Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 Speculation

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Stevie B

Stevie B

Current Member
Leseratte said:
I don´t think you will repent having spend this money, Stevie! The cover, by the way, is not in tune with the story.
Review with spoilers, tells in fact the whole story.

The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma - Lima Barreto

A review, and links to other information about and reviews of The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto.
www.complete-review.com
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I started reading the reviews, but decided to quit before too much of the story was given away. I was intrigued to read that part of the storyline deals with a desire to return to the common languages before colonization. By the way, the cover photo might not relate to the story, but I had never seen a such an early picture of Rio.
 
Leseratte

Leseratte

Well-known member
ministerpumpkin said:
Lispector would have been infinitely deserving of the prize.

I'll toss in Ingeborg Bachmann, maybe more in terms of would have won rather than should have won because she might not have published enough in her (short) lifetime.

The reason why I'm bringing up Bachmann in reply to your mentioning Lispector is because I read my first books by each of them back to back, so these two geniuses will always be linked in my mind.
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I love them both. But Clarice is one of the most original writer I ever read.
 
Daniel del Real

Daniel del Real

Moderator
Who do you want to see awarded the prize?

Based on age, geography & personal taste: Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Adonis, Ko Un

Who do you think will win this year?

Annie Ernaux, Jon Fosse, Mia Couto

Who will never win?

Lobo Antunes, Ismail Kadare, Milan Kundera. Really glad two out of these three will never win. Not gonna say who ?
 
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Salixacaena

Salixacaena

Active member
redheadshadz said:
Say, didn’t he have some books out from the library earlier? It looks like some are still unavailable. Was there a reason he fell out of our discussions?

The only book I’ve read by him is A Horse Walks into a Bar and I thought it was mediocre, but I’ve heard good things about To the End of the Land.
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For the last few years he typically had around 6 books out. For most of this year he had 1-3 books out so he seemed fairly unlikely.
 
Salixacaena

Salixacaena

Active member
redheadshadz said:
I haven't read any his latest works other than that god awful book-length interview he did with a Japanese composer so I refrained from commenting on them. But I’ve repeatedly seen that sentiment here and elsewhere online, and both After Dark and the third part of 1Q84 seemed like lesser works to me, the like beginnings of a possible descent into self parody.

That said, they gave it to Pinter when he hadn’t put out any noteworthy plays in over a decade, so who knows, maybe they won’t hold newer, lesser work against Murakami.
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Eh, I was obsessed with Murakami for ages. The third section of 1Q84 was fine and perfectly wrapped up the novel. I’m not sure what anyone reading it could have expected to go differently. I’d still say it’s his best novel.

After Dark is bad. It reads like Murakami was attempting a new style of writing (a lot of it reads like a film director trying to lay out a scene verbally) and for the most part just seemed like a short story that went on for far too long.

My issues with his writing are things like Kafka on the Shore, which to me reads like a clunky children’s book. The more time passes the worse my memory of this book gets (reputation-wise) that is. It just seems so silly and childish, the bizarre Radiohead and Colonel Sanders references, the way it reads like a lot of generic coming of age works.

And then his latest few short story collections have been very inconsistent, containing some of his absolute best and worst writing. But when they’re bad they’re painfully, embarrassingly bad. Men Without Women had a few stories that I found so off-putting and cringe inducing that I considered giving up on ever reading him again (the title story, a story involving a doctor).

His use of technology can also be pretty jarring and causes a lot of things he writes to age awkwardly. His last novel was full of constant mentions of Google and Facebook and didn’t really seem “timeless” to me in the way that great literature should (surprisingly his older works discussing floppy disc files and stuff didn’t bother me anywhere near as much).
 
N

namelesshere

Reader
Salixacaena said:
After Dark is bad. It reads like Murakami was attempting a new style of writing (a lot of it reads like a film director trying to lay out a scene verbally) and for the most part just seemed like a short story that went on for far too long.
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After Dark was the only Murakami novel I've truly, deeply enjoyed. (Although Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki & His Years of Pilgrimage was decent enough.) The rest I've tried have left me completely cold.
 
errequatro

errequatro

Reader
Corswandt said:
I meant "general readers" as "people who don't belong to the SA". This includes academics doing research for dissertations, literature students, etc.

