Frederik, never claimed originality, in fact quite the opposite would be the obvious conclusion to draw! I think the T. S. Eliot comparison is useful except for Dylan's vivid human qualities which I think TSE kept at arm's length.
And Treeship OTM - anyway we are all just a collage of culture and reference, it's not like we invented the words we speak.
― attention vampire (MatthewK), Friday, 23 June 2017 05:35 (six years ago) link
Where were you guys when melania trump needed you?
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 23 June 2017 10:38 (six years ago) link
lol
― Frederik B, Friday, 23 June 2017 11:57 (six years ago) link
dang
― attention vampire (MatthewK), Friday, 23 June 2017 13:00 (six years ago) link
I'd believe a "blackhearted gesture asserting nothing matters" coming from the Trump campaign.
― jmm, Friday, 23 June 2017 13:08 (six years ago) link
URL doesn't seem to work but the piece from New Republic was a nice kinda funny round-up. We can safely assume no Americans will win. Or should we etc.
Sergo Pitol would be my favourite from the very obscure list. He's great.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 October 2017 09:21 (six years ago) link
https://68.media.tumblr.com/avatar_b6d87f043c25_128.png
― mark s, Thursday, 5 October 2017 09:54 (six years ago) link
The next American winner of the Nobel *heart emoji*
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 October 2017 09:55 (six years ago) link
My fucking lord
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 October 2017 11:12 (six years ago) link
They've managed to be worse than last year.
mark s otm
― more bemused than human (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 5 October 2017 11:31 (six years ago) link
He's written one book I thought was excellent (When We Were Orphans), one I enjoyed despite its flaws (Never Let Me Go). The other two I've read have been two out of the three books I've given up on in the last 15 years (The Unconsoled and The Buried Giant, the latter was almost unreadable).
― Matt DC, Thursday, 5 October 2017 12:23 (six years ago) link
"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".
I've only read Never Let Me Go. I didn't even know he was on the radar for a Nobel.
― jmm, Thursday, 5 October 2017 12:38 (six years ago) link
I threw Never Let Me Go across the room on two different occasions.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 5 October 2017 12:46 (six years ago) link
it was a sudden change of plans when tom petty died.
― wmlynch, Thursday, 5 October 2017 13:53 (six years ago) link
His rep mainly rests on the 3 books not mentioned here tho
― President Keyes, Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:54 (six years ago) link
The only novel of his I loved was THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, which is almost at the level of THE GOOD SOLDIER as a novel about ironic withholding of info.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:55 (six years ago) link
the butler didn't do it
― mark s, Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:56 (six years ago) link
http://mobile.eurweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/forest-whitaker-lee-daniels-the-butler.jpg
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:58 (six years ago) link
I wrote a snarky little article about 10 years ago telling people to put £20 on him getting the nobel because he was the kind of writer who wins prizes. Was thinking just a couple of weeks ago how wrong that seemed now, but, well, good on him. And good intuition, younger dumber me.
― woof, Thursday, 5 October 2017 15:06 (six years ago) link
God I am no good for this world take me now thanks.
Is it just me or is this not a bit, um, up itself? pic.twitter.com/EjRiT125hZ— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) October 5, 2017
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 October 2017 15:12 (six years ago) link
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 5, 2017 2:55 PM (nine hours ago)
yes, this is a perfect book imo. was assigned it in high school (oddly enough) and reread it a couple years ago and thought it held up beautifully. not a single wrong note.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 5 October 2017 23:57 (six years ago) link
No lit Nobel this year because of a sexual assault scandal
Kanye is going to be bitterly disappointed.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Friday, 4 May 2018 07:16 (six years ago) link
2018: Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk2019: Austrian writer Peter Handke
― Le Bateau Ivre, Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:03 (four years ago) link
They're never going to change, are they?
