More on the Nobel prize
Elfriede Jelinek's Nobel lecture is now available (the actual prize isn't awarded until Friday), in several languages and video, and will be commented on by people more competent than me. Let me just note the hair-do metaphor in the beginning: possibly typical for a writer whose alleged greatest interest is fashion, and who gives the following scene instruction for her Jackie Onassis-monologue in Der Tod und das Mädchen IV:

Jackie sollte in einem Chanel-Kostüm auftreten, denke ich (da müssen Sie aber schon sehr gute Gründe haben, wenn Sie das anders machen!). Man könnte auch als Vorbild dieses letzte Foto im Central Park (mit Maurice Tempelsman), das auf der Bank nehmen, Trenchcoat, Perücke (da Haare durch Chemo ausgegangen), Sonnenbrille und Hermès-Kopftuch.

Her scene instructions is in fact often not the least entertaining part of her plays...

And, oh, I almost forgot: Did she deserve to get the prize? I don't know. But I think it may be more constructive to give it to someone like Jelinek, who regardless of greatness surely is worthy of more international attention, than to someone like Coetzee, who is already internationally famous.

Sometimes the Academy's choices are just weird, like most things in the world, but one thing I am sure of is that the Nobel Prize for literature is NOT politically awarded, despite predictable claims to the contrary. I mean, it wasn't long ago that the choice of the excellent Naipaul was called a populist right-wing anti-arab gesture, etc, etc. And now those despicable left-wing Swedes have given it to a mad feminist communist, probably only to annoy American commentators... (Yeah, sure. I wish they would have.)
Malte P @ 8:11 AM |   |