Nobel Prize in Literature 2020

Bartleby

Bartleby

Moderator
Daniel del Real said:
  • Her attituted which to me seems arrogant and quite rude.

To this last point, I understand it might be akward for an introvert to get so much attention from day to night, but it's not going to be this way forever. The morning of the announcement can be shocking and tiresome, and then the first year could take a toll on interviews and a trip to Sweden, which is not even gonna happen this year, so I don't understand her attitude at all. ¡Come on, even Peter Handke, stereotyped by many as a misanthrope, invited all the reporters to his yard and had a friendly approach with all of them!
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I do think it’s a combo of her being more introvert and waking up in early morning to a lot of calls and reporters in front of her house. This sudden, unexpected, not appointed intrusion.

In her interviews and conversations online she does seem friendly. And in one recent article it mentions her missing going out to have dinner with her friends every day of the week before covid...
 
Bagharu

Bagharu

Reader
hayden said:
I think she could end up being an incredibly popular laureate in time. Her poetry is relatable, accessible, and hones brevity in a way that encourages readers to dive into her work, which could lead to her being very widely read and enjoyed thanks to this publicity. Interestingly, I could say near the same for the last poet (Transtromer, sorry Dylan). Might say something about the SA's taste.

I still have a list of a dozen or so writers I would have preferred to have been awarded this year, but I would never say this is a poor choice. I actually think it's rather bold.
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I totally agree with you, Gluck is going to be widely read and accepted. Her poetry (as far as I have read) is accessible, relatable and seriously without pretense, some of the verses taken out of context might seem like something you'd find in a Best Quotations on Life book. But inside her poems, they are brutal and spot-on. On the announcement day, I told Nagisa, Ludus and Bartleby that people are going to read less and less poetry in the future, but I can see anyone who would pick up Gluck will feel enthusiastic about reading new poets. For instance, now I am looking forward to reading a Transtromer book unlike before when I read random poems here and there (also Ludus shared a sublime section from Transtromer that has been permanently lodged inside my head).
 
Ater Lividus Ruber & V

Ater Lividus Ruber & V

我ヲ學ブ者ハ死ス
Daniel del Real said:
Couldn't agree more with all her remarks:

  • Matts Malm acting like a robot (and a very dull one)
  • The Nobel going to another English language author and alternating only between Europe and the United States.
  • Her attituted which to me seems arrogant and quite rude.
To this last point, I understand it might be akward for an introvert to get so much attention from day to night, but it's not going to be this way forever. The morning of the announcement can be shocking and tiresome, and then the first year could take a toll on interviews and a trip to Sweden, which is not even gonna happen this year, so I don't understand her attitude at all. ¡Come on, even Peter Handke, stereotyped by many as a misanthrope, invited all the reporters to his yard and had a friendly approach with all of them!
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I disagree. In all of the interviews I've watched of her, she's generous, warm, convivial, and hilarious. I think you're not understanding her acerbic wit and dry humor. Additionally, she's very well-spoken. You can see her cogitating, slowly choosing which words to best use for whatever discussion point. She respects interviewers. In that phone call, she was tired. For someone who admits being misrepresented and misunderstood is a torment (hence her meticulous diction), being half-asleep with limited cognitive functions for an interview you know will be recorded for posterity (and she's worried about just that: her image after she dies), it's easy to see how she responded. I didn't get any arrogance at all. If you respect her conditions and interview her when she's prepped, she'll give you a great one.

In fact, it makes Handke seem more like a fawning coward. He was all bark about the Nobel being shit, then he turned heel as soon as he got the prize, saying it was a "great honor", being a sycophant to the Swedish Academy and reporters. Glück has integrity. She's not going to cow-tow and bend over backward to reporters simply because she got the prize.
 
Bartleby

Bartleby

Moderator
Ater Lividus Ruber & V said:
In fact, it makes Handke seem more like a fawning coward. He was all bark about the Nobel being shit, then he turned heel as soon as he got the prize, saying it was a "great honor", being a sycophant to the Swedish Academy and reporters. Glück has integrity. She's not going to cow-tow and bend over backward to reporters simply because she got the prize.
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Imagine Lobo Antunes winning. He’d switch even faster to kissing those Swedes’ butts, and his record of badmouthing the Nobel is extremely more extensive, it would be the most cringeworthy thing ever ?
 
Leemo

Leemo

Well-known member
Ater Lividus Ruber & V said:
I disagree. In all of the interviews I've watched of her, she's generous, warm, convivial, and hilarious. I think you're not understanding her acerbic wit and dry humor. Additionally, she's very well-spoken. You can see her cogitating, slowly choosing which words to best use for whatever discussion point. She respects interviewers. In that phone call, she was tired. For someone who admits being misrepresented and misunderstood is a torment (hence her meticulous diction), being half-asleep with limited cognitive functions for an interview you know will be recorded for posterity (and she's worried about just that: her image after she dies), it's easy to see how she responded. I didn't get any arrogance at all. If you respect her conditions and interview her when she's prepped, she'll give you a great one.

