This year there was no Nobel Prize for Literature because of a #MeToo scandal involving a member of the committee in Stockholm. It wasn't much missed, and it gave us a chance to reflect on the often absurd choices for this particular prize since it was first awarded in 1901. Back then Leo Tolstoy was recognized as the greatest living novelist, yet the prize went to an obscure poet - Sully Proudhomme - completely forgotten today, but little known even then. Throughout the years there have been more misses than hits with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Among those writers passed over are some of the greatest writers - widely read and admired even today: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Ibsen, Strindberg, Zola, Proust, Kafka, Rilke, Brecht, Croce, Hardy, Henry James, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D. J. Lawrence, García Lorca - just to name a few of the most obvious.
When it comes to German language prize winners, Robert Messenger of the Weekly Standard has a special beef with Elfriede Jelinek:
"In 2004, an Austrian mediocrity named Elfriede Jelinek got the prize, and the only possible explanation is the academy’s relishing her public role in opposing Austria’s anti-E.U. firebrand Jörg Haider—or maybe it was her opposition to the Iraq war. Reviewer Joel Agee in the New York Timesremarked of her tenth novel, Greed, “Nothing is farther from Jelinek’s mind than advancing a plot or even just telling a story. Her business is social dissection. Not vivisection, for none of her specimens are alive.” I am happy to take his word for it. In a typical Nobel oversight, Jelinek is the sole representative of a great Austro-Hungarian literary tradition to receive the Nobel. Not Rilke, not Kafka, not Altenberg, not Zweig, not Hofmannsthal, not Schnitzler, not Musil or Bernhard or Broch. Not Heimito von Doderer. Not Joseph Roth. Not Paul Celan."
"Not Paul Celan." In 1966 Celan was rejected by the committee for the prize in favor of Nelly Sachs - a good but hardly comparable talent - mostly because Sachs was then living in Sweden. (See my post: Why Paul Celan was rejected for the Nobel Prize). And Messenger is on the mark by pointing to the political considerations of the committee in awarding the prize. The conservative CSU politician Franz-Josef Strauß grumbled that awarding the prize to Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass was nothing less than "politischen Werbung" as both writers were strong supporters of Willy Brandt. Today, no one doubts that Blechtrommel is one of the seminal novels of the 20th century, while Heinrich Böll's star has faded. Still, Böll was a distinctive voice for postwar Germany (see my review of Und sagte kein einziges Wort ) but Wolfgang Koeppen was a greater writer and was not even considered for the prize.
Occasionally the Nobel committee makes interesting choices - propelling a relatively unknown writer out of obscurity into the public eye. That was certainly the case with Herta Müller - winner of the 2009 prize. I doubt I would have read her novels if she hadn't won the prize, but her unique voice deserves to be widely read (see my review of Atemschaukel). Examples such as Herta Müller is why we should NOT scrap the Nobel Prize in Literature. Every autumn brings the opportunity to quarrel about who is deserving or undeserving, allowing us to praise or ridicule the committee's choice. At least we are talking about LITERATURE as well as writers and their books. In the age of Twitter, Facebook, Fake News , etc. - that is indeed a blessing.
Recent Comments