Do old Nobel prize winners fade into oblivion ...

So...

At the bottom of this page is a link to a 'Similar Thread' called "The Unimportance of the Nobel Prize of Literature." I thought it interesting that the thread was so similar and then I opened it... lo and behold the first post says Joyce is the biggest oversight of the committee and the thread immediately descends into debating his value. There is nothing new under the sun. I just thought that was funny.

As to everything else, I think we all agree that there are spheres of influence in the literary world and the best we can do is be aware of them and avoid granting ourselves a privledged authority. That said...

I do think it a little strange that we need to walk on eggshells when something is so obviously logical. I understand that Europe's colonial history has a lot of scholars wary of celebrating the continent's acheivments, but surely something as simple as what I suggested shouldn't be shocking?

Let me ask it this way, just because the dallying around the subject has awoken a little indignation in me: do you think with the commonness of English and English being the most translated language, that the most influential English writer of the 20th century--whoever that me be [See also: Joyce]--would be one of the worlds most influential writers of the century?

Does this really strike you as incorrect logic, or is it just that the implications are somewhat counter the current politics?

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Or, perhaps a better question, who cares?

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I think you make an important point here JBI. Pointing out the shortcomings of the Nobel committee's choices is really no different than bemoaning the fact that Taxi Driver was beaten for best film by Rocky. The value of awards ceremonies is inherently dubious and they should largely be ignored. I imagine authors agree with me (at least in public) until they win one, at which point they say 'Its just great to receive some recognition (and a bump in sales).' Though i know Borges was gutted that he never received the Nobel nod.

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JBI makes interesting points... and surely we should acknowledge that our concept of literature in the West is Euro-centric and even Anglo-centric here. But then do we expect it to be otherwise? We are living in the West and here we are participating on an English-speaking literary forum. Of course JBI takes it all to something of a Borgesian extreme... but then he is nothing if he is not the ever dutiful student... ready to ever reiterate the PC thought of his professors at the drop of the hat. Especially if it gives him the upper hand of victim status in a debate. Joyce is undoubtedly one of the most influential Western authors of the 20th century if only measured in terms of his influence on other major writers: Faulkner, Eliot, Beckett, Pynchon, Barth, Nabokov, etc... As to just how influential he is in comparison to Eliot is debatable for it seems Eliot's influence was felt far more across national or linguistic boundaries. He has been claimed as a major influence by Spanish, French, Italian poets etc... I also agree that unless we are truly familiar with the great German, French, Italian, Chinese (etc...) Modernists and their impact upon their native traditions we cannot make a blanket statement about Joyce with any certainty.

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I basically agree with this (and i sort of agree with Modest that Joyce's influence on Western literature, even if we can't quantify it exactly, is basically beyond dispute). As to the ramifications of our focus on Joyce, Eliot, Proust whomever, it would be an exercise in tedium (and an impossible one at that) were we to preface our discussions with disclaimers about their cultural bias or Euro-centrism.

I also note Mortal's comments:

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No one doubts their intelligence, or that what they set out to do, they did as well as it could be done; but in time their reputations were all eclipsed by other figures and their works were marginalized.

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and those of St Lukes:

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I also wonder about Kafka whose world view almost appears more iconic and to continue to resonate more than Joyce's.

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As a reader (to put it crudely - seeking a 'connection' with an author's work), it seems to me that Kafka is at present the more relevant, the more prescient of the two though obviously many authors still look to Joyce as a touchstone.

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Originally Posted by Modest Proposal

As I keep saying statistically English is very prevelant. Also, statistically, European languages tend to translate--somewhat--easily and quickly to other European languages. This means that the spectrum of Joyce's influence in some form or another would reach Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Russian and German audiences. I'm also sure that European and western hemisphere countries have a higher number of people whose secondary language at least affords them the reading of Joyce in some translation than most Eastern writers.

