BarkellWH -> RE: Bob Dylan Awarded 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature (Oct. 14 2016 11:59:47)
|
quote:
Right. They should've awarded the prize to E.L. James for Fifty Shades of Grey. She has the benefit of writing in English and most people will have at least heard of her or her work. Screw Ivo Andric. Few people have read him. No, the Nobel Prize for Literature is not a popularity contest among those who write for the lowest common denominator. It recognizes serious literature, but it should go to those authors whose work has had an impact on society in one form or another, political, social, literary, etc. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, for example, wrote in the tradition of the great Russian authors, yet he gained a worldwide readership and had a huge impact. George Seferis was a Greek (born when Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire) poet whose work is still read by serious students of poetry, as is the Greek poet Cavafy whose setting was Alexandria (before Nasser drove out the Greeks, Jews, and Armenians). Just as an aside, two authors whose works are both serious and still widely read, who never received the Nobel Prize for Literature but, in my opinion, should have, were Graham Greene and Jorge Luis Borges. Over the years speculation, whether true or not, has suggested that the Swedish Academy denied both authors the prize for literature because Greene was too far to the Left, and Borges was too far to the Right. Regardless of their personal political positions, both produced beautifully written and interesting works, and, in my opinion, both should have been Nobel Laureates. Bill
|
|
|
|