Is the United States too 'isolated and insular' to be considered "worthy of great literature"?

http://gawker.com/5057015/nobel-to-salinger-nah-hes-american

What do you guys think ... typical knee-jerk European hatred of America and Americans, or does the guy have a point?

i'm always a little surprised that roth never wins. especially since he started writing those big statement novels. cuz those are the kinds of books that the nobel dudes like. and cuz he has already won:

* 1960 National Book Award for Goodbye, Columbus
* 1986 National Book Critics Circle Award for The Counterlife
* 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony
* 1994 PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock
* 1995 National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater
* 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for American Pastoral
* 1998 Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking Union for I Married a Communist
* 1998 National Medal of Arts [1]
* 2000 Prix du Meilleur livre étranger (France) for American Pastoral
* 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for The Human Stain
* 2001 Gold Medal In Fiction from The American Academy of Arts and Letters
* 2001 WH Smith Literary Award for The Human Stain
* 2002 National Book Foundation's Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
* 2002 Prix Médicis étranger (France) for The Human Stain
* 2003 Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Harvard University
* 2005 Sidewise Award for Alternate History for The Plot Against America
* 2006 PEN/Nabokov Award for lifetime achievement
* 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award for Everyman
* 2007 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction

and, cuz, you know, he's critical of the u.s. they like that too.

and, also, incidentally, cuz he's probably pound for pound the best u.s. writer alive. and i think he would make most people's top five or ten list of living fiction writers from anywhere.

but nobel people are also high on crack some years. nobel crack! which is, like, the best crack. it's dynamite stuff. hahahahaha. get it?

You give it to an American novelist, you give it to Roth. They like statesmanlike, they like internationalist (Roth fighter for 'the Novel', internationally, right?); they like big statements; they like good books, mostly. Tick tick tick tick. Roth should win sometime, but really it must absolutely go non-anglophone for a while.
Roth is most Nobelly of living American writers. That's neither praise nor insult. There are writers I like better than him.
Wait. i am drunk. Is it a joke about giving it to Salinger? Have I been trolled?

Seems like it would be really weird to nominate Salinger now, but he is one of the great oversights. Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters and Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut are two of my favourite pieces of writing of all time.

"typical knee-jerk European hatred of America and Americans"

sorry im usually a salinger apologist but "one of the great oversights" is sort of pushing it esp. when you consider all the writers who havent gotten a nobel!!!

what about DeLillo?

if Franzen were more prolific and David Foster Wallace not dead, we'd have more of a case, I suppose.

Moreover, the days of "public intellectuals" like Thomas Mann and Lionel Trilling are over.

The nobel is more about establishing a sort of canon though, and it seems like he's already a such a figurehead.

I really should re-read the Corrections

if Franzen were more prolific and David Foster Wallace not dead, we'd have more of a case, I suppose.

i thought DFW's fiction was "dangerous" Alfred? Didn't you say that. And Franzen's written, like, one semi-decent novel and a collection of essays?

DeLillo tho, I can see that

xxp except that, like, there are two dozen 'canon' writers who dont have nobels, and just as many nobel winners who are way not 'canon'!

also i thot salinger was not particularly well-respected after, like, high school? or is he 'back in fashion' (not meant in a snide way)? so maybe he is a good choice, i dont know.

I'm talking about Nobel Prize consideration. I thought I qualified my statement enough!

it's got nothing to do with how I feel about'em.

and Salinger is just too hit and miss

no Max i think you're right--Salinger is considered like a high school writer.

what about Pynchon--I can't decide

what about poets? Anthony Hecht, Richard Wilbur, maybe?

pynchon, roth, delillo are all way safer/more obvious/more appropriate choices than salinger, who, if hes seriously being considered, is either a play to appeal to americans who havent read since high school, or, like, has a really good swedish translator.

Anyone without a penis? Or is the Nobel not that sort of prize?

does salinger have a big french following? i bet he does.

Doris Lessing won last year or the year before

id support literally any woman winning the prize just cause itd piss off harold bloom. even the chick who wrote eat pray love. especially that chick.

Anyone without a penis? Or is the Nobel not that sort of prize?

Great questions!

toni morrison one a nobel. she is an american without a penis.

