The Corean Chronicles
Double Standard for the Nobel?
Recently, I've run across a number of blogs, commentaries, and the like about the Nobel Prize for Literature, which has been awarded to a well-established French writer, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, whose work is less known outside
According to public information, the new Nobel Laureate has published more than 40 essays, novels, and children's books, where he has written of exile and self-discovery, cultural dislocation and globalization and the clash between modern civilization and traditional cultures.
At the same time, a noted critic of American fiction, Horace Engdahl, who is also the permanent secretary of the
Now... I have nothing for -- or against -- Mr. Le Clezio, because I have to confess that I've never read any of his work, partly because there aren't any French bookstores in
But I have to ask, "To which American writers are you referring, Mr. Engdahl?"
I have written all the themes claimed as reasons for awarding the Nobel to Mr. Le Clezio, and there are several handfuls, if not more, of talented American writers who have also done the same. All of us have written well outside contemporary
Of course, I'm just a "genre" writer, but I do find it most interesting that what I -- and others also classed as such -- write fits into the description of what it takes to win a Nobel Prize for literature, at least according to the press releases of the
That leaves us F&SF "genre writers" damned either way, it appears.
The F&SF genre writers get no respect in their own country, so I don't expect it to happen elsewhere, although I'd rather read a good F&SF novel than any French prize winner. Poetry is painted with the same broad brush, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I can read poetry in one or two foreign languages, but I always wonder if I'm missing something because I don't know the vernacular. Is that how the other countries view American writing? The subtleties don't translate easily, and it makes them uncomfortable?
You use a person in the argument who is of no interest, as you well know.
But who am I, and you a well known author, I bend knee sir! :-)
U R an intelligent man who it appears plays games?
You at least answer, so I bow down and acknowledge your dealing with the little people!
An impotent and lost voice in the wilderness!
TTFN
Ian
By the way, a specious argument would be deceptive, and I'm quite serious about the point that so-called "mainstream" U.S. writers are in fact, often far too insular, and that many F&SF writers are not, whatever else our shortcomings as writers may be.
Years ago, I read extensively in contemporary French literature -- not just Camus and Sartre, but Queneau and Simenon -- in the original French. I suspect that what lies behind Le Clezio's success is that he builds on their work in expanding the French language to encompass all the different strands of urban society. Add to that the enormous influx from Asia and Africa that is evident in any British TV show today and has transformed the European union's very real insularity (not to mention British food), and you have a sense of a culture that is much more like the American "melting pot", but also includes European norms on the role of the state and cultural expectations of certain types of civility. So I suspect that the Swedes are really saying: we don't need to look to you Americans any more for new ideas, so you'll have to do better than what worked in the past.
A second thought is that I have always felt that science fiction suffered from what I call "the gap of the middle future". In other words, much of scifi concerns itself with either the near future, in which case the analogy with our own time is pretty obvious, or the far future, where even though a certain amount of connectivity is necessary for reader comprehension, the writer is pretty completely free to "build a world" in the best Tolkien tradition. The near future and the far future lend themselves to simpler thought experiments; the middle future puts a premium on consideration of complexity and therefore a success there is to my mind "more realistic". It may be unfair to F&SF to exclude them from mainstream literature, but I believe that one of the underlying reasons that readers of so-called literature have such a caricature of the field is that there are so few good "middle future" books.
A final thought: imho, mainstream writers do a very bad job as a rule when they try F&SF (or historical fiction), and one of the key reasons is that they have never had to build worlds, so they assume they don't need to. I am thinking in particular of Doris Lessing's scifi, or Normal Mailer's Armies of the Dead (both of which I had to put down with disgust after sampling). I would also say that much pre-1960s F&SF seems somehow "flat" for the same reason; and that pre-psychoanalysis mainstream literature has some of the same defects. Much as I like Victor Hugo (in the original French, which is way better than the translations) and, say, Dickens, I do feel that Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night) or Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury, on autism) are somehow richer.
Well, if forced to defend myself, I'll point out what I construe as specious, though I feel you are now resorting to verisimilitude in a defensive manner.
What pray tell does Mr. Le Clezio have to do with anything? Yes he won, does that mean he is involved in your illustration. In addition you say you have no French literature stores, well amazon can get you the books dear fellow.
Quite frankly I find many of the winners of "high art" to be pretentious twaddle merchants, who, I feel smug and smarmy pseudo intellects attach themselves to. One has the feeling that the little boy should stand up and say "strike a light guv'nor he's naked" but then I am an intellectual pygmy, as mentioned earlier.
I did not wish to vex you sir, but really the logic you mostly show in your books is sometimes missing from your blog.
Well I await your ire gentle writer, as Isaac Asimov would say I'm just a gentle reader.
As stated earlier my thanks for responding, as dialogue is far more satisfying than missives just shot into the ether.
An admiring reader
Ian
As for Amazon, it's fine for ordering books you know you want to read. It's not exactly suited to browsing to determine what else you might wish to read, and, since I tend to want to pick my own reading, rather than rely on the recommendations of. as termed above, "smug and smarmy pseudo intellects," my true browsing is limited to those cities I visit as I can.
Well it has to be said they are thought provoking your blog entries.
Good to see you've got a sense of humour too! :-)
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