I haven't the foggiest myself about the deliberations of the Swedish Academy
and, like Michael, I'm not quite sure why I've manoeuvred myself into
defending their choices. I'm generally a bit indifferent to the fanfare, but
every now and then the choice delights me or else it's spurred me to read.
Szymborska I didn't know before (I don't think she had been translated into
English till soon after) but came to admire. More rarely still, as with the
Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, I think there was a sadly missed
opportunity. And, a futile game, I've sometimes wondered why x and not y? -
why Quasimodo, say, and not Saba? But looking through the list, as your
first post prompted me to, they didn't look like such bad choices. Though I
don't know their work well, and I like early Vargas Llosa better than later,
probably the same for Lessing and Coetzee, I can still see reasons, that is
'literary' reasons, for the choice.
Jamie
-----Original Message-----
From: David Lace
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2016 5:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Cat, pigeons
Jamie, yes, I missed Michael’s first post about Dylan, so my apologies to
him.
On the Emily Dickinson comparison you make, her recognition came after
death, while the poets winning the Nobel are very much alive. I’m all for
marginal talent being recognised, but I always thought the Nobel was for
outstanding and well-known achievements, not marginally known ones. Is that
the case?
-------------------Original Message--------------------
Jamie McKendrick wrote:
Thanks for this, David. I should let Michael reply for himself but I think
you missed his first post which warmly welcomed Dylan as Nobel recipient.
What his next post was pointing to was the international impact (foul word
these days) of Transtromer's poems, widely loved way before the Nobel.
Michael will know better than me that in Sweden Transtromer is known of by
most schoolchildren and appreciated far beyond what you still belittlingly
call 'poetry "fandom" circles'.
But as you seem to acknowledge at the end of your post, 'small audiences'
(not at all the case with these or many of the other Nobel writers of the
last 10 years) aren't anyway an indicator of lack of quality or
inconsequentiality. What could have been more obscure in the nineteenth
century than Emily Dickinson, a poet now justly considered one of the
greatest not just of her age but of any.
That might also be something to value in the Nobel awards - the
celebration of a talent insufficiently recognised rather than an accolade
for a globally super-celebrated artist like Dylan?
That said, Tim's list of the Nobel writers he's read and hasn't makes me
feel likewise a bit shocked at how many of them I haven't read including,
probably shamefully, Jelinek.
Jamie
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