The Goncourt is also very much a horse-trading thing where
publishing houses, not authors, are rewarded. It's only in 2008 that jurors were forbidden to have a concomitant salaried position in a publishing house... While it remains prestigious to the wider public (and, especially, lucrative for the publishing house!), French readers know not to expect much. An article
here; a couple of quotes:
Bory (1945 laureate, for his first book!):
"Le Goncourt, c'est automatique, vous attire le grand public. Il vous aliène, c'est aussi automatique, les “connaisseurs”, aux yeux de qui le Goncourt est une maladie assez honteuse, un peu dégoûtante, qui se tient entre le
lupus et la
blennorragie. (…) Résultat : le grand public lit votre livre pour l'unique raison qu'il a eu le Goncourt, mais ne lit pas vos livres suivants, pour la bonne raison qu'ils ne l'auront pas. (…) Les connaisseurs ne liront pas votre livre parce qu'il a eu le Goncourt, et ne liront pas les suivants parce que le premier a eu le Goncourt."
"The Goncourt, automatically, gets you the wider public. It alienates, also automatically, the "connaisseurs", in whose eyes the Goncourt is a rather shameful illness, a bit disgusting, between lupus and gonnorhea. Result: the wider public reads your book for the sole reason that it got the Goncourt, but won't read your following ones, for the good reason that they won't. Connaisseurs won't read your book because it got the Goncourt, and won't read your following ones because the first got the Goncourt."
Audouard, french humorist (who did not get it): "Il n'empêche que le Goncourt est une connerie persévérante et diabolique. Qu'il fausse totalement la vie littéraire de ce pays. Qu'il abîme ceux qui l'obtiennent, aigrit ceux qui le ratent, encombre la presse des humeurs de M.
Armand Salacrou et n'a d'autre intérêt que de faire croire à M.
Armand Lanoux qu'il a de l'importance. Dans ce cas on peut véritablement parler de connerie institutionnelle. Il n'améliore ni ne détériore ceux qui en font partie. Ils ne sont pas cons à titre privé. Mais ils sont devenus les agents actifs d'une dangereuse connerie collective. Et le pire, c'est qu'ils le savent."
"Nevertheless, it must be said that the Goncourt is a fucking stupidity, enduring and diabolical. That it distorts this country's literary life completely. That it damages those who get it, embitters those who don't, litters the media with the tantrums of jurors and has no other point than to make laureates-turned-jurors believe that they're important. In this case we can truly speak of institutional stupidity. It neithers betters nor worsens those who are part of it. They are not privately stupid. But they have become the active agents of a dangerous collective stupidity. And the worst thing is that they know it."
Gracq wrote his pamphlet Literature on the Stomach in 1950, castigating the whole literary prize rigmarole; the Goncourt wanted to give him the prize in 1951 for the Rivage des Syrtes (still one of the most magnificent French-language novels I've read), which he promptly (and coherently) refused.
The masculinity of the jurors, short-listed and laureates has also been repeatedly and acidly pointed out by various feminist groups.
TL;DR: the Goncourt is more of an incestuous industry than a genuine literary prize. I still flip through them if I have the chance, on n'est jamais à l'abri d'un heureux accident....
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elpais.com
(There is an English version of this article, but believe me or not, I couldn't find it on PC. Maybe someone is more lucky)
