... Nobel to US: Drop Dead.
I wrote a piece some years ago suggesting that they give the Nobel to Elmore Leonard. But they're too parochial for that.
Of course, they also keep forgetting to give it to Torgny Lindgren, and he's a member of the Swedish Academy, I believe. So I guess they don't read Swedish authors, either. Who the hell do they read?
Yeah, we have some fantastic literary crime writers. I'd vote for Dennis Lehane, myself, or James Lee Burke. Doesn't Horace look like Andrew Lloyd Webber's evil twin? Maybe they were separated at birth.
ReplyDeleteHubert Selby Jr. wouldn't look too shabby among the recipients, either, for that matter, IMO. At least Americans can boast breaking the Nobel barrier with Saul Bellow's Herzog; and, I don't blame anyone for making him American (although, FTR, a case could be made he really is Canadian).
ReplyDeleteIf, in my lifetime, a Canadian did win it, it would most likely be Alice Munro (though, not my first choice, not by a country style). Sadly, my first choice killed herself too many years ago, now, for anyone to hardly remember her name (let alone her amazing novels); but, we have other great contenders (plus, a "secret" competition between a man and a woman who both think they're going to win it before they leave this planet; I'm certain you can guess the pair to whom I refer) . . .
Ah, mebbe the committee just isn't that well-read nor travelled.
(The only comfort I take is the modern Greeks who made the grade, Odysseus Elytis foremost among same.)
Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood, Judith? I hope you don't mean Carol Shields. I can't stand her novels -- they are dull in the way Robinson's last was (imho). Woman who killed herself...Who? Wasn't Margaret Lawrence, was it? Nor Susannah Moody to go way back? (Well, she lived pre-Nobel, so can't possibly count.)
ReplyDeleteWas Robertson Davies ever considered for a Nobel? He sure had a prolific output at some of his novels still linger in my mind ("Lyre of Orpheus," for example).
[*looks left, looks right, looks up, looks down, looks forward, looks backwards, checks under the bed*]
ReplyDeleteOkay, the coast is clear:
Susan! Admit it, you're an honourary Canadian, aren't you? (And, I won't disagree with any of the names you cite nor, for that matter, with your assessment of Carol Shields.)
But, yeah, I wish Margaret Laurence or, even, Mordecai Richler had won it; gawd knows, they both would add some lustre to the block-bluster award (given, it seems, for chips off the ol' blockheads).
BUT, that reminds me . . .