Lessing, Yeats, Beckett, Heaney, Pinter, Neruda, and O'Neill are the ones I read in Secondary School.

when whatshisface, pamuk, one it, he'd written, like, 4 or 5 books? something like that. but he was a rebel freedom fighter like luke skywalker, and the swedes eat that up. sometimes they like to make a statement with their picks. like with pinter. not that pinter isn't geeeeeeeenius, but he won it at a time when he was ranting about putting people's heads on sticks during a foul war.

i like 1974's nobel citation. very heavy, man:

1974* Harry Martinson Sweden Swedish "for writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos."

they should have given it to harry harrison in '74 instead. "for proving that we all are, indeed, rats trapped in a stainless steel cage."

you can't have dewdrops on rat cages?

I like it when the prize goes to someone not as popular as say Dellilo or Roth. I also think that the award promotes novelists making long running arguments over many books. I think Rudolfo Hinojosa would be a great choice if we're picking an American with a penis.

Butchered that name, Rolando, not his lesser known evil twin Rudolfo.

Par Lagerkvist
"for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind"

If Roth doesn't get it soon, I'd be amazed.

Fog in Channel: Continent cut off

Of American poets (huge xpost), I think Ashbery would be most likely. Been around forever, tremendously admired (espec. by other poets), consistent, heavy European influence, right sort of age and the gay stuff could give the Academy a political hook. The difficulty & unobviousness of his verse is the big hurdle, but might work in his favour (prize patting self on back for rewarding the avant-garde tradition).
DeLillo's a good call, seems the most likely novelist after Roth. Joyce Carol Oates is the first US unpenised author who comes to mind, and she doesn't seem that likely. With penis, maybe Gore Vidal?
Even though America's sort of due (Toni Morrison in 93 the last?), since four of the last eight have been anglophone and (Scott OTM) the Lit Nobel is quite politicised, I don't think it's that likely to go there for a couple of years at least.

USA would dominate a Nobel Prize for Jazz.

As far as Americans go I'd really like to see Pynchon or Roth getting it, but top of my personal Nobel wishlist would be Vargas Llosa.

I'd vote for David Malouf from Australia, but I suspect that's pretty unlikely. Every now and then the Aussie newspapers decide "It's Australia's turn again" (after Patrick White, the only Australian to get it, unless you count Coetzee now that he's an Australian citizen) and start suggesting unlikely writers who they've been tipped off will get it next year, and then it goes to an Albanian, and they go oddly quiet.

From a UK perspective, I always thought Les Murray was the likeliest writer from Australia - his name always used to crop up alongside Heaney and Walcott in short consensus lists of 'greatest living (English Language, Not American) poets' (I'm avoiding 'Commonwealth'. It's accurate I guess, but feels a bit silly). But I don't hear so much about him now, and I guess his politics would be a problem. I dimly remember conversations with literary Australian friends who were very, very anti-Murray for cogent reasons - stuff like embarrassingly backwards idea of the country being given to the world. (I lukewarm like his verse, fwiw).
Carey would be plausible, somewhere down the line.
If it went to North America rather than the US, Atwood's as likely as anyone bar Roth. Not sure if the LongPen counts in her favour.
I cannot think of a single decent UK or Irish candidate. William Trevor? Stoppard? Oh - Ballard. He'd be on top of my wishlist, but unless it's this year I don't suppose it can happen.
Internationally, I would like to see Ashbery win. Did occur to me he must be a bugger to translate, so that might do in his chances.
Don't know enough about non-English language stuff to have an informed opinion. I suppose Kadare will win soonish.

If he counts as British, Wikipedia says Salman Rushdie has already been rejected as 'too obvious' - though I must confess I don't see what's wrong with being obvious

Maybe they thought it would look like they were just giving it to him because of the Fatwa?
Rushdie's a good candidate, but I don't think people take him as seriously as they did 10-15 years ago. The Bono/modeliser years did some damage to his rep, but you can imagine him winning maybe after another 15 years of writing well-regarded novels that people don't get that excited over. McEwan might also be a possible eventually - give it to the grand old man of English letters in 2025 say.

As much as I like British and Irish literature of the ages, I always thought American literature really kept the flame going as far as English-language lit goes. Though honestly I find the Nobel prize standards so absolutely 1990s politically correct. Should we trash the Aeneid because Virgil doesn't consider the feelings of sub-saharan refugees under King Mbutubu the III? Barfo.

"What it's like to be an Indian in blah blah blah ... torn between a new world and the old customs that hold me back to Hyperabadostan!" The Nobel Prize choices are so lame and cliche for lit anyway, they're like a tired Simpsons gag on Lisa's NPR-loving sensibility.

you tell em burt_stanton

damn straight

Anyway, to sum things up, the standards seem very anti-art, as if the creation of an individual should be solely for the service of world for good... as if that were even possible in the form of middle-brow novels. If you want to help the world, go volunteer somewhere. Hear that, Engdahl??!!?

