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
Monday, July 24, 2023
The Pope's Daughter by Dario Fo
Name: Dario Fo
Year Won: 1997
Read: The Pope's Daughter
Original Language: Italian
Reason: "who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden"
About: The Pope's Daughter is a historical fiction novel about the life of Lucrezia Borgia.
What I liked: The subject matter is great. How do you go wrong with Lucrezia Borgia? Also, the book has really pretty full color illustrations.
What I Disliked: The book veers between incredibly dry, boring history (like, "on this date, so and so did this thing") and what feels like almost random gossip.
Example:
Let us leave Cesare for a moment and move into the countryside around Ferrera....a fairly corpulent woman strode up to him, shoving him back.
"Get out of here! Who are you looking for?"
Immediately Lucrezia's voice rang out: she was leaning out a window and shouting: "Leave him alone! That's my husband!"
And yes. It continues like that. Seemingly random scenes...forever.
Should it have won a Nobel: Maybe it's better in its original language? I have no idea. I was so excited about this then so underwhelmed when I actually read it.
Next Up: "Blindness" by José Saramago
Year Won: 1997
Read: The Pope's Daughter
Original Language: Italian
Reason: "who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden"
About: The Pope's Daughter is a historical fiction novel about the life of Lucrezia Borgia.
What I liked: The subject matter is great. How do you go wrong with Lucrezia Borgia? Also, the book has really pretty full color illustrations.
What I Disliked: The book veers between incredibly dry, boring history (like, "on this date, so and so did this thing") and what feels like almost random gossip.
Example:
Let us leave Cesare for a moment and move into the countryside around Ferrera....a fairly corpulent woman strode up to him, shoving him back.
"Get out of here! Who are you looking for?"
Immediately Lucrezia's voice rang out: she was leaning out a window and shouting: "Leave him alone! That's my husband!"
And yes. It continues like that. Seemingly random scenes...forever.
Should it have won a Nobel: Maybe it's better in its original language? I have no idea. I was so excited about this then so underwhelmed when I actually read it.
Next Up: "Blindness" by José Saramago
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Map by Wisława Szymborska
Name: Wisława Szymborska
Year Won: 1996
Read: Map
Original Language: Polish
Reason: "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"
About: Map is a collection of poetry. Most of the poems focus on normal life, with some traces of history and mythology thrown in. Just like oh...95% of the other poets the Nobel committee seems enamored of.
What I liked: The poetry is very pretty, even in translation and quite evocative. I liked this better than most collections of poetry.
What I Disliked: It's really hard for me to judge poetry. Like, okay, I guess the words are interesting and creative? Which is, I think, what a poem is supposed to do? But they rarely transport me the way fiction does, so all I can do is go, "I guess it seems nice."
It's especially hard when 95% of poems that the Nobel committee picks are practically the same. Free form (e.g. not attempting for rhyme or meter - I think - hard to tell in different languages) poetry about daily life, with some mythology or history mixed in. And usually it's Greek mythology, so it's not even different mythology like, say, Polish folk tales or whatever. So it all feels very same-ish.
Should it have won a Nobel: This is clearly what they like. Not sure if it should have won, but sometimes the winning feels kind of inevitable now.
Next Up: "The Pope's Daughter" by Dario Fo
Year Won: 1996
Read: Map
Original Language: Polish
Reason: "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"
About: Map is a collection of poetry. Most of the poems focus on normal life, with some traces of history and mythology thrown in. Just like oh...95% of the other poets the Nobel committee seems enamored of.
What I liked: The poetry is very pretty, even in translation and quite evocative. I liked this better than most collections of poetry.
What I Disliked: It's really hard for me to judge poetry. Like, okay, I guess the words are interesting and creative? Which is, I think, what a poem is supposed to do? But they rarely transport me the way fiction does, so all I can do is go, "I guess it seems nice."
It's especially hard when 95% of poems that the Nobel committee picks are practically the same. Free form (e.g. not attempting for rhyme or meter - I think - hard to tell in different languages) poetry about daily life, with some mythology or history mixed in. And usually it's Greek mythology, so it's not even different mythology like, say, Polish folk tales or whatever. So it all feels very same-ish.
Should it have won a Nobel: This is clearly what they like. Not sure if it should have won, but sometimes the winning feels kind of inevitable now.
Next Up: "The Pope's Daughter" by Dario Fo
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Opened Ground by Seamus Heaney
Name: Seamus Heaney
Year Won: 1995
Read: Opened Ground
Original Language: English
Reason: "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past"
About: Opened Ground is a collection of poetry. Most of the themes seem to be fairly typical, ordinary things observed around Ireland.
What I liked: I liked the focus on the ordinary and mundane world, explored with unique and unusual insight. I also loved how some of the teim, Heaney blended the past and present, the mythic and the real.
What I Disliked: Not much. I enjoyed Heaney's poetry.
Should it have won a Nobel: I always have a hard time with poetry and it's so difficult for me to judge what makes a poem "good" vs "bad". But I liked these, so sure. Why not?