About Mia Couto's alleged "look - how exotic!" version of Africa, or his white gaze or whatever, can't comment as I haven't read a thing written by the dude.
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There is also the fact that Portuguese-speaking Africa has never been represented (neither has Brazil) and that is a major fault. Mia Couto is a real contender, I think. The fact that he is white is besides the point - incidentally (and unfortunately), the major Lusophone African writers are white (and male, even though there is an anecdote about the first time when Fidel Castro met Mia Couto and he was suprised for he was expecting a woman, deceived by the name Mia) (Agualusa, Pepetela, Mia Couto, Luandino Vieira).
Mia Couto is (in my opinion), alongside Luandino, the best of this bunch. Moreover, he has been very innovative with language itself, coining dozens of neologisms and introducing words from minority african languages, blending them with Portuguese.
And the academy might also do what they normally have been doing and somehow "correct" past wrongs because Mia Couto, despite being Mozambican, is considered to be an heir of Joao Guimares Rosa, a writer who has unjustly been overlooked by the academy.

Anyway, I like him and he is a good writer worthy of the prize.
I won't be too disappointed if someone else wins though. I am not an absolute super fan of his...
 
Seelig

Seelig

Active member
Hi everyone. New in the forum, longtime follower. I also dream of the Nobel, and still in therapy for that (yep, searching the meaning of it all, but in the meantime I’ll just keep indulging myself here for just another year and paying an analyst ?). Thanks to all of you for the passionate and rich discussions.
I would like to propose a view of why this whole SA procedure is so intriguing and elusive. I think it’s the perpetual switching criteria of what precisely they honour with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Sometimes is literature, yes, but sometimes clearly it is not. It has been politics, geopolitics, geography, ideology, idealism, clashing Weltanshauungs. Sometimes it just seems like really personal (almost random) choices, or lobbying, or jokes, provocation, group interests, hidden messages, fights between factions (be it in the SA inner circle or with external pairs). Then literature again, but never being clear what they are really praising, if it’s genres, languages, pure aesthetics, sheer genius, influential ideas, single masterpieces, prolific writers, cognitive power, visionary artists, novelty, tradition, whole literary movements, historical influence, the elusive sublime, or even reivindication of should-have-been-laureates in their heirs or emulators. I think this is what keeps us (and the writers) obsessed, fascinated and surely frustrated by the often strange and disconcerting choices of laureates. It just doesn’t always make sense, right? Right? The SA play God and we want to know the mind of God…What do you think? My analyst is still in silence… in expensive silence.
Who I would like to win: An obscure poet.
Who I think will win: An essayist, maybe a scientist.
Who would never win (at least in a decade): US novelists.
 
Leseratte

Leseratte

Well-known member
Seelig said:
Hi everyone. New in the forum, longtime follower. I also dream of the Nobel, and still in therapy for that (yep, searching the meaning of it all, but in the meantime I’ll just keep indulging myself here for just another year and paying an analyst ?). Thanks to all of you for the passionate and rich discussions.
I would like to propose a view of why this whole SA procedure is so intriguing and elusive. I think it’s the perpetual switching criteria of what precisely they honour with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Sometimes is literature, yes, but sometimes clearly it is not. It has been politics, geopolitics, geography, ideology, idealism, clashing Weltanshauungs. Sometimes it just seems like really personal (almost random) choices, or lobbying, or jokes, provocation, group interests, hidden messages, fights between factions (be it in the SA inner circle or with external pairs). Then literature again, but never being clear what they are really praising, if it’s genres, languages, pure aesthetics, sheer genius, influential ideas, single masterpieces, prolific writers, cognitive power, visionary artists, novelty, tradition, whole literary movements, historical influence, the elusive sublime, or even reivindication of should-have-been-laureates in their heirs or emulators. I think this is what keeps us (and the writers) obsessed, fascinated and surely frustrated by the often strange and disconcerting choices of laureates. It just doesn’t always make sense, right? Right? The SA play God and we want to know the mind of God…What do you think? My analyst is still in silence… in expensive silence.
Who I would like to win: An obscure poet.
Who I think will win: An essayist, maybe a scientist.
Who would never win (at least in a decade): US novelists.
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Well thought out, Seelig!Poor analyst!?
 
