Giossue Carducci is as Italian as it is possible to be. The man came from a family of revolutionaries in Tuscany who abhorred separated rule (including the deeply revered Pope) and insisted on the chance for federal unity among Italian regions. Those strong opinions suffused his work, a massive collection of poems that revived some of the classical and pagan world but brought them to bear with more modern (for the time) language.
While Carducci was probably most honored to become a Senator with in Italy’s newly independent system, he was widely appreciated by the Nobel committees becoming a unanimous selection by the committee in 1906 (over the much more widely read Leo Tolstoy). He was cited most plainly for his “creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical voice”. He was buried in Bologna where he was a professor, and his tomb sits facing the stadium of Bologna FC (literally, one block away).
Works
Satan alone lives. He holds sway in the tremulous flash of some dark eye,
Or the eye which languidly turns and resists, or which, bright and moist, provokes, insists.
He shines in the bright blood of grapes, by which transient joy persists,
Which restores fleeting life, keeps grief at bay, and inspires us with love
You breathe, O Satan in my verses, when from my heart explodes a challenge to the god
Of wicked pontiffs, bloody kings; and like lightning you shock men’s minds.
–Hymn to Satan–
Message
Carducci was as political as he was poetic, and the citation for his “lyrical force” was a very considerate way of describing what sometimes feels like a diss-track master for the turn of the last century. If I were to sum up his message from the poems I read it would probably be something like: “F*** the system, bros…LIVE FOR THE NOW!!”
Position: #9 Striker
With this much aggression and energy, Carducci makes the most sense to me as a Striker, making him the first pre-1980 laureate I’ve put at the point of the attack. I’m aware that his legs have decayed a lot more than other options for the goal scorer, but Carducci’s old school style of doing what has long worked is a good match here. (Like Lucas Holer)
Abdulrazak Gurnah is one of only two black African authors to win the Nobel prize. Unlike the Nigerian Wole Soyinka, he was born and raised on the Eastern coast of the continent in the Sultanate of Zanzibar (part of present day Tanzania), but had to flee the country shortly after he finished his high school education due to an overthrow of the Islamic ruler of the island.
Displaced from his home, Gurnah was pushed into life as a refugee, in a moment that clearly shaped (but did not dictate) his work thereafter. He immersed himself into studies of literature and became a professor first in Nigeria and then at the University of Kent. Throughout this time he also wrote a small selection of lauded and awarded novels (though they weren’t considered big sellers) leading both him and others to believe the announcement of his name was “a prank” or “a joke”. But the Nobel truly did award him “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
Works
I read/listened to his latest novel: Theft, and liked it enough that I’m certainly planning on reading/listening to more later. A few key quotes I loved:
“Does beauty like hers make its own rules, disregarding responsibilities and duties?”
“What do these people (foreigners/tourists/volunteers) want with us? Why do they come here? They come here with their filth and their money and they interfere with us and ruin our lives for their pleasure, and it seems that we cannot resist their wealth and their filthy ways … Volunteer! You see them in their big new cars, bringing us their goodwill. They should stay in their own country and do their goodwill there.”
(This is as perfect an encapsulation of my old colleague’s claim that I and those like me were part of “the New Raj”)
Message
Obviously, as someone who spent several years teaching in post-colonial systems and studying the legacy of British colonialism, I’m biased…but fortunately, so is Gurnah, so we’ll get along fine. Impressively, if unsurprisingly, he doesn’t opt for a simple lesson about that flag planting frenzy, instead I’d say he turns a careful eye on the human scale of the shifts and argues colonialism’s legacy lives on in those with a will to power who adopt its lessons.
Position: #3 Left Back
Gurnah reminds me of a full back, he’s wide ranging, flexible and fluid, able to react to whatever is thrown at him. He often reacts to the world that is flung in his face, but he can still cut in and be dangerous in a way that echoes Tolstoy, Ishiguro, Jane Austen and Scotland star Andy Robertson (yes, I linked a Liverpool player to Leo Tolstoy and I stand by it!)
In another crass attempt to get someone to leave a comment on my posts, I’ll just point this out: Gurnah makes 4 Left Backs, but I only have 1 Right Back and 1 Left Winger…am I going to hard on the position I played back in my AYSO glory days? Or have I been fair to put progressive/socialist leaning players on the left?
Next Time (pingponging back from the most recent decade to the first one) 1906 Honoree–Giossue Carducci
Theodor Mommsen was born in Denmark and spent most of his life studying, teaching and living in Germany. While he advocated for progressive causes in the German legislature and took the controversial opinion of the time that Jewish people aren’t horrible monsters, he probably would have preferred to live elsewhere.
That elsewhere would be ancient Rome. Mommsen got a degree in Roman law. Became a professor of Roman history. Wrote a still cited book compendium of everything you ever wanted to know about Rome forever and even, once (according to some) had to be physically restrained from running into a burning building in order to retrieve documents related to…ROME.
As a historian, he is an unusual laureate, and, as with first ever winner Sully Prudhomme, a large segment of academics disliked that he was selected instead of Leo Tolstoy and Henrik Ibsen (who this time were at least nominated) for being “the greatest living master of the art of historical writing”. If Wikipedia (citing Nobel Prize historian Gustav Källstrand) is to be believed, the chairman of the time (Carl David af Wirsen) nixed the two better known candidates because they were “too radical”. Mommsen definitely was not radical…but he was cool enough to make Mark Twain turn into a fan boy.
Works
I will confess, I did not read Mommsen’s complete 7 volume history of Rome. (