the Greater Nomadic Council

Elfriede Jelinek's Nobel Prize

In a surprise decision that amazed even the author herself, the Austrian Elfriede Jelinek has been awarded the Nobel Prize. Whether or not she deserves it is beyond me, since I have never read her work. The only thing I have ever seen is the French film based on her novel "The Piano Teacher", which was disturbing but definitely worth watching.

The award has generated so little press that the first I heard of it was via a hateful and inaccurate (at least concerning Gunter Grass) Weekly Standard hatchet job. The writer, Stephen Schwartz, points out that Jelinek has recently written a play critical of US nationalism and that Jelinek was once a member of the Austrian Communist party. The Nobel Committee claims they were more impressed by the radical social critique and concern for the exploitation of women demonstrated in her earlier books. This is certainly at least half true, but I imagine there is a political component to the award as well. After all, the Nobel Committee is appointed by the Swedish parliament, which is currently controlled by left of center parties. She is also the first woman to receive the award in 8 years, which must have been a factor, as Jelinek herself acknowledges. In any case, Schwartz's reaction is probably typical of right-wing literary critics in the US, given Jelinek's political affiliations.

For myself, I don't have a problem with the fact that the Nobel Prize will be given out with political considerations in mind--and I don't think Stephen Schwartz does either, judging by the fact that he judges writers according to their politics. The Nobel Commitee has to strive for geographical distribution, they have to consider various struggles going on in the world, and they have to make decisions about what sort of writing is relevant, important, and interesting--all of which involve politics. And most importantly, one of the characteristics determining the greatness of a body of work is its continuing relevance. So it's not really surprising that the award this year has a political, socially critical tenor, especially with regard to consciousness about violence. The dean of German literary criticism, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, says he's "overjoyed" about such a bold decision in favor of an "extraordinarily extreme and radical author".

To some extent, this sort of decision might be seen as a palliative, or a response, to certain academic critics who view the Nobel Prize as a hopelessly bourgeois award, based on political considerations, that tends to pass over genius in favor of what is safe. Nevertheless, when I asked members of my own department whether they had heard of Jelinek prior to the Prize, the answer was a resounding no, although Der Spiegel reports that she has a certain cult following in the German-speaking world. Still, if avant-garde stylistic tendencies were the main consideration, then they could have gone with another Austrian, Thomas Bernhard, instead. Undoubtedly, political and strategic considerations went into the award.

Yet as far as I'm concerned, the very fact that the award is a non-story speaks to the folly of awarding the Nobel Prize to a little known avant-garde writer. I actually remember reading Ranicki a few months back, answering the question of what authors he felt were worthy of the prize, and whether German authors were among them. He said he didn't think a German had a fighting chance. It was his wish that the award would go to John Updike or Philip Roth, who obviously deserve it. It seemed a likely scenario, since no American has won since Toni Morrison in 1992.

Not only do both of these writers deserve it, but giving the award to either of them would constitute a real story--both here in America, but also abroad thanks to hard working translators and their (especially Roth's) popularity in Europe. Consider for a moment what a breath of fresh air a lively discussion of Philip Roth's work would be for this country--a body of work that encompasses the entire history of America since WWII and has dealt with the implications of psychoanalysis, modern notions of sexuality, political violence, Zionism, Utopianism, the position of the Jewish-American, the 60s and their aftermath, political correctness, identity politics, and so on. Roth may not be stridently or publicly anti-war like Jelinek, but the fact is, that's not what this country (and by extension the world) needs right now. No conservative is going to read Jelinek because she won the Noble Prize if all they know about her is her politics. When it comes to politics, literature is more helpful as a means of stepping back and having a discussion about who we are, how we came to be what we are, and whether the kind of moral, spiritual and psychological strategies we use actually work, which is the exactly the kind of discussion Roth and Updike's work could engender.

I can't get inside the minds of the Swedes. I just wish they would consider the political implications of the Prize more gravely, especially in a time when a Noble Prize for an American is long overdue :)