nagisa

nagisa

Spiky member
Seelig said:
Hi everyone. New in the forum, longtime follower. I also dream of the Nobel, and still in therapy for that (yep, searching the meaning of it all, but in the meantime I’ll just keep indulging myself here for just another year and paying an analyst ?). Thanks to all of you for the passionate and rich discussions.
I would like to propose a view of why this whole SA procedure is so intriguing and elusive. I think it’s the perpetual switching criteria of what precisely they honour with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Sometimes is literature, yes, but sometimes clearly it is not. It has been politics, geopolitics, geography, ideology, idealism, clashing Weltanshauungs. Sometimes it just seems like really personal (almost random) choices, or lobbying, or jokes, provocation, group interests, hidden messages, fights between factions (be it in the SA inner circle or with external pairs). Then literature again, but never being clear what they are really praising, if it’s genres, languages, pure aesthetics, sheer genius, influential ideas, single masterpieces, prolific writers, cognitive power, visionary artists, novelty, tradition, whole literary movements, historical influence, the elusive sublime, or even reivindication of should-have-been-laureates in their heirs or emulators. I think this is what keeps us (and the writers) obsessed, fascinated and surely frustrated by the often strange and disconcerting choices of laureates. It just doesn’t always make sense, right? Right? The SA play God and we want to know the mind of God…What do you think? My analyst is still in silence… in expensive silence.
Who I would like to win: An obscure poet.
Who I think will win: An essayist, maybe a scientist.
Who would never win (at least in a decade): US novelists.
Click to expand...
I would reverse the problematic and be Deleuzo-Guattarian: it is precisely the desire for such consistency that induces such intrigue (and frustration!). It is an impossible task, resting on a tiny, limited body; the expectation is too great, and too easily disappointed by human and institutional fallibility.

Welcome to the forum :giggle:

I'm not necessarily hoping to be surprised, but I am hoping for an author I've not yet read!
 
redhead

redhead

Blahblahblah
Salixacaena said:
Eh, I was obsessed with Murakami for ages. The third section of 1Q84 was fine and perfectly wrapped up the novel. I’m not sure what anyone reading it could have expected to go differently. I’d still say it’s his best novel.
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Fair enough. Personally, sticking Aomame in an apartment and introducing a third narrator just really bogged things down for me, and as a result some flaws that I’d looked past earlier (ex. some sloppy writing and dialogue) became far more noticeable. I had no real issue with how things went, and more how Murakami chose to tell those things.


nagisa said:
I would reverse the problematic and be Deleuzo-Guattarian: it is precisely the desire for such consistency that induces such intrigue (and frustration!). It is an impossible task, resting on a tiny, limited body; the expectation is too great, and too easily disappointed by human and institutional fallibility.
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I think that frustration is indeed part of what makes it interesting. Just look at the speculation threads from 2016 and 2017. There’s 417 posts in the 2016 one. But after arguably one of the most frustrating laureates ever, next year’s had almost 1,100.
 
Salixacaena

Salixacaena

Active member
redheadshadz said:
Fair enough. Personally, sticking Aomame in an apartment and introducing a third narrator just really bogged things down for me, and as a result some flaws that I’d looked past earlier (ex. some sloppy writing and dialogue) became far more noticeable. I had no real issue with how things went, and more how Murakami chose to tell those things.
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The third narrator was also a character in Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and I guess the tie-in was supposed to be that the two novels were taking place concurrently (or that the events of Wind Up take place within the dimension they had slipped into in 1Q84). I enjoyed it as sort of a dorky Easter egg for long time fans.

I assume I’m different than most Murakami readers though, I prefer his third person narration to a lot of his first person narration. So to me 1Q84 seemed a lot fresher and better-written than some of the really clumsy first person narration.

Anyways, I’d enjoy him winning the Nobel. His influence on an entire generation of writers is extremely apparent on a global scale. He’s beyond qualified if we’re discussing merit based on previous awards/degrees etc.

I don’t think he’ll necessarily age well but I’d take him over someone like Houllebecq or Robinson.
 
Salixacaena

Salixacaena

Active member
redheadshadz said:
Thanks for sharing!

Also, here’s the latest from Englund’s insta:
http://instagr.am/p/CULMa6bMhYn/
I always thought their gatherings were sober affairs (in both senses), but they clearly know how to party hard
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The last few years they definitely seemed sober and bitter given the scandal and several members dying. Englund also seemed really disgusted over Handke winning which I imagine made things awkward for the group as a whole.
 
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