The Quizbowl Resource Center

So on Thursday who's going to join literary giants such as Giorgos Seferis, Frans Sillanpaa, and Erik Karlfeldt (I almost typed in Shmuel Agnon, but I'm too busy grading papers this week to fend off more charges of anti-semitism) in the list of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Smart money's on Orhan Pamuk, partly because of books he's written and stuff, but better because his trial for writing about the Armenian genocide is a current cause celebre. But I'm going with sentimental pick Milan Kundera, even though he hasn't written a great novel since "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting." My dark horse is the fine Korean poet Ko Un, whom I've never heard of or read.

I can't do the tiny url thing, but you can go to ladbrokes.com and search "nobel" for their odds if you're interested.

Disclaimer: the author of this post LOVES the work of Agnon and Nelly Sachs and Amos Oz and Chaim Potok and Saul Bellow and that guy that Passner likes so much (who's off at 10:1, by the way).

The ladbroke odds are pretty screwed up, and are indicitive of people betting more for who they would LIKE to win, vs. who is LIKELY to win. The Literary Salon at the complete review has some good commentary on the odds. Pahmuk, at 54 seems about a decade too young to be winning this thing, the proverbial Ian McEwan affliction. Oe and Jelinek are the only recent recipients reasonably close to Pahmuk's age at the time they recieved their Nobel, and Oe had the benefit of the Nobel needing to give a Japanese author a Nobel after a quarter-century drought and Jelinek was a female when one hadn't won the prize in over a decade. Realistically, Pahmuk is a long-shot.

If this were purely based on merit, in terms of high output of quality for a sustained stretch, a lot of these people that are long-shots odds-wise would have won a while ago. Rushdie probably clinched a merit-nobel by the time of Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Between her poetry and her fiction, Atwood crossed the threshold long ago, but being from Camerica and winning lots of other stuff hurt her. Roth, Gass, Updike, McEwan, they all deserve it, but Roth is an unoppressed white American Jew. There are more reasons for the Nobel to hate him than there are for idiots to pointlessly hate A-Rod. Updike has the same problem, but in WASP form, McEwan is too young, not quite sure what is keeping Gass from winning.

The likelyhood, after giving the prize to Pinter, is that this year's award will go to someone from a largely Arab nation, preferably a poet. Dude who has both of those going for him was last year's front-runner Adonis. I have read the translations available online of his work and the dude seems good, but he is hardly prolific. Any reason why Nobel wants to give shit to people who write like a couple of collections of poetry as opposed to like 15 solid tomes? Ko Un is another solid bet. Old, South Korean, and he actually has written a lot. I frankly think his shit sucks from the stuff I've seen. Lots of imagery of pregnant women and the moon, whoo... Like complete review, I think people are really underestimating Darwish. In fact, I put $20 on him yesterday. It would be really "progressive" to give the prize to a Palestinian, and the dude has written like 15 distinct volumes and well-recieved prose too. He is a favorite/friend of a bunch of other previous winners, too. So it looks like Palestine will not only have a bunch of murderers, but within a decade, it should have its own shiny Nobel Laureate. Gotta love international politik.

Fuck all that noise, I'm betting on the Stonies:

http://www.bodog.com/sports-betting/celebrity-props.jsp

I would like the Nobel committee to just go, "you know what, we shafted so many great writers in the past because we don't know what the fuck, that we're just going to give one to everyone who legitimately deserves one this year. One for Pynchon, one for Adonis, one for Roth, etc."

Then, in my mind, they would tear up some packets, throw them confetti-style on the winners, and head off to kill some whores.

I wonder if August Wilson would've been in the running had he not unsportingly gone and died this year. His plays are mostly excellent, and he rocked the porkpie hat.

William Gass would be an interesting choice, as his fiction output is kind of spare compared to his criticism and translation work.

If Updike wins, I'll drink 15 Red Stripes and read aloud from "Roger's Version" naked in my cul-de-sac. No reason it should be any different from my usual Thursday night routine . . .

I can't figure out the Nobels in lit selection myself. I would have thought August Wilson should have won one years ago too. I suppose what the Nobel "committee" considers good literature is not necessarily the same as what we commoners think is. It's not like there's a gateway-to-Nobel prize like the SAG awards or Directors Guild awards are for the Oscars, or the Lasker Prize is to the Nobel Physiology/Medicine.

E.T. Chuck wrote: I suppose what the Nobel "committee" considers good literature is not necessarily the same as what we commoners think is.

Yeah, it has to share the Nobel's political biases.

E.T. Chuck wrote:...the Nobel "committee"...

... What?

Bruce wrote:Yeah, it has to share the Nobel's political biases.

... What?

MaS

Pahmuk, ugh.

Tough break on your $20, Danny Boy. But how come Pamuk gets an "ugh"? I've only read "My Name Is Red," but I liked that one a lot. Any book with a chapter narrated by a dog is okay with me.

In the meantime, with Pamuk on trial in Turkey for writing about the Armenian genocide, have y'all heard that France is about to pass a law requiring fines/jail for anyone denying the Armenian genocide? Way to support writers' freedoms.

Per haps we in America could take a similar stance .... creating a felony for anyone claiming that the French army is ..... an army.

ValenciaQBowl wrote:Tough break on your $20, Danny Boy. But how come Pamuk gets an "ugh"? I've only read "My Name Is Red," but I liked that one a lot. Any book with a chapter narrated by a dog is okay with me.

In the meantime, with Pamuk on trial in Turkey for writing about the Armenian genocide, have y'all heard that France is about to pass a law requiring fines/jail for anyone denying the Armenian genocide? Way to support writers' freedoms.

Its more that Pamuk (in whose surname I always mis-assign an "h") is so clearly a political choice this year. I ain't denying his quality, its just frustration that the Nobel isn't some mythical, purely meriotcratic, award. Yes, he was put through a ringer by Turkey, and he eloquently defended himself on numerous occasions, but I still don't think it right for there to be a system that says "you did that plus you can write ok, lets throw a million dollars at you." I would've been equally upset with selections of a few of the other front-runners.

Also, I can understand a law against denying fact. I guess I don't believe freedom extends to passing off clear lies as truths. That's just me.

jk rowling

remember its for lifetime achievement so its ok she didn't come out with anything this year