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
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, 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 (five 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
https://pen.org/press-release/statement-nobel-prize-for-literature-2019/?fbclid=IwAR0A6dk7_PsdpY8KlYkAfecVYWW4wETqAjjMyGSIF8nuaNDWbltsF69Rf3s
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 10:00 (four years ago) link
Holy shit. It's on!
― Frederik B, Friday, 11 October 2019 10:37 (four years ago) link
https://live.staticflickr.com/3702/9986624746_c24f8fc0ab_b.jpg
― YouGov to see it (wins), Friday, 11 October 2019 10:57 (four years ago) link
You just have to 🙄 @ those statements above. It's just a total misunderstanding at what the Nobel does and who it rewards. They are not interested in following a line on the politics of literature and they've no incentive to do so. If they did it's unlikely it would have the status it does. No. It has to bring all sides to the table, so it will elevate some marginalised voices now and then.
I wonder if Olga Tokarczuk might reject the award at some point...
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 11:11 (four years ago) link
The description of the Nobel literally says it's to award an 'idealisk riktning', that is, it's meant to award art in an idealistic direction. Genocide deniers don't really fit that bill. Then again, it was the ones in the Academy who defended the rapist who stayed, so they do like male criminals.
Also, fuck no is Peter Handke marginalised. He literally chose the perpetrators over the victims, and has been praised to the heavens in Serbia for doing so.
― Frederik B, Friday, 11 October 2019 11:42 (four years ago) link
Olga Tokarczuk had to have protection because she spoke out about the darker parts of Polish history. Handke was allowed to speak at a state funeral for a war criminal. It's so obscene people think he's the marginalised one, complete moral idiocy.
― Frederik B, Friday, 11 October 2019 11:49 (four years ago) link
Idealistic direction is just why we are here. They will point to the body of work (the Nobel is not really given for a specific book).
Lol I am not calling Handke marginalised. I'm saying it will award a writer of colour or a woman, now and then.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 11:52 (four years ago) link
What Olga has said so far:
Olga Tokarczuk on winning the Nobel Prize (1/2): "I believe in a literature that unites people and shows us how very similar we are, that makes us aware of the fact that we're all joined together by invisible threads. That tells the story— Jennifer Croft (@jenniferlcroft) October 11, 2019
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 12:09 (four years ago) link
I wouldn't care about the prize so much except it came with £740,000.
― Yerac, Friday, 11 October 2019 12:34 (four years ago) link
one year short of the centennial of knut hamsun's nobel prize for literature!
― Spironolactone T. Agnew (rushomancy), Friday, 11 October 2019 13:23 (four years ago) link
Does anyone have a link to what he actually said about the Srebrenica massacre?
― jmm, Friday, 11 October 2019 13:37 (four years ago) link
what would be awesome is if bob dylan returned his nobel prize for literature (which i believe was awarded to him in recognition of "christmas in the heart") in protest
― Spironolactone T. Agnew (rushomancy), Friday, 11 October 2019 13:43 (four years ago) link
hmm - some details here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/18/world/german-writer-sets-off-storm-on-serbia.html
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 14:03 (four years ago) link
jmm sorry autocorrect strikes again
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 14:04 (four years ago) link
More here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n10/leland-de-la-durantaye/taking-refuge-in-the-loo
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 14:12 (four years ago) link
Thanks. Also some details here: https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/congratulations-nobel-committee-you-just-gave-the-literature-prize-to-a-genocide-apologist/
When writing about Srebrenica, where several thousand Muslims were executed by Serb forces after they captured the enclave, he allows that what happened there was the most “abominable” massacre in the war, but he swiftly pivots to saying that we should also “listen to the survivors of Muslim massacres in numerous Serb villages around Srebrencia.” This is the same “all sides do it” canard, which equates the extremely few with the very many, and fails to acknowledge that this war was started by Serbs and Milosevic in particular.
― jmm, Friday, 11 October 2019 14:19 (four years ago) link
Yeah no one is saying Handke isn't a cunt.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 11 October 2019 16:45 (four years ago) link
I was asking because some articles (e.g. BBC) made it sound like he had denied that the massacre ever even happened. His comments in the Libération piece sound more like the standard apologist line.
― jmm, Friday, 11 October 2019 17:01 (four years ago) link
Yup, he won in 1920. But seeing how the Beer Hall Putsch wasn't until 1923, it would have been difficult for the prize committee to foresee Hamsun's embrace of the Nazis. In contrast, Handke tipped his hand a while back.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 11 October 2019 17:09 (four years ago) link
The inevitable defence of Handke
https://thegoaliesanxiety.wordpress.com/2019/10/11/nobel-prize-for-peter-handke/
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 12 October 2019 11:09 (four years ago) link