NWR: Lit Nobel

I tried to read the Finnish translation of La ciudad y los perros but didn't get far in it. The same happened with El paraiso en la otra esquina and La fiesta del chivo. I wonder if I should try them in English translation if that would make a difference? I was kind of hoping the Syrian poet Adonis would have won this year - but I guess interest in contemporary Arabic poetry is not very prevalent.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
The War of the End of the World is fabulous.
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I agree, Oswaldo, but many of his other books have left me less than enthused. Since the Nobel is awarded for a body of work, I have my concerns, but again because I read them in English translation there is always the question of whether I have problems with the writing or the translation. Feast of the Goat, however, was a serious clunker (not to mention his foray into politics).

Mark Lipton
 
The Storyteller was quite good (at least the "story" part), and The War of The End of The World is fantastic, but then again I'm a fan. Anyhow, people care about the Nobel Prize?
 
I do. I sell books for a living. It's quite amazing how much more I can now charge for a second hand Vargas Llosa than I could have yesterday.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
The War of the End of the World is fabulous.
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I agree, Oswaldo, but many of his other books have left me less than enthused. Since the Nobel is awarded for a body of work, I have my concerns, but again because I read them in English translation there is always the question of whether I have problems with the writing or the translation. Feast of the Goat, however, was a serious clunker (not to mention his foray into politics).

Mark Lipton
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Officially, it's given for a body of work, and sometimes actually. But they surely gave it to Morrison with Beloved in mind and Garcia Marquez with 100 Years of Solitude in Mind. I expect with Vargas Llosa, though, they didn't have a single work in mind.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
Anyhow, people care about the Nobel Prize?
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Your question implies that you think it is irrelevant. Why so?
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I'm not Cory, and I do attend to it. But the argument for not caring has been the general quality of who has and has not received it in the 20th century. Too many Pearl Bucks and Anatole Frances and not enough James Joyces, Virginia Woolfs, Marcel Prousts. And a general preference for big theme literature over literary experimentation.
 
Looking over the list of recipients, the only Nobel Literature novelist since 1978 (I.B. Singer) from whose oeuvre I've ever managed to complete reading a book - or even get more than 30 pages in - has been J.M. Coetzee (1993). (I'll exempt William Golding unless required school reading and/or seeing the movie counts.) Saramago was particularly impossible. The poets (Milosz, Szymborska, Heaney) strike me as a much more impressive crop.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
Anyhow, people care about the Nobel Prize?
Click to expand...
Your question implies that you think it is irrelevant. Why so?
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I'm not Cory, and I do attend to it. But the argument for not caring has been the general quality of who has and has not received it in the 20th century. Too many Pearl Bucks and Anatole Frances and not enough James Joyces, Virginia Woolfs, Marcel Prousts. And a general preference for big theme literature over literary experimentation.
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What's wrong with Pearl Buck? She was my great-grandmother's roommate at Randolf-Macon.

Dick.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Looking over the list of recipients, the only Nobel Literature novelist since 1978 (I.B. Singer) from whose oeuvre I've ever managed to complete reading a book - or even get more than 30 pages in - has been J.M. Coetzee (1993). (I'll exempt William Golding unless required school reading and/or seeing the movie counts.) Saramago was particularly impossible. The poets (Milosz, Szymborska, Heaney) strike me as a much more impressive crop.
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This seems to me far too confined: Marquez, Gordimer, Morrison, Grass, Pinter and Pahmuk (at least for Snow)have all written books more than worth reading. Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley trilogy is heartbreaking and probably something I would not have read were it not for his having won the prize. And if you can't get through Garicia Marquez, well, I don't know what to say. Many of the names I've left off, I just haven't read. Clezio, Fo and Bellow all seem minor talents to me (though I do have a fondness for Augie March)and Naipaul is just impossible.
 
Pamuk can be great. I found Snow a bit too overtly political and have preferred his other works - especially The White Castle. Also his most recent, Museum of Innocence, is excellent.

Of Mahfouz, I think you mean the Cairo Trilogy? Midaq Alley is a stand alone work, IIRC. Oddly enough, I only read the first of the Trilogy, though I thought it excellent, so I should get around to the other parts as well.

The Finnish translations of Saramago are very readable (I haven't heard that said about his English translations) - I think I've read everything translated and have enjoyed them very much.

So yes, apart from interest due to work, I do care because prizes can sometimes lead one to read good stuff I might have otherwise missed.
 
Yes, Cairo Trilogy. You should read the other two.

I like Saramago more after I have finished the novel than while I am reading it, which I do consider a problem. Maybe it is a translation issue, but I'm not sure.

I agree that SOMETIMES the prizes lead one to read good stuff one might have missed. Othertimes, not so much.
 
And of course Doris Lessing has long been one of my favorite (albeit uneven) authors. But she was more annoyed than anyone at having won.
 
Translation is the key. I found "The Green Room" and "Conversation In The Cathedral" easier to read than most of his works. They were translated by Gregory Rabassa, easily the best of any of the translators who worked the boom. He was also responsible for the early works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who said that Rabassa's translation of "100 Years of Solitude" was better in English than his original Spanish version), Jorge Amado, Julio Cortzar, Jos Donoso, and other lesser-lights of the Latin American fiction onslaught of the 1960s-1980s.

Vis-a-vis Vargas Llosa's works, Helen Lane had a good feel for the humorous books of the author's middle period, but I'm not sure that anyone could have helped with his more serious writing after he got into politics. The Nobel is an award for a lifetime of work and in this case I think it's appropriate. As with Garcia Marquez, politics (within the Nobel committee and on a local basis) factored into the award. I'm more interested in rereading Gabo's work than I am in getting caught up with the MVL titles I haven't read, but there are only so many hours in a day and one must prioritize.

-Eden (my favorite Magical Realism book is "Seven Serpents and Seven Moons" by Demetrio Aguiera-Malta. It's quite amazing)(with a Rabassa translation)
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
And of course Doris Lessing has long been one of my favorite (albeit uneven) authors. But she was more annoyed than anyone at having won.
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Well, Sartre refused the award and Beckett-even cooler to my mind--just told them to send the money, but didn't show up.
 
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