Name: Günter Grass
Year Won: 1999
Read: The Tin Drum
Original Language: German
Reason: "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history"
About: The Tin Drum follows the lives of a number of eccentric people in a family, particularly the titlar Tin Drummer.
What I liked: The characters are quirky and weird and quite entertaining.
What I Disliked: This feels like a typical story that the Nobel committee likes. Weird, quirkly characters, spoken about in a unique, literary way. With no plot, since apparently plots ruin stories.
Should it have won a Nobel: Well, this is definitely the kind of thing the committee likes. I tend to like plots, so wasn't enormously fond of it. With that said, there are stories I've disliked tremendously more and I did very much enjoy the quirkiness of this novel.
Next Up: "Soul Mountain" by Gao Xingjian
Monday, August 14, 2023
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Blindness" by José Saramago
Name: José Saramago
Year Won: 1998
Read: Blindness
Original Language: Portuguese
Reason: "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality"
About: Blindness is about a bunch of people who mysteriously go blind and are thrown into an asylum.
What I liked: The writing is vivid and shocking and grotesque. Normal people, suddenly stricken by their ailments and thrown into an asylum. It's very much "Lord of the Flies" meets an awful lot of apocolyptic fiction.
What I Disliked: The story follows no character in particular. It just sort of hops around, which keeps me distant from the characters I feel I should be sympathizing with.
Also, none of the characters seem inclined to *do* anything, which leaves the plot fairly lifeless. I'm inclined to think this would have worked really well as a short story. But as a novel, it feels like it starts dragging after about 50 pages of watching a bunch of miserable characters wake up in their own feces/struggle to find food/etc.
Should it have won a Nobel: Meh. I've read worse. This was one that seems very 'literary', but also would have read a lot better had Saramago used genre tricks to like, IDK, have a main protagonist and have them do something (even if it failed) to improve their position.
Next Up: "The Tin Drum" by Günter Grass
Year Won: 1998
Read: Blindness
Original Language: Portuguese
Reason: "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality"
About: Blindness is about a bunch of people who mysteriously go blind and are thrown into an asylum.
What I liked: The writing is vivid and shocking and grotesque. Normal people, suddenly stricken by their ailments and thrown into an asylum. It's very much "Lord of the Flies" meets an awful lot of apocolyptic fiction.
What I Disliked: The story follows no character in particular. It just sort of hops around, which keeps me distant from the characters I feel I should be sympathizing with.
Also, none of the characters seem inclined to *do* anything, which leaves the plot fairly lifeless. I'm inclined to think this would have worked really well as a short story. But as a novel, it feels like it starts dragging after about 50 pages of watching a bunch of miserable characters wake up in their own feces/struggle to find food/etc.
Should it have won a Nobel: Meh. I've read worse. This was one that seems very 'literary', but also would have read a lot better had Saramago used genre tricks to like, IDK, have a main protagonist and have them do something (even if it failed) to improve their position.
Next Up: "The Tin Drum" by Günter Grass
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