An interesting question

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

I wasn't in the least surprised to see that the poll registered 63.39% for and 36.61% against. It's what living in a declining civilisation is all about.

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The masses have always been, are and shall always be ignorant. There was never a time when the common man was writing verse, philisophising and spent his entire nights in metaphisical debate. The common man is ignorant. The elite have always been the elite. Culture is theirs, not of the common man. The difference between now and the past is that the presentday common man is literate and has a basic grasp of culture. The common men before were not literate and had no grasp of culture.

If you see literacy as decline...


As to the topic at hand, looking back at 100 years of literature noble laureates, half of them are just about as good writers as Rowling anyways. So I hardly see a problem. The nobel prize has never been a prize given to the "best" writter, from the begining it it a heavily politicized prize.

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Originally Posted by cafolini

We could go back to William James probably, but probably at least Henry Ford and his birdwatching friend. It's a good thing. We have come a long ways and moving on.

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I like our technological advancement, but it appears that so much entertainment and even the news is being dumbed down to something akin to a circus.

Maybe Dan Brown should get one too

Pfft the idea that either merit such a presitigious award is preposterous

Yes, but the thing is, the same sentiment was expressed in 1962, and is anyone here going to dispute the literary merit of John Steinbeck?

"C.S. Lewis nominated J.R.R. Tolkien for the Nobel Prize in Literature and that Tolkien was summarily dismissed by the committee."

Can I also nominate my pals down at the pub? :)

"Anders Osterling articulated the central objection to Tolkien, who he said “has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.”

Not daft these Norwegians.

Rowling and Tolkein aren't even top of the fantasy genre - I recently reread the first two books in Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern series and they are better. Given that I mostly gave up reading fantasy in my teens I was surprised they held up so well ! You don't get the depth of characterisation found in, say, Forster or Dickens. But they are good, tight fantasy adventure stories with none of the stodgyness of Tolkein or the lack of imagination in Rowling. Dragons teleporting to the Red Planet to fight Thread beat Quidditch anyday! Actually in the next two dragon books McCaffrey slips into kids book mode - still better than Rowling, but the first two remind you that fantasy can be for adults looking for light adventure reading. So Tolkein is stodgy and Rowling is a kids author - hardly Nobel material...

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Originally Posted by Alexander III

The masses have always been, are and shall always be ignorant. There was never a time when the common man was writing verse, philisophising and spent his entire nights in metaphisical debate. The common man is ignorant. The elite have always been the elite. Culture is theirs, not of the common man. The difference between now and the past is that the presentday common man is literate and has a basic grasp of culture. The common men before were not literate and had no grasp of culture.

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Drivel.

If they're going to give it to a genre writer, they could at least give it to a good one with an extensive body of work, like Ursula K. LeGuin.

[QUOTE=Alexander III;1107217]The masses have always been, are and shall always be ignorant. There was never a time when the common man was writing verse, philisophising and spent his entire nights in metaphisical debate. The common man is ignorant. The elite have always been the elite. Culture is theirs, not of the common man. The difference between now and the past is that the presentday common man is literate and has a basic grasp of culture. The common men before were not literate and had no grasp of culture.


Let Them Eat Cake!

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

Blinding, unquestionable, world shaking talent, that should be the criterion for the Nobel Prize.

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Ahh ... the rest of your post echoed my views perfectly, but to nitpick here, J.K. Rowling does have a talent. Very few people have shrewder business skills than she. You should keep in mind that the talent in question is what you spent the rest of your post defining as literary talent. ;)

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Originally Posted by Alexander III

As to the topic at hand, looking back at 100 years of literature noble laureates, half of them are just about as good writers as Rowling anyways. So I hardly see a problem. The nobel prize has never been a prize given to the "best" writter, from the begining it it a heavily politicized prize.

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I don't know what you mean by "just about as good writers" as Rowling, but the fact is (take this from someone who spent years training to become a literary author via the road of the commercial author, and succeeded in the second goal but not the primary one) that there is a gulf between the difficulty (in terms of writing ability and the class of ideas and understanding of humanity) of writing commercial fantasy and writing philosophical poetry.

If you look at the list of nobel literature prize winners, then you might be able to see a pattern, but I didn't. I think that it is more a matter of what the Nobel committee wants to reward, rather than any particular matter of literature, its quality or whatever.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

If they're going to give it to a genre writer, they could at least give it to a good one with an extensive body of work, like Ursula K. LeGuin.

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Not while Ray Bradbury is still alive.

It's the kind of thing outside of letters, which is ironic. You can't talk about it. But you know it when you see it.

Not a chance would Harry Potter lady win. But that's not the greatest miracle of all, that she should get that kind of poll result. A miracle is that an author like Cormac McCarthy can be mainstream in the same age that Harry Potter lady is. Because McCarthy is the real deal, deserves this prize probably even over Pynchon, and is going to be well known to a pretty wide demographic.






J

Rowling is a fairly talented kid's author who deserves a lot of the acclaim she gets from scholars, critics, reviewers, librarians, and readers, but I don't really see her as noble prize material. On the other hand, if she did win it's not the end of the world. There also seem to be a lot of people here under the weird delusion that the noble prize in literature is given solely or primarily for literary merit.

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Originally Posted by Alexander III

The masses have always been, are and shall always be ignorant. There was never a time when the common man was writing verse, philisophising and spent his entire nights in metaphisical debate. The common man is ignorant. The elite have always been the elite. Culture is theirs, not of the common man. The difference between now and the past is that the presentday common man is literate and has a basic grasp of culture. The common men before were not literate and had no grasp of culture.

If you see literacy as decline...

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Elitism, like all the other negative -isms basically says my people are better than your people. The logical conclusion of this is that they are worth less than individuals in the elite - and we all know where that thinking goes.

Given a good home, good parenting, ambition, vision, good teaching and schools, opportunities for higher ed, money, support, private tutors, work opportunities, family support - it's no wonder that there seems to be self fulfilling elite.

The greater wonder is that anyone from the masses could ever - by virtue of their own cleverness, intelligence, fortitude, endeavour, luck, resiliance etc make anything more of themselves than become one of the masses. But they do.