como si no estuviera solo en Nueva York en una mañana helada de enero, a punto de volar hacia una ciudad inhospita de Europa y de cumplir treinta y cinco años y de seguir aceptando una vida en la que ya no se reconoce y que le importa tanto como la de un desconocido. Esta seguro, ha soñado con ese jinete, lo hace feliz y le da terror, como las historias que su abuelo Manuel le contaba, los juancaballos bajando de la Sierra en los amaneceres de invierno, el regreso a Magina desde el campo de concentracion entre montañas tan oscuras como las que se ven en el cuadro, las hogueras lejanas en las noches de San Juan, porque detras del jinete se vislumbra un fuego encendido, los cascos de un caballo resonando hondamente en la tierra, quiere irse pero unos pasos mas alla se vuelve y continua mirando, no puede tolerar la tension imposible que le ha agudizado la memoria... en estepas tan ilimitadas como las que atravesaba sin detenerse nunca Miguel Strogoff, el correo del zar, que en el curso de su viaje secreto conocio en un tren a una muchacha rubia y la perdio y la volvio a encontrar y fue salvado por ella cuando ya no podia verla porque unos tartaros salvajes le habian quemado los ojos con un sable candente.

 

[Stiffelio]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

On top of everything, he stole my wife away from me. The bastard!

is this true or is it some kind of joke?

 

[Stevie B]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

is this true or is it some kind of joke?

Feeble attempt at a joke. I did notice, though, that Munoz Molina's wife, Elvira Lindo, is also a writer.

 

[Bubba]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

I've never been taken by any of Muñoz Molina's books. I read El invierno en Lisboa and started several others that I could never really get into and have completely forgotten. I also found the excerpt posted by Cleanthess hard to read. "Overwritten" is how I would describe it.

He's a safe choice for this prize, though.

 

[Daniel del Real]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

Senor Del Real, accept no substitutes or ersatz masterpieces: El Jinete Polaco is the Munoz Molina book to read. I haven't been as impressed by a Spanish language book as I was by the last 200 pages of that novel since I read 100 years of solitude.

A little sample:

Es el cuadro mas raro que ha visto en su vida, aunque no sabe explicarse por que, es muy raro pero tambien se lo encuentra muy familiar, como si lo hubiera visto en un sueño olvidado, no hace mucho, pero uno no sueña con algo que vera dentro de unos meses, no reconoce y extraña al mismo tiempo y con la misma certidumbre, no es alcanzado de improviso por un sentimiento de perdida y de felicidad que le forma un nudo en la garganta y que hasta ahora solo le han deparado con absoluta plenitud unas pocas canciones: como si el tiempo y la realidad no contaran, como si no estuviera solo en Nueva York en una mañana helada de enero, a punto de volar hacia una ciudad inhospita de Europa y de cumplir treinta y cinco años y de seguir aceptando una vida en la que ya no se reconoce y que le importa tanto como la de un desconocido. Esta seguro, ha soñado con ese jinete, lo hace feliz y le da terror, como las historias que su abuelo Manuel le contaba, los juancaballos bajando de la Sierra en los amaneceres de invierno, el regreso a Magina desde el campo de concentracion entre montañas tan oscuras como las que se ven en el cuadro, las hogueras lejanas en las noches de San Juan, porque detras del jinete se vislumbra un fuego encendido, los cascos de un caballo resonando hondamente en la tierra, quiere irse pero unos pasos mas alla se vuelve y continua mirando, no puede tolerar la tension imposible que le ha agudizado la memoria... en estepas tan ilimitadas como las que atravesaba sin detenerse nunca Miguel Strogoff, el correo del zar, que en el curso de su viaje secreto conocio en un tren a una muchacha rubia y la perdio y la volvio a encontrar y fue salvado por ella cuando ya no podia verla porque unos tartaros salvajes le habian quemado los ojos con un sable candente.

That paragraph is truly great Cleathess thanks. However, I just finished Terra Nostra and I'm not in the mood for another +600pp back to back book. Right know I'm exhausted as a reader.

 

[Cleanthess]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

I've never been taken by any of Muñoz Molina's books. I read El invierno en Lisboa and started several others that I could never really get into and have completely forgotten. I also found the excerpt posted by Cleanthess hard to read. "Overwritten" is how I would describe it.

He's a safe choice for this prize, though.

Fair points, Bubba. I like both kinds: writers who "overwrite" (Faulkner, Juan Benet, Claude Simon) and more spare writers (Hemingway, Baroja, Kafka). There is a time and a place for each. As an example of equally impressive but terse prose, let me quote my favorite lines from a writer we both like, Pio Baroja:

Alrededor del circo, atados a los pies de un banco hecho con tablas, había diez o doce perros flacos y sarnosos. El domador hizo restallar el látigo, y todos los perros a una comenzaron a ladrar y a aullar furiosamente. Luego el hombre vino con un oso atado a una cadena, con la cabeza protegida por una cubierta de cuero.
El domador obligó a ponerse de pie varias veces al oso, y a bailar con el palo cruzado sobre los hombros y a tocar la pandereta. Luego soltó un perro que se lanzó sobre el oso, y después de un momento de lucha se le colgó de la piel. Tras de éste soltó otro perro y luego otro y otro, con lo cual el público se comenzó a cansar.
A Martín no le pareció bien, porque el pobre oso estaba sin defensa alguna. Los perros se echaban con tal furia sobre el oso que para obligarles a soltar la presa el domador o el viejo tenían que morderles la cola. A Martín no le agradó el espectáculo y dijo en voz alta, y algunos fueron de su opinión, que el oso atado no podía defenderse.

 

[Heteronym]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

I read Nada del otro mundo, in Portuguese, many years ago, and did not find it anything remarkable. But perhaps I should revalue him.

 

[Hamlet]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

On top of everything, he stole my wife away from me. The bastard!

I've since stolen her back off of him, if you would like to meet up and discuss terms, I'm in Paris, right now, Euros aren't acceptable, I want Sterliing, we're standing by the Eiffel Tower, but we'll meet in a shaded bar, so how will I know it's you, and what book will you be carrying?

Mine's a Hemingway.

 

[Hamlet]

Re: Antonio Muñoz Molina wins 2013 Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras

Feeble attempt at a joke. I did notice, though, that Munoz Molina's wife, Elvira Lindo, is also a writer.

A boring detail. The joke was better.