From Post Author John Marks

Thanks... Of course Borges deserved it and Dylan did not. The list of deserving non-winners is very long.

But there is a structural problem: Nobel's Will that established the Prize states that the Prize is to be awarded to the author "den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning" which even in Swedish, is almost fatally ambiguous.

By "Outstanding Work," did he mean one book, or a body of work? And, by "Idealist(ic) Reckoning (or Direction)," did he mean, Idealistic in the sense of Literature, or in terms of Societal or Social Development?

It seems to me that all too often, NPL is a Grammy "Lifetime Achievement Award" crossed with the Nobel Peace Prize.

As between a nobody who writes one incandescent novel of unprecedented imagination (e.g., Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union") and a permanent also-ran who has produced a dozen books of crunchy-feely empathy with the oppressed, it's a no-brainer.

Because: choosing the best-written book published within the last 12 months is a lot of hard work. Tenure (in most cases I have seen) breeds laziness and lack of productivity; whereas top-flight well-publicized committee work breeds cautious groupthink.

Exceptions that prove the rule exist--please look up "Dana Gioia."

ATB,

john marks
post author