Name: Joseph Brodsky
Year Won: 1987
Read: Watermark/i>
Original Language: English (and Russian, but novel was originally written in English)
Reason: "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity"
About: Watermark is a series of observations and recollections of being in Vencie. Yup, that's it.
What I liked: The writing is gorgeous, evoactive and unusual. Which seems to be the preference of the Nobel comittee.
What I Disliked: There is no plot. With that said, I dislike that less in this book than in many of the others both because a) it's short (really a novella - almost just a short story) and b) the writing really is exquisitely evocative of a past, long forgotten Venice. So enjoyed this, unlike many of the other, "we write pretty stuff" novelists.
Should it have won a Nobel: What the heck, why not, this seems to be what they're going for.
Next Up: "Akhenatan" by Naguib Mahfouz
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