It's important to remember that the Nobel Prize for
Literature is also aimed at body's of work that promote world
peace. Hemingway campaigned for it but did not get it for
years because his work promoted war and hunting, at least
from the perspective of the judges. It was The Old Man and
the Sea that actually won the Prize for Papa and in their
decision, the judges remarked about this. I doubt any real
genre writer can hope to win the Nobel Prize. If you write
about murder, you'd need to do it from a very anylitical view
point. I suspect Dostoyevski could have won it with Crime and
Punishment and The Brothers, but Cain and Thompson, probably
not. I mean, obviously they did not while Hemingway,
Steinbeck, Faulkner & O'Neil did. Can't help thinking the
Committee really missed Thomas Wolfe and Vladimir
Nabokov.
Patrick King
--- jacquesdebierue <
jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Juri Nummelin"
> <juri.nummelin@...> wrote:
> >
> > I notice the Nobel prize went to Doris
Lessing.
> Who do you think is the
> > Nobel prize winner who comes closest
to
> hardboiled? Faulkner, perhaps.
> >
> Faulkner more than Hemingway, I would say.
The
> latter shows a
> sentimental side, whereas Faulkner is tough
as
> nails. Of the rumored
> candidates this year, Cormac McCarthy would be
100%
> hardboiled, but he
> didn't win. Another candidate, Australian poet
Les
> Murray, would also
> fit the bill, I think. The problem is that
novelists
> who write in the
> "genres" are not usually considered, even
though
> they take up a large
> majority of the readership. For example, it's
a
> shame that Dick or
> Bradbury didn't win the Nobel. No objective
reason
> could be given for
> such ommissions. If Chandler (our best
guy,
> probably) had lived
> longer... he still wouldn't have been
considered.
>
> The idea that, say, an Elmore Leonard or
James
> Ellroy novel is "less
> serious" than a Lessing or a Roth or an Updike
novel
> strikes me as
> ludicrous. What's not serious about them?
>
> Best,
>
> mrt
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Oct 2007 EDT