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For the sake of argument, say that you are right and English is the most common language in the world. Furthermore, let's allow your supposition that Joyce is the most influential writer in the given time period. Your point seems to be that mathematically, Joyce influenced the most people. Correct? But what you fail to take into account is that most people who read English won't read Joyce. He has a large pool of possible readers but a small slice of actual audience share.

Then we would have to dispute your definition of influential. Obviously, most people don't write anything like Joyce wrote now, nor did they ever. So his appeal has not penetrated to the mass media. Therefore, you must mean that he influenced other major writers such as Faulkner or Beckett. But wouldn't Pound be a more influential figure of the time influencing as he did Yeats, Eliot, Hemingway, Joyce, H.D., Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Ford Maddox Ford, and Wyndham Lewis?

However, on the surface of things, if influence is looked at in this manner it takes on a sort of skewed historicity. Is The Velvet Underground a more important band than The Beatles or The Rolling Stones just because the only people who heard their music started bands themselves? Does that even have anything to do with the quality of their music? To me, it looks like you are defining the importance of artists in a rather round about way to avoid the fact that Joyce has never been as popular as Hemingway, Faulkner, Eliot, Fitzgerald, or Steinbeck, among the masses or academics.

As far as your opinion that Nabokov is a better writer than all of the other Nobel Prize winners goes, that seems like the kind of opinion one would form after reading Lolita or Pale Fire as opposed to Glory, Laughter in the Dark, or Invitation to a Beheading. Then again, maybe you're just not reading the right volumes from the other writers works for a just comparison.

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However, on the surface of things, if influence is looked at in this manner it takes on a sort of skewed historicity. Is The Velvet Underground a more important band than The Beatles or The Rolling Stones just because the only people who heard their music started bands themselves? Does that even have anything to do with the quality of their music? To me, it looks like you are defining the importance of artists in a rather round about way to avoid the fact that Joyce has never been as popular as Hemingway, Faulkner, Eliot, Fitzgerald, or Steinbeck, among the masses or academics.

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That's a fair point and i think the influential artist, rightly or wrongly, is seen as more influential when he is 'avant garde.' Joyce gave the form a decent lurch forward so what he lacks in breadth he makes up for in intensity i suppose. We are on yielding ground when we start to quantify artist a's influence relative to artist b i think. Personally, the notion that the VU are as important as the Rolling Stones is not that outrageous. I don't agree, but I'm sure some wannabe hipster could make a decent case.

There are two Joycean styles. The experimental iconoclast who reaches his zenith ( or nadir) in Finnegan's Wake and the traditionalist iconoclast of Dubliners.

Jainitous started thread on Selma Lagerlöf in 2002(!). See http://www.online-literature.com/for...Selma-Lagerlof.

Another resurrected thread. Good to read it again even if one feels one's own contributions were largely invalid or no longer held.

Thats a paradoxical reply, ennison. Have you read anything by Selma Lagerlöf?

I was referring to this thread. Of Lagerlof I know nothing.

I think Ennison that she donated her Nobel prize to the Finns when the Commies invaded.

Can't find an Ennison who won the Nobel Prize??

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Originally Posted by Dreamwoven

Can't find an Ennison who won the Nobel Prize??

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I think you're confusing things. Eiseabhal said to ennison that Largerlöf donated her Nobel prize to Finland, as she indeed did donate the gold medal she had received. The actual prize money she used 30 years earlier to buy her childhood home.

Thanks, North Star, that cleared it up for me.

Yes, indeed Dreamwoven, I should have used at least one comma in that post to make it clearer. Thank you for interpreting it for me.

I wish they had Nobel prizes for the things I'm good at - digging drains, planting spuds. Note the dash and comma Eiseabhal. I can give you a lesson in punctuation if you cross my palm with siller. PS I think you meant to thank North Star not Dreamwoven!

Hah Pedant!

I prefer to consider myself accurate and succinct. Pedantry is something quite other.