Name: T. S. Eliot
Year Won: 1948
Read: "The Wasteland and Other Poems"
Original Language: English
Reason: "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry"
About: "The Wasteland" is a poem. A long one. (The collection also included "The Hollowmen" - which is my favorite, "Ash Wednesday", and a number of others.) If there is one theme to all of them, it is about how broken and desolute the world is and how it is haunted by a spiritual sickness that may be impossible to recover from. "The Wasteland" in particular is heavy on allusions and has an odd caste of characters that it seems to tell a story about. (Although what that story is, I do not know.)
What I liked: The poetry is beautiful and haunting. And it's unique. To this day, I'm not sure that I've ever read anything else like it.
What I Disliked: The allusions often force me to go skuttling to the notes section of the book. It's a LOT.
Should it have won a Nobel: Probably, yes. It remains a classic to this day for good reason.
Next Up: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
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