In fact, it makes Handke seem more like a fawning coward. He was all bark about the Nobel being shit, then he turned heel as soon as he got the prize, saying it was a "great honor", being a sycophant to the Swedish Academy and reporters. Glück has integrity. She's not going to cow-tow and bend over backward to reporters simply because she got the prize.
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I got the same impression as you that she very much cares about her image, hence her fear of giving responses off the cuff in interviews she knows will be recorded for posterity. But on my mind it's exactly those fears that infer an arrogance. As does the level of her unnecessary causticity. Not that I'd really blame her, she didn't ask for any of this.
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
^Tell me how you really feel, now, :)

But I'd be careful with throwing around accusations of racism based on a few inconsistencies. What I see in the bits you quote about Mo Yan is contradiction, and aren't human beings contradictory by nature?

Also, to my knowledge, Mary (or whatever her/his/their real name is) is not a member of this forum and so cannot possibly defend herself here. You can point out her contradictory blog entries from different years, you can mention how much she irritates you (and why), but to call someone a racist like that, plain and simple, that's pretty serious, and I would NOT go that route.

I have not agreed with Mary on every point; in fact, I disagree with her more than I agree with her; but her blog is an invaluable resource of (potentially) new names: she has a great eye for synthesis; she brings all these prominent names together; I've discovered many authors previously unknown to me through her blog.

English might also not be her first language, which would explain the awkward phrasing of some of her sentences.

All I'm saying is: please give her the benefit of the doubt. I should like to think we are all of us capable of doing that, :)
 
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SpaceCadet

SpaceCadet

Quiet Reader
Stewart said:
The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2020 has been awarded to Louise Glück, "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal".
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I don't know if this has been mentioned here (and I'm not gonna read the 11 pages you guys have manage to fill since last thursday (I have piles of books to read so please forgive me)) but, among the francophone readers, it somewhat came as a surprise more so because Louise Glück's work having not been translated to French, to many French readers she's basically unknown. Hopefully, we'll get to see some translation appear soon.

I'm not a big poetry reader, Louise Glück is totally unknown to me, so I have no comment on this choice, but I must say I am a bit deceived that the Nobel would go yet again to a candidate from the North America/Europe literature sphere and to an English writer at that. Let's hope that next year...
 
M

Marba

Reader
SpaceCadet said:
I don't know if this has been mentioned here (and I'm not gonna read the 11 pages you guys have manage to fill since last thursday (I have piles of books to read so please forgive me)) but, among the francophone readers, it somewhat came as a surprise more so because Louise Glück's work having not been translated to French, to many French readers she's basically unknown. Hopefully, we'll get to see some translation appear soon.
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During the press conference after the announcement Anders Olsson mentioned that for being an American poet as known as she is in her home country she is surprisingly "un-translated" outside of the US, and Olsson mentioned French and Italian as languages she has not been translated into. Hopefully you will be able to get translations of her in not too long time!
 
Bartleby

Bartleby

Moderator
Ater Lividus Ruber & V said:
Continuing the great tradition of poets who love murder mysteries (https://crimereads.com/t-s-eliot-crime-fiction-critic/) (https://harpers.org/archive/1948/05/the-guilty-vicarage/), Glück discusses her love for them and how Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height helped shape Averno (
34:34).
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I love how she talks about her relationship of writing with listening to music, how the latter fuels the former; I also like doing so, it helps create a flow.

funny when she was talking about listening to Mahler. She’d put on Das Lied von der Erde, but never Kindertotenlieder for (apparently) everyone who dealt with it had their child dead, and she couldn’t afford it hehe
 
Corswandt

Corswandt

FAFO
namelesshere said:
I'd be interested to know which "woke" candidates you feel the media were touting? Who even are the "woke" candidates that must be so bad?
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Jamaica Kincaid, for instance, who was mentioned in news articles more than once in the last week before the Nobel or so, yet several people in here doubted her work was Nobel prize worthy.
 
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Corswandt

Corswandt

FAFO
Isahoinp said:
I can’t stand this woman [Morose Mary]. She’s ignorant and she’s really rather clueless and has clearly not read most of the past winners or even authors she speculates on. She constantly contradicts herself to the point where it becomes obvious she’s outright lying when she’s claimed to have read various authors.
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This is sadly true.

If you want to read Nobel speculation from someone who has never read anything by 90% of the writers he/she mentions, you already have my posts, which have the advantage of being much shorter.
 
Dante

Dante

Wild Reader
I've heard about crazy offers for her poems from Italian publishers. She's practically unpublished here, so there is a real auction ongoing.
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
^For once, I don't begrudge a writer her success (if the rumors you're talking about are indeed true). I'd much rather a poet made a killing from her work than, say, Danielle Steel, :)
 
nagisa

nagisa

Spiky member
France is also scrambling, she's only ever been translated rarely and in confidential poetry journals.
 
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