[net.books] Non-Nobelists

andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews) (03/05/86)

In article <1361@mtuxo.UUCP> nobi@mtuxo.UUCP (m.juliar) writes:
>Bringing up Nabokov makes me wonder: What other de facto giants
>of 20th century literature never received a Nobel prize?  Kafka, 
>Joyce, Proust, and Cherdyntsev-Goudonov immediately come to mind.

     Nabokov and Joyce may have been overlooked because of the
"controversiality" of their greatest works.  (The Nobel Committee
is nothing if not cautious.)  Nabokov was also not well-loved by
everyone, and constantly took pot-shots at critics, criticism, and
academia in his books.
     As for Kafka, he was almost unknown until after his death,
when his executor published several of his works instead of
burning them, as he had requested.  The "living" requirement would
therefore seem to apply.

--Jamie.
...!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"I have only words to play with"

mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (03/10/86)

I remember thinking this sort of thing in 1969 and always starting the
list with "For instance, they probably think he's too `negative'
so they'll never give it to Beckett..."
-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar