Nobel literature chief: US writing too 'insular'

[sparkchaser]

Nobel literature chief: US writing too 'insular'

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The man who announces the Nobel Prize in literature says the United States is too "insular" and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Horace Engdahl said Tuesday that "Europe still is the center of the literary world."

Engdahl is the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which selects the literature prize winner. He is expected to announce the winner in the coming weeks.

Engdahl says the U.S. "is too isolated, too insular" and doesn't really "participate in the big dialogue of literature."

Since Japanese poet Kenzaburo Oe won in 1994, the selections have had a distinct European flavor. The last American winner was Toni Morrison in 1993.

 

[saliotthomas]

I would not be suprised if in the month's to come the Penatgone was to discover satellite photos showing suspicious weapon factory in Sweden.....

 

[Heteronym]

Horace Engdahl looks like a charming man, doesn't he?

 

[lenny nero]

Here's a longer version of it:

Nobel literature head: US too insular to compete
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 3:01 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By MALIN RISING and HILLEL ITALIE Associated Press Writers

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: "Put him in touch with me, and I'll send him a reading list."

As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it's no coincidence that most winners are European.

"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

He said the 16-member award jury has not selected this year's winner, and dropped no hints about who was on the short list. Americans Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates usually figure in speculation, but Engdahl wouldn't comment on any names.

Speaking generally about American literature, however, he said U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work.

"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining."

His comments were met with fierce reactions from literary officials across the Atlantic.

"You would think 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," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.

"And if he looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola."

Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the foundation which administers the National Book Awards, said he wanted to send Engdahl a reading list of U.S. literature.

"Such a comment makes me think that Mr. Engdahl has read little of American literature outside the mainstream and has a very narrow view of what constitutes literature in this age," he said.

"In the first place, one way the United States has embraced the concept of world culture is through immigration. Each generation, beginning in the late 19th century, has recreated the idea of American literature."

He added that this is something the English and French are discovering as immigrant groups begin to take their place in those traditions.

The most recent American to win the award was Toni Morrison in 1993. Other American winners include Saul Bellow, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.

As permanent secretary, Engdahl is a voting member of and spokesman for the secretive panel that selects the winners of what many consider the most prestigious award in literature.

The academy often picks obscure writers and hardly ever selects best-selling authors. It regularly faces accusations of snobbery, political bias and even poor taste.

Since Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe won the award in 1994, the selections have had a distinct European flavor. Nine of the subsequent laureates were Europeans, including last year's winner, Doris Lessing of Britain. Of the other four, one was from Turkey and the others from South Africa, China and Trinidad. All had strong ties to Europe.

The Nobel Prize announcements start next week with the medicine award on Monday, followed by physics, chemistry, peace and economics. Next Thursday is a possible date for the literature prize, but the Swedish Academy by tradition only gives the date two days before.

Engdahl suggested the announcement date could be a few weeks away, saying "it could take some time" before the academy settles on a name.

 

[Peder]

So, what else is new from Europe? /yawns/

 

[Stewart]

I take it that particular news source is of a Republican slant, given the ignorant comments in reply to the article, and the way the report was edited?

 

[Peder]

Yes, well, that's what the man already said: ignorant!

Bash, bash, bash. Been going on for many years now. :whistling:

 

[Heteronym]

Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the foundation which administers the National Book Awards, said he wanted to send Engdahl a reading list of U.S. literature.

"Such a comment makes me think that Mr. Engdahl has read little of American literature outside the mainstream and has a very narrow view of what constitutes literature in this age," he said.

If we are to believe Philip Roth's own words, he's also read little of the literature of the age. So I guess it's a tie.

 

[silverseason]

As one of the commentators said, in the full-length version of the article:

"In the first place, one way the United States has embraced the concept of world culture is through immigration. Each generation, beginning in the late 19th century, has recreated the idea of American literature."

Literary people who define literature for everyone else are howling at the moon. Come off of it! Plenty of wonderful works of literature by non Americans are insulated or isolated or whatever, but not the less wonderful for that.

I'm thinking, for example, of Achebe's Things Fall Apart. From within the culture and of the culture, and what better way to do it? Even people who drink Cocacola have feelings and problems and even ideas. Their lives are important to them. They are entitled to write about them, just as entitled as Achebe or a Swedish literary expert.

 

[Stewart]

I'm taking a short break until the weekend with Roth's Letting Go, as it's just too big and I'm only getting the chance to read it in small bites.

So, I've turned to Dubravka Ugrešić's Nobody Home and there, on page thirty-five, opening an essay titled, My Hometown, is this little passage:

If I were and America writer I could make money by writing stories about my hometown. Furthermore, I would be expected to. American literature and American movies have thrived, and still do, on this engaging theme.​

 

[Heteronym]

Gore Vidal once complained about that fact that American literature was only interested in writing about the 'Great American Experience', or something like that. And isn't that true? Aren't Irish, Italians, Jews, etc. obliged to write what it's like to be an [adjective]-American in America? and isn't that dull as hell?

 

[Peder]

. . . .Dubravka Ugrešić's Nobody Home and there, on page thirty-five, opening an essay titled, My Hometown, is this little passage:

If I were and America writer I could make money by writing stories about my hometown. Furthermore, I would be expected to. American literature and American movies have thrived, and still do, on this engaging theme.​

Behold, a new prophet! Bragging or complaining?

