MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 to be announced Oct. 10

Fat Abe · 05-25-2015, 08:54 PM

In 2014, Time Magazine published an essay about how inscrutable the Nobel Prize committee was in choosing a winner of its coveted Literature award.

http://time.com/3481586/murakami-ado...dds-ladbrokes/

Yes, we fans of Murakami would like to see him win in the next go-around (2015), but why get your hopes up? The prize has been denied to many influential writers (Norman Mailer, Thomas Pychon, John Updike), and even great genre writers like John MacDonald or Raymond Chandler. Some say it is a bias against North American authors, as though we were a narrow, uncouth breed.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/03/why_...n_t_win_nobel/

Make up your own reading lists, and don't let a bunch of stuffshirts tell you what is considered worthwhile or brilliant. When you realize that most judges are pretty stupid or unaccomplished, why value their judgement? They make a few good picks like V.S. Naipul, but is he (even) that exceptional? As for Doris Lessing, consider her a pea-brain for this remark:

"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible."

05-25-2015, 08:54 PM	#17
Fat Abe Man Who Stares at Books Posts: 1,826 Karma: 10606722 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: 50th State, USA. Also, PA, NY, CA, and elsewhere. Device: All of the Above	In 2014, Time Magazine published an essay about how inscrutable the Nobel Prize committee was in choosing a winner of its coveted Literature award. http://time.com/3481586/murakami-ado...dds-ladbrokes/ Yes, we fans of Murakami would like to see him win in the next go-around (2015), but why get your hopes up? The prize has been denied to many influential writers (Norman Mailer, Thomas Pychon, John Updike), and even great genre writers like John MacDonald or Raymond Chandler. Some say it is a bias against North American authors, as though we were a narrow, uncouth breed. http://www.salon.com/2011/10/03/why_...n_t_win_nobel/ Make up your own reading lists, and don't let a bunch of stuffshirts tell you what is considered worthwhile or brilliant. When you realize that most judges are pretty stupid or unaccomplished, why value their judgement? They make a few good picks like V.S. Naipul, but is he (even) that exceptional? As for Doris Lessing, consider her a pea-brain for this remark: "September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible."