I know that this is an old thread, and I missed this thread so much that I have read the entire posts more than six times, but there are some observations I need to share. But before then, I want to introduce to you guys Sara Danius, late Permanent Secretary of Swedish Academy. She's known as High-Modernist and advocate of style, which's displayed in some of her clothes, designed after some of her favourite characters in novels like Proust and Jane Austen, to cite few examples. She studied under postmodernist Federic Jameson, whose philosophy influenced Danius's approach in her textual analysis, which in turn I compare to Susan Sontag, another advocate of style and Modernism. Sara Danius became a member of the Swedish Academy in 2013, and two years after, precisely on 1st June 2015, she succeeded Peter Englund as Permanent Secretary of Nobel Committee.
In her essays Sense of Modernism, which I recently read, she suggests that High Modernism and aesthetics are inseparable from technology and revealing in ways which categories of perceiving and knowing are realigned when technological devices are capable of reproducing sense data. For Danius, perceptions is marked by photographs, cinema and technological change and formal innovation transform study of aesthetics, with the essay centering on three modernist works: Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Mann's Magic Mountain and Joyce's Ulysses. Danius questions the long-standing acceptance of relations between high and low cultures--- modernism and technology: photographs, telephone and suggesting that modernist aesthetics free experiences of senses in way that creativity could be grounded in conducting experience and perception, criticizing in the process that art's not autonomous. In other essays, Danius discusses realism as manifestation of things and ideas and not just imitation of life, revealing that massive wealth of detail characterize novel of realism emphasizes descriptions of clothes and essence design. And in one of her most famous essays Death's Husbands and other Texts, where she discusses writers from Bernhard, Transtromer and Austen, to Calvino, Esterhazy and Ugresic, Danius traces general history of aesthetic forms, at the same time seeking to show how this history can be read tandem with history of social and harmonics of allegory. In another book On Dylan, she reveals how Dylan became "indefatigable archivist of history and stubborn traditionalist and simultaneously an artist reinventing himself in surprising giuses," drawing artistic influences from Petrach and Shakespeare to Homer and Lorca. She also references an article from Daily News (Daghens Nyether in Swedish) in Spring 1966 when a literary critic mentioned Dylan's poetry just like others, calling Dylan's music new poetry. Her other works include Silk Cathedral and Other Texts, which combines style of high and low cultures, Proust's Motor (2000), and Blue Soap (2003) which talks about Stendhal, Proust, Flaubert and Balzac. She died in 2019.
During her tenure as permanent secretary, here are the major characteristics and themes of Nobel Laureates:
Svetlana Aleixieivich: charting social history of modern Russia filled with violence with sensitive grasp of modern historian, though pastiche (juxtaposition of collage: interviews, narrative descriptions through polyphonic outlook). A transition from Englund's historically detailed witness aspect of literature.
Bob Dylan: Rejection of autonomy of art, the blend of high and low cultures (the believe that, according to Federic Jameson, culture and art can interweave), archivist of history: counter-culture, Vietnam, turbulent society of 60s.
Kazuo Ishiguro: objects conveying meaning and ideas (Danius refers to magnifying glass in When We Were Orphans, which Ishiguro uses as optical device to help us sees ourselves submerged in violent history).
Olga Tokarczuk: pastiche (Flights combines letters and essay-like meditations on travel), mythological obsession--- new ways of seeing reality: intensive embodiment and ephemeral reality and quest of freedom juxtaposes with dictionaries and documents and fairytales with frescoes of fables myth, apocalyptic history and everyday episodes. In Book of Jacob, the physical descriptions of country manors, monasteries, with dresses and gardening menus reveals ideas--- parallelling modern times. Another transition to Malm and Olsson led Academy.
All the Nobel Laureates in Danius' era played/pushed the boundaries of their forms.
So with these observations, and with the accessibility of Library during Danius period, we can detect that those with high/unusual amount of books checked out with due date by the end of August, we might have gotten 75 percent of candidates on the shortlist. Before I list the candidates, I must again congrats the members of the forum for, first, opening this thread (even though it seems it no longer has essence), second for you guys in-depth research into the candidates (this praise in particular must go to Bartleby and Redhead as they were the most active during this period). Although some of the names I will list, especially in 2015, seems subjective, the rest from 2016--2018 is dependent from the Library. 9 names is the maximum (since 1961, 1963 and 1968 reached such figure)
2015: Aleixievich, Ngugi, Murakami, Dylan, Ulitskaya, Ugresic and Conde
Both Aleixievich and Ulitskaya both traced modern Russian history, Aleixievich, Ugresic and Ulitskaya both did something collage-like (Ugresic in Museum of Conditional Surrender, Ulitskaya in Daniel Stein, Interpreter), Conde and Ngugi both traced modern history of their respective continents Carribean and Africa, Ngugi, Murakami and Ugresic both utilized magic-realism and fantasy. Ngugi, Aleixievich and Murakami are obviously candidates from the previous year. Aleixievich, and Dylan both pushed boundaries of literary structures.
2016: Dylan, Rushdie, Ishiguro, Ko Un, Marias, Magris, Don Delillo
The Academy coming to condemn Rushdie in March 2016 was a clear, although implicit statement that if Rushdie should be awarded, it wouldn't be seen as controversial pick. Although the committee might have detected decline in artistry (can't judge his work, haven't read him in-depth). Redhead posted of Magris having many books checked out with due date at the end of August (I confirmed the number by checking the website, it was eight--ten in the first week of September), Marias and Ishiguro have something in common: objects manifesting ideas: photographs in Marias' trilogy and Ishiguro's glass in When We Were Orphans. Ishiguro winning the prize the following year confirmed he was shortlisted this year, with 6 books due date in August. Ko Un and Dylan both represent poetry and songwriting. Un had few books, five books with due date in August. Delillo is the American writer that will compete with Dylan: combining high and low cultures, postmodernistic in outlook, and realism with manifestation of ideas: Barns and Smoke in White Noise for example.
2017: Ishiguro, Marias, Murakami, Tokarczuk, Can Xue, Sjon, Handke
Xue's books and Sjon makes use of fantasy and magic-realist tales. Xue's birds and landscape also manifest ideas of memory and individual encountering another reality (like Last Lover when a character, holding bird was transported to another dimension of reality), same with Handke which motif of the roads opens up the discovery of memory with cinematic touches. Tokarczuk's application of fantasy and pastiche qualifies her in this shortlist. Another reason that I mentioned Xue was because Espmark disclosed about Chinese writer been on the shortlist (Espmark said it in his new book on the Nobel Prize in 2020). Sjon having 10 books checked out on February 2018 might mean he was on the shortlist, remember Simic.
As for 2018, I will not post about that one because I just stumbled upon articles concerning Malm and Anders Olsson, which will take me few weeks to finish, but hopefully will be done before the Nobel Speculations begins in May.
Now, I must reiterate that the subjective shortlist isn't 100 percent, because I'm not too sure about Antunes, Hannah Krall, Marilyn Robinson, Banville and Barnes appearing on the shortlist. I suspect that another British writer was shortlisted with Ishiguro, but I'm not too sure if it's Banville or Barnes. If we should follow the pattern, there's a possibility that it'll Barnes, but again can't be sure.