Next Up: "Map" by Wisława Szymborska
Year Won: 1995
Read: Opened Ground
Original Language: English
Reason: "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past"
About: Opened Ground is a collection of poetry. Most of the themes seem to be fairly typical, ordinary things observed around Ireland.
What I liked: I liked the focus on the ordinary and mundane world, explored with unique and unusual insight. I also loved how some of the teim, Heaney blended the past and present, the mythic and the real.
What I Disliked: Not much. I enjoyed Heaney's poetry.
Should it have won a Nobel: I always have a hard time with poetry and it's so difficult for me to judge what makes a poem "good" vs "bad". But I liked these, so sure. Why not?
Next Up: "Map" by Wisława Szymborska
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
The Changeling by Kenzaburō Ōe
Name: Kenzaburō Ōe
Year Won: 1994
Read: The Changeling
Original Language: Japanese
Reason: "who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today"
About: The Changeling follows Kogito Choko as he travels around Japan and Germany, trying to figure out why his friend, Goro, killed himself. It dips back and forth between times and places, often barely differentiating one from the other, as the present and future meld together.
What I liked: Lovely, unpretentious writing, interesting characters, and a really fascinating story structure. I found this to be one of the better books on this list.
What I Disliked: Not much. I found this to be a really interesting story about friendship, loss, and memory.
Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. This has been one of my favorites in a while. It's an actually enjoyable book. It does feel a bit un-literary in a lot of ways for a Nobel prize winner, but to me, that's a major advantage. It feels good because it's good rather than good because it used the right length of run on sentence.
Next Up: "Opened Ground" by Seamus Heaney
Year Won: 1994
Read: The Changeling
Original Language: Japanese
Reason: "who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today"
About: The Changeling follows Kogito Choko as he travels around Japan and Germany, trying to figure out why his friend, Goro, killed himself. It dips back and forth between times and places, often barely differentiating one from the other, as the present and future meld together.
What I liked: Lovely, unpretentious writing, interesting characters, and a really fascinating story structure. I found this to be one of the better books on this list.
What I Disliked: Not much. I found this to be a really interesting story about friendship, loss, and memory.
Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. This has been one of my favorites in a while. It's an actually enjoyable book. It does feel a bit un-literary in a lot of ways for a Nobel prize winner, but to me, that's a major advantage. It feels good because it's good rather than good because it used the right length of run on sentence.
Next Up: "Opened Ground" by Seamus Heaney
Monday, May 22, 2023
"Beloved" by Toni Morrison
Name: Toni Morrison
Year Won: 1993
Read: Beloved
Original Language: English
Reason: "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"
About: Beloved is about a group of escaped slaves who have made it to Ohio from Kentucky. It is now post civil war, but they are haunted by their past lives in slavery, particularly Sethe. Things become even more peculiar when a teenaged girl shows up with a mysterious quality around her and the name "Beloved"...the same name that Sethe gave to her baby daughter who she killed rather than see enslaved again during her escape.
What I liked: Beautiful writing, of course. Also horribly, tragically evocative of the lives the characters spent in slavery as well as the way it continues to torment them. It also does a sublime job of weaving the non-real (Biblical allusions, Beloved being clearly not entirely human) and the mundane.
What I Disliked: At times, it felt like I almost had to stop and parse what was happening, at least if I wanted to figure out the plot. I know, typical literary stuff, but I still find it kind of annoying to go, "okay, so what point is the author trying to make here with all of this poetic language"? It's especially weird as I've read other novels by Morrison that are far more straight forward.
Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. Morrison is taught in classrooms precisely because she's a genius writer. She also brilliantly captured the horrors of slavery, both to the slaves as they live it, but the way it continues to haunt them afterward, beautifully.
Next Up: "The Changeling" by Kenzaburō Ōe
Year Won: 1993
Read: Beloved
Original Language: English
Reason: "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"
About: Beloved is about a group of escaped slaves who have made it to Ohio from Kentucky. It is now post civil war, but they are haunted by their past lives in slavery, particularly Sethe. Things become even more peculiar when a teenaged girl shows up with a mysterious quality around her and the name "Beloved"...the same name that Sethe gave to her baby daughter who she killed rather than see enslaved again during her escape.
What I liked: Beautiful writing, of course. Also horribly, tragically evocative of the lives the characters spent in slavery as well as the way it continues to torment them. It also does a sublime job of weaving the non-real (Biblical allusions, Beloved being clearly not entirely human) and the mundane.
What I Disliked: At times, it felt like I almost had to stop and parse what was happening, at least if I wanted to figure out the plot. I know, typical literary stuff, but I still find it kind of annoying to go, "okay, so what point is the author trying to make here with all of this poetic language"? It's especially weird as I've read other novels by Morrison that are far more straight forward.
Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. Morrison is taught in classrooms precisely because she's a genius writer. She also brilliantly captured the horrors of slavery, both to the slaves as they live it, but the way it continues to haunt them afterward, beautifully.
Next Up: "The Changeling" by Kenzaburō Ōe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)