Name: Mikhail Sholokhov
Year Won: 1965
Read: Tales of the Don
Original Language: Russian
Reason: "for the artistic power and integrity with which, in his epic of the Don, he has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people"
About: "Tales of the Don" is a series of short stories about a number of Cossacks living near the river Don. They do great and heroic things! They fight bandits, they battle the foes of communism, they live their best lives, comrades!
What I liked: As expected for a Nobel prize winner, the writing is lovely. Also, the stories are fun. They're action packed, with lots of fun heroism and swash buckling.
What I Disliked: It's hard to escape the feeling that this is all a bit too rosy and a bit too good to be true. It feels very much like propaganda at times, which isn't the *worst* thing ever (and was probably necessary for someone writing in the former USSR), but also can make this feel a bit more like a Saturday morning cartoon than like a great work of literature.
Should it have won a Nobel: I guess? This is hardly the worst thing that has won a Nobel prize, and it's genuinely a fun read (unlike some of the many, many other novels on this list). But compared to other contemporary writers who *didn't* win (Graham Greene, Walter Tevis, etc.) this feels *very* slight. Maybe the other stories in the epic feel more thought provoking (or maybe I'm overly harsh)...but it does seem like an awful lot of really good authors didn't win a Nobel. So while this isn't bad (and, again, it's pretty entertaining to read), based on this alone I'm seeing more "fun stories about great heroes" than "great, thought provoking drama".
Next Up: "O the Chimneys" by Nelly Sachs or "Betrothed & Edo" and "Edam" by Shmuel Yosef Agnon (both won in 1966 and both are Jewish writers)
No comments:
Post a Comment