America Bashing: It's Only Words
by Sara Tucker
A whole lotta mud was slung this past week over the Nobel prize for literature, providing a welcome diversion from McBama bashing and the world economic meltdown. The literary hissy fit began when a Nobel judge told the Associated Press that America is "too insular" to produce Nobel-worthy literature. Americans are little interested in translating foreign books and "don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," said Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which doles out the award. "That ignorance is restraining."
The howl of protest that followed was anything but restrained. "You can criticise a nation's politics, or its cuisine, or even its dress-sense," commented one bystander, "but to describe a nation's books as 'ignorant' is fighting talk."
The maligned nation retaliated with a firestorm of insults: "You would think," huffed the New Yorker's David Remnick, "that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures."
"There is no argument like a literary argument," observed The Independent's John Lichfield as the vitriol began to spew. "Expect a vicious, transatlantic war of words." Calling for a revolt, Slate's Adam Kirsch wrote: "America should respond not by imploring the committee for a fairer hearing but by seceding, once and for all, from the sham that the Nobel Prize for literature has become."
Across the Internet, American bibliophiles jumped into the fray. At Omnivoracious, one gave the Swedes a taste of "American rube" vernacular ("Hey Horace, Stick your Nobel where the Sun Don't Shine!!") while another reached for satire ("They give out Nobels for LITERATURE? When did this start?"). Cynics were quick to point out that literary awards "don't really 'mean' anything. They're like the Academy Awards, except the recipients are old and ugly instead of young and beautiful." Idealists, however, were less willing to give up the fight. At the Literary Saloon and Words Without Borders, there were shout-outs on behalf of the perennially snubbed, such as Philip Roth and John Updike, and a host of lesser-knowns and long shots: "I hope Bob Dylan finally gets it," wrote a wistful fan.
Too soon, though, the fight was over. On Thursday, the academy named French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio as this year's recipient, and the furor ended in a collective "Who?"
Further reading:
* An interview with Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (in English)
* Nobel notes: Engdahl Fallout (Literary Saloon)
* "Jean-Marie Who?": Nomadic novelist wins Nobel Prize for literature (Adam McDowell, National Post)
* The Aggregator: News of the day in links
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