 

[MonkeyCatcher]

Gore Vidal once complained about that fact that American literature was only interested in writing about the 'Great American Experience', or something like that. And isn't that true? Aren't Irish, Italians, Jews, etc. obliged to write what it's like to be an [adjective]-American in America? and isn't that dull as hell?

I agree that it can be very dull if the culture-clash is the main focus of the book. It can be quite interesting if they use someone from another culture as a narrator in a familiar setting to Westerners, as long as there's something else driving the plot. I like to learn about new things while reading fiction.

 

[tZar]

Of course you americans should write about America - I don't see that being the issue here. The suggestion that american literature is insulated, is that american writers have a tendency to only let voices from the 'local' american culture get a say. This is how a culture closes around itself.
I do not completely agree with Engdahl, but I think he has a point in saying that american writers in general have too few 'international' perspectives in their descriptions of their own culture.
Also if we look outside literature, there have been a tendency to frown upon critique which does not originate from within the country. Which by no means is a local american phenomenon - I have also seen this in Sweden, England, Denmark etc. But I must admit that the attitude from the americans does seem like, "if your not american, you just criticise because your not american and really want to be, so basically shut you gob, and leave us alone".
Sorry for the harsh statement - which I of course have no intention on backing up with an example!
When it comes to European literature we have a longer tradition for treading literature more European, then national - which means that Danish literature is closely connected to schools of thoughts in the European community, then a more narrow Danish tradition. Then Engdahl ought to consider if European literature is closing itself around a European culture, which have a tendency not to allow for Asian, African or American perspectives...

-tZar

 

[Peder]

"if your not American, you just criticise because your not American and really want to be, so basically shut you gob, and leave us alone".
-tZar

Well, let's see.
America, the land of Hollywood, Coca-Cola, pizza, Starbucks, McDonalds, a primate as President, a preference for totally inexperienced amateurs to run one of the largest countries in the world, lasciviously dressed women, religious believers (gasp!), murderers, war criminals, materialists, flashy Hawaiian sport shirts, fat slobby guts sticking out, no foreign languages, loud and raucous tourists when abroad, exceedingly poor education, inferior health system, dumb billionaires, imperialists, a danger to the world, narrow-minded, insular of course, illiterate, ignorant, boorish, huge gas-guzzling automobiles, destroyers of the environment, full of hatred for Muslims, racist, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP), run secretly by a world conspiracy, Orientalists, greedy bankers, smug, arrogant, can't find Iraq on a map, coarse, vulgar, no intellectuals, don't read books, can't read books, hypocritical, always preaching, tall buildings that deserve to be knocked down, . .

Have I missed any?

Actually, and quite seriously, I think Americans are really quite complacent and generous for not retaliating in kind after years and years of such put-downs by any pundit or leader in the world who wants to grab a headline and build local support.

 

[Peder]

Oh, and how could I? I left out "the Great Satan.":whistling:

 

[Zolipara]

Actually, and quite seriously, I think Americans are really quite complacent and generous for not retaliating in kind after years and years of such put-downs by any pundit or leader in the world who wants to grab a headline and build local support.

Haha.

 

[donatello]

The Nobel prize is way overrated. When Terrorists like Yassar Arafat win the Nobel Peace prize, and pseudo-scientists like Al Gore can snag one, the prize is merely a monetary donation to the politically correct flavor of the day.

The current flavor on the world stage is rabid Anti-Americanism, so therefore, the Nobel Peace Prize will probably go to Osama Bin Laden next.

 

[beer good]

Of course, the Nobel peace prize and the Nobel prize for literature are not related - the money for both comes from Alfred Nobel's will, but the winners are decided by two completely different organisations in two different countries (not to mention, obviously, being awarded for completely different reasons). But hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a good rant. (And I do think awarding the peace prize to politicians for something that should be in their job description anyway is ridiculous.)

This year's peace prize, incidently, went to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari for negotiating peace treaties in countries like Kosovo, Indonesia, and Northern Ireland. How dare he.

 

[tZar]

What surprises me a bit in this thread is that only a few is actually commenting on the content of what was said about american literature - why not try to argue his case, or argue a real case that he is in the wrong, instead of just saying that it is another anti-american rant.

That might lead to something... maybe even something interesting...

How much does international literature shine through american literature and is there a reason why it should or should not?
Now I am asking, because I see this tendency, not only in the few american manuscripts I read, but also in European literature. Over here we have a tendency to uphold the new tradition of letting other European works influence what we are writing, and not notice much outside that. Just a few centuries ago I feel we were very good at letting other literary worlds be heard in our writings; especially south american and american, but also old Hinduistic and buddhistic styles or thoughts.
One of my favourite Danish writers is very inspired by Borge, Marquez and Dostojevsky, which is very interesting when they meet modern Danish society. His name is Svend Aage Madsen by the way, and I think he has been translated. Those influences are rare at the moment, therefore I love it even more...
If you have some equivalent american examples it might just make for some interesting reading, and a dismissal of Engdahls statement.

-tZar


Edited a couple of typos.