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:04 (four years ago) link
Lol
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:19 (four years ago) link
They had to give one of these to a woman so they choose someone who has just started being published in English recently. Usually the winners are in some kind of conversation for a long time before being awarded by their weird obscure process. It's just as much of a reveal as Handle's win.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:40 (four years ago) link
Everybody loves Peter Handke, the Austrian Nobel laureate who likes to explore the periphery and the specificity of human experience! [shortly] We regret to inform you that Peter Handke is Frank Furedi in a vampire mask and will be appearing on the Moral Maze this week— 1st International Paul Crowther Brigade (@pdkmitchell) October 10, 2019
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:42 (four years ago) link
Hey at least it wasn't the Peace Prize
― Xia Nu del Vague (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:43 (four years ago) link
The Swedes don't really care whether it's published in English or not. She's been translated into Swedish regularly since 2002.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 11:49 (four years ago) link
yeah I don't really get xyzzzz's post
we had to read "offending the audience" in high school, good times.
― groovemaaan, Thursday, 10 October 2019 12:04 (four years ago) link
Handke has become an old idiot, but he helped make Wings of Desire, so.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 12:09 (four years ago) link
Most of the winners since the 60s have a record of publishing in English and are on that kind of conversation as potential winners as they have been at it for a long time.
That isn't the case for Olga Tokarczuk, whatever her merits. There is something forced about it, given that it's given for the year of its suspension.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 10 October 2019 12:21 (four years ago) link
Handke isn't getting it for crap like Wings of Desire. It's for his work in the 70s. Some of it is good but I've never been close to really loving it.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 10 October 2019 12:29 (four years ago) link
You seriously want to define the winners of an international prize with how much they're available in your own culturally narrow-minded language area?
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 13:01 (four years ago) link
your own culturally narrow-minded language area
new board description
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 10 October 2019 13:06 (four years ago) link
Not about what I want lol. What I'm saying is the Nobel committee are already kind of doing it. They usually give the prize to writers who have a really long track record and are in that kind of literary conversation. And as I said much of their work would've been available in English already. Caveats are that some of the work might be out of print or not yet translated into English.
Maybe the Swedes also access a lot of German translations too but I can't recall anyone looking at the winner and going 'there is no book by this person in English' today.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 10 October 2019 13:45 (four years ago) link
getting ready for my yearly argument with someone over whether they award the Nobel Prize in Literature for a specific book
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, 10 October 2019 13:48 (four years ago) link
Like people are so adamant that Beloved won the Nobel Prize
I'd like to win the Nobel prize for literature.
― What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers (jed_), Thursday, 10 October 2019 13:50 (four years ago) link
Slavoj Zizek almost makes me applaud the choice: “In 2014, Handke called for the Nobel to be abolished, saying it was a ‘false canonisation’ of literature. The fact that he got it now proves that he was right. This is Sweden today: an apologist of war crimes gets a Nobel prize while the country fully participated in the character assassination of the true hero of our times, Julian Assange. Our reaction should be: not the literature Nobel prize for Handke but the Nobel peace prize for Assange.”
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 19:45 (four years ago) link
I like Handke's A Short Letter, Long Farewell a lot but haven't wanted to explore the rest.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 10 October 2019 19:48 (four years ago) link
Lots of good stuff from him back in the day, The Weight of the World, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, Afternoon of a Writer, but yeah.
― Beware of Mr. Blecch, er...what? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 10 October 2019 20:06 (four years ago) link
great writer
and an even better friend (to slobodan milosevic)
― Seany's too Dyche to mention (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 10 October 2019 20:09 (four years ago) link
could be a poll: is it cool to give awards to people who have gourmet hot-takes about ethnic cleansing?
― Seany's too Dyche to mention (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 10 October 2019 20:10 (four years ago) link
The thing is, hasn't he written about that stuff? Isn't it a part of his work?
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 21:35 (four years ago) link
I shouldn't say anything, I'm reading the Cantos at the moment. Forty impressive and smart poems, and then it ends up being about 'usura' and that it's all the fault of the jews.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 21:36 (four years ago) link
Yeah thought he did but that was after I stopped reading
― Beware of Mr. Blecch, er...what? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 10 October 2019 21:48 (four years ago) link
― Frederik B,
and Martin Van Buren as a character!
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 10 October 2019 21:49 (four years ago) link
And Alexander Hamilton! And I'm sorry, but I'm with Lin-Manuel on this on.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 10 October 2019 21:59 (four years ago) link