This is why I find the guessing game fun - figuring out who matches the 1980s-book-pages idea of 'great and humane literature' that the Nobel often endorses.

when oh when will they give the nobel to an true artiste, one who stays out of politics and writes those feral, revolutionary stories the public craves

What are you even talking about? I don't think we're on the same page here.

were on the same feral page

Do the same kind of books win Nobels as win Pulitzers?

as long as it's not one of those terrible "post modern" writers any choice is fine by moi!

Giving it to Salinger would resemble the Dario Fo debacle. To me, Salinger is something one grows out of.
woofwoofwoof: "Roth is most Nobelly of living American writers." Yes, it's a sort of type. I can't see Ashbery or Pynchon ever winning.
James Morrison: I read An Imaginary Life recently, liked it a lot. What about David Ireland? Along with White, that's where I run out of names.

Personal opinion: Vollmann, someday.

Yeah, 'An Imaginary Life' is great. Got me into Ovid in a big way. Les Murray, maybe, but his politics are not conducive to getting the prize: he's a right-wing curmudgeon and scumbag ex-PM John Howard's favourite poet. David Ireland seems an unlikely bet, to be honest.

james howe my dudes

http://www.stageone.org/images/bunnicula.jpg

Agreed on Pynchon, Alimosina (despite his being my favourite US novelist). Hard to put finger on what makes him not Nobelly: not a public writer, pop/high culture overload, the density, stoner humour, anarchist sympathies, too few books, the general wtf sui generis nature of him. The fallback book supplement criticism too: 'lacks living, breathing characters'.
You're probably right about Ashbery. Would say most likely US poet still, but that doesn't make him likely. It's a bit mad they've never given it to an American poet (Eliot excepted, but he's an odd case.)

ilx like to talk abt lists - stupid lists especially

heh owned just owned

Lists are the best. Or at least the worst.
I was going to say Geoffrey Hill, but he's british, huh?
Ozick for prez^H^H^H^HNobel!

I rather wonder what Norwegian writer could get it. There's a fair number that I'd think would be good candidates, but at the moment it's tempting to say that Per Petterson's the most likely pick. If they're due for a playwright: Jon Fosse.

ilx like to talk abt lists - stupid lists especially

a challenging opinion you can sink your teeth into

ilx like to talk abt lists - stupid lists especially

I believe the evidence don't support your view -- but we can fix that with ease. Friedrich List's National System of Political Economy, surely, is as important a work to understand contemporary global trade as any of Smith's or Ricardo's, if not more. James Fallows even called it the secret key to the Japanese hegemony in trade. Herbert List, on the other hand, was a talented photographer, although I do not share his taste for male nudes.

Neither List was particularly stupid, so we can't accommodate you there, joe six pak. Thanks for reminding us to talk about them, though.

I was going to say Geoffrey Hill, but he's british, huh?

Geoffrey Hill is English, Seamus Heaney is Irish -- and we've got them. If you want to see either one alive again, sent $700 billion in small unmarked bills to

"Hank"
The Big House
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220

"I rather wonder what Norwegian writer could get it."

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/0/06/300px-Varg-vikernes.jpg

"The Head is a Head of a Serpent
From its Nostrils Mucus Trickles...
The Ears Are those of a Basilisk
The Body is a Sun Fish, Full of Stars"

Ah, 'Bunnicula', how I love that book.

Mamet, Ashbery, and Roth are the main American candidates for the Nobel.

There is a stereotype notion *for some) in europe that american literature is less "art" and more "narrative" but thats bullshit.
if anything,most great american writers combine the art with the natrrative to a perfection that some european writers never achieved

There is a stereotype notion *for some) in europe that american literature is less "art" and more "narrative" but thats bullshit.

― Zeno, Friday, 3 October 2008 07:35 (28 minutes ago)

Is there? I'm not sure about this. I think one of the main criticisms levelled at American literary writers by Europeans is often that they are trying to hunt the whale of Moby Dick, and create the Great American Novel. Something big and proliferating; not enough narrative in fact. It's a meaningless criticism, which avoids what the book is actually about; an extension of Ambrose Bierce's more amusing 'the covers of this book are too far apart'.

I suspect that Pynchon's lack of apparent moral seriousness would count against him winning the Nobel. They like that sort of stuff init.

My guess is that the Nobel will go to someone I have not heard of. My knowledge of non-Anglophone contemporary writers is wretched.

i think some european dont distinguish between popular culture and "high" culture in america, or simply arent unaware of the art culture , maybe cause it's sometimes obscure or because lack of marketing, compared to the "best sellers".

anyway, at the Ladbrokes site, where they bet on the winner on the Noble,(and usually the winner will be one among the first 10 or so candidates), there is a nice amount of great american writers, infact they are the majority, and for good reason:

http://www.ladbrokes.com/lbr_sports?action=go_generic_link&level=EVENT&key=212593068&category=SPECIALS&subtypes=&default_sort=&tab=

What do you mean by this? I always perceived the lack of distinction between popular and high culture as America's greatest strength - by which I mean everyone enjoys e.g. going to the movies, so the best films are both profound and exciting and therefore really successful as well as culturally meaningful, whereas here you'd need to make two different films or one film and one opera or something. In book terms, Roth is fun to read in a way I can't imagine for a British equivalent (if he had one)

I'd certainly lean towards your POV IK - I wanted to put literary in quotes in American literary writers for that very reason, but one must be strong; nevertheless, writers are perforce literary and I'm not sure how much of a need there is to distinguish between high and low (itchy quote mark fingers). I was just rehearsing an argument against the American literary novel that I'd read a few times.

Amusing odds from Ladbrokes:

Thomas Pynchon 14/1
Thomas Pynchon to win and attend the Nobelfest (10th Dec. 2008) 40/1

That was the single dumbest statement I read or heard in 2008. This guy should be dismissed of his functions for being prejudiced and outright ignorant. Then again, he may have said it just to mislead people as to this year's results. Rather than Salinger, I say go Don DeLillo!

And who here had gambled on Jean Marie Gustave Le Clézio to win it? Also, if anybody has read any of his stuff, please to advise where to start. I could ask my aunt and uncle as they are great fans of JMG Le Clezio, but they are unreachable right now.

he sounds like a character played by Sacha Barat Cohen.

he had an amazing life from what I gather. Interesting dude, now if only I knew where to start to see if his books are as interesting as his life...

Dylan would've been a good choice.

Anyhow, the current winner is from Albuquerque (using "from" very liberally).

Non-penised and American: C Ozick, anyone?

Hey, I'm not afraid to say that I've never heard of whoever that person was who got the Nobel.

Now that that bit's over, my other nomination goes to: Marilynne Robinson

hey, paul krugman just won one! he's amerikkkan! okay, fine, for economics, but 8 years of bush-bashing probably didn't hurt his chances either.

I've never heard of Les Murray. Would he be more likely to win a Nobel than Peter Carey?

Btw, I forgot about ILBooks! I am going to bookmark you now, you board.

alfred, do you misspell names for a point?

xx-posts

I suspect neither Cary nor Murray are likely. Murray is a right-wing curmudgeon, though an excellent poet. Carey writes 3 bad books for every 1 good book.

"Non-penised and American: C Ozick, anyone?"

this would be your kind of prize then:

PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction
2008 AWARD WINNERS
Cynthia Ozick and Peter Ho Davies
PEN/MALAMUD AWARD WINNERS 1988–2007
Elizabeth Spencer, 2007
Adam Haslett and Tobias Wolf, 2006
Lorrie Moore, 2005
Richard Bausch and Nell Freudenberger, 2004
Barry Hannah and Maile Meloy, 2003
Junot Diaz and Ursula K. Le Guin, 2002
Sherman Alexie and Richard Ford, 2001
Ann Beattie and Nathan Englander, 2000
T. Coraghessan Boyle, 1999
John Barth, 1998
Alice Munro, 1997
Joyce Carol Oates, 1996
Stuart Dybek and William Maxwell, 1995
Grace Paley, 1994
Peter Taylor, 1993
Eudora Welty, 1992
Frederick Busch and Andre Dubus, 1991
George Garrett, 1990
Saul Bellow, 1989
John Updike, 1988

Been making my way through this article in the nyrb that covers a lot of the issues, and refers to the Nobel judge's quote that kicked the thread off.

I disagree with that article's author strenuously on the subject of translation (i.e., as far as I'm concerned, there can pretty much never be enough translation)

Also he's assuming that much of the 349 translated works are 'first rate' and because much of the rest is just 'genre fiction' it shouldn't be bothered with.

But who knows as no one will ever read that many books in a year.

I love you, burt_stanton.