Nobel Prize for mediocrity goes to . . .

The 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature recently went to Harold Pinter, the British playwright who in recent years has been best known as a vocal critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq war.
Pinter might be deserving (although critics generally agree that in recent decades his work has been mediocre at best), but once again, the choice and timing support those who say the Swedish Academy picks are predictably political and left-leaning.
That argument aside, the Nobel Prize for literature has always seemed overhyped and suspect to me. The Nobel committee often fails to recognize true giants. Surely you can’t argue that Pinter and Pearl S. Buck (another winner) are greater writers than, say, Borges or Nabokov (neither of whom won).
Posted by Randy Scholfield

5 Comments

  1. Brian
    Posted October 24, 2005 at 3:47 am | Permalink

    Academy selections may indeed have political overtones to them but that doesn’t of itself invalidate a candidate from consideration.

    I don’t know Mr. Pinter’s work. But to claim he isn’t deserving because his recent output has not been up to the standards of his earlier output or because he is a vocal opponent of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair is a very weak argument. It is the body of his work that is and should be considered.

    Albert Einstein might also be considered another laureate whose later work was nowhere near the quality of that found in the papers he published between 1905 and 1921. Does that invalidate the brilliance of those early papers? Isn’t an achievement like the general and special theories of relativity enough for one lifetime?

    As far as great and deserving people not receiving a Nobel, all I can say is – that’s tough. The Nobel awards go to perhaps three individuals in a given subject in a given year. There are certainly many more than 3 people each year who have contributed substantially to the expansion of human knowledge or the improvement of the human condition and who could legitimately be considered for a Nobel prize. That being the case, some persons will win and some will lose. I would think that being nominated should be “prize” enough.

    I have to say that

  2. Joe Williams
    Posted October 24, 2005 at 8:50 am | Permalink

    Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize before. Hitler was proposed to win a Nobel Peace Prize back in 1934.

  3. TRACY
    Posted October 24, 2005 at 2:37 pm | Permalink

    I feel entitled to a mediocre blogger award.

  4. Brian
    Posted October 24, 2005 at 3:35 pm | Permalink

    Tracy,

    I’ve nominated you for an ig-Nobel prize..congrats and good luck !!

  5. TRACY
    Posted October 24, 2005 at 3:45 pm | Permalink

    I shall be promoted to my level of incomp-uh-tents.