Who Should Have Won?

[Kris]

Common names come up: Proust, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Kafka, Greene, Nabokov, Borges (though Proust died just as he was really starting to become famous, with his masterwork unfinished, and Kafka was an entirely posthumous phenomenon). So who wuz robbed?

[Anne Sofie]

I've just finished "the seagull" by Chekhov, and i think it's really to bad he didn't win it .. "the seagull" is truly a sublime piece of work.

Another Person who should have won is Virginia Woolf.. Extremly skilled writer, with an enourmous knowledge when it comes to the human mind, and she truly mastered the stream of consiousness style extremly well..

Last but not least: Astrid Lindgren, one of the most gifted writer of children's books, not only for her ability to write adventurous, funny and life-wise, but just as much for her ability to mix it and end up with a Timeless and sublime piece of children's literature.

[Kris]

Chekhov and Woolf are both frequently mentioned as mistakes of the Nobel committee. I will throw another name in, to get the ball rolling:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_P...

[Kris]

Oh, and from what I've heard at least three Nobel winners claimed that the award should have gone to someone else:

SAUL BELLOW said that they should have given it to CHRISTINA STEAD (I've heard this but not sure if it's true, though I know Bellow liked this writer).

ERNEST HEMINGWAY said that it should have gone to KAREN BLIXEN (this from Orson Welles).

ELFRIEDE JELINEK said it should have gone to PETER HANDKE.

[Leajk]

That's really cool that all of them suggested some one of the opposite sex. Karen Blixen would have been really neat.

[Leajk]

It is important to remember that the prize is based on a will that states that it should be given to "the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. The "ideal" part was taken quite seriously, at least early on in the committee, and I think that's why Tolstoy never got the prize.

[Frank]

John Updike has a Nobel feel to him and even once arranged for one of his characters to win the NP "by accident", before interviewing his author (not sure if anyone has done that before).

John's big mistake was to have his most popular novels focus on the American middle class (a definite no-no). Too bad the judges neglect that his unusual versatility: Novels are set in Brazil, Africa, cold war eastern Europe, the post apocalyptic near future... John is also the only non-Jewish author I know of to have fun playing with neurotic Jewish protagonists.

[Bjorn]

A few others I think would have deserved it: Hrabal, Joyce, Twain, Achebe, Lispector, Perec, Calvino...

On the other hand, that means someone else would have gone without, and most of the names that get mentioned in these discussions are writers everyone reads anyway. So what, apart from the cold hard cash, did they really lose by not getting this particular prize?

[Bruno]

Kundera, The Inmortality & The Unberable ligthness of the being are, in my opinion, masterpieces of our times.

[Wolfe]

Apart from the obvious ones (Nabokov, Proust, Joyce etc. Not Kafka since he only became famous after his death which disqualifies him.) I'd say it's quite unbelievable that neither Roth nor Amos Oz has won yet. Especially Oz, who is in my humble opinion the greatest living author next to Coetzee.

[[deleted user]]

Philip Roth. (I have a theory - possibly false - that it's because the Academy speak English as a second language that sparky, demotic English-speaking writers don't get it.) Oh, and Henry James. James was a tremendous writer, as was Conrad. Galsworthy, who was awarded it, was nowhere near as expert or as profound as either of them.

[Luke]

Woolf, de Beauvoir, Yourcenar.

[Kamakana]

i have read that Roth should win.. have only read two books by him, but never really excited by him- someone please tell me what of his will convince me?

[[deleted user]]

The Great American Novel and Portnoy's Complaint are his funniest. (I'd go with the latter.) The Counterlife is great, but most people like American Pastoral; it's about a father whose daughter becomes a terrorist.

[Kamakana]

Thanks Thomas

[[deleted user]]

No problem. Let me know how you get on. My favourite is "Sabbath's Theatre" but it's very dark.

[[deleted user]]

I couldn't agree more about Roth. I don't care for his milk-teeth books, any more than he does, now. But he's probably too anti-Israeli government to even be considered. As to who's still alive and should win, who writes in my language and is accessible to me, W.S. Merwin, Wendell Berry. Who should have won? Hmm. Albee, Isherwood, Anthony Powell. Wilder. Calvino. Remarque. Anouilh. Wharton. Lispector. I'm not sure. There are people who have written remarkable books, but whose entire body of work doesn't necessarily stand up. I think Allende falls in that category. This is not a criticism, she's a miracle.

[Kris]

It's not a Should Win thread (that's a different one, check the main), it's a Should Have Won thread. As in, like, they're dead sans Nobel.

[[deleted user]]

Kris wrote: "It's not a Should Win thread (that's a different one, check the main), it's a Should Have Won thread. As in, like, they're dead sans Nobel."

Just saw this, sorry. I sort of thought it was both, my mistake. I just posted about this current year, and if I didn't put it in the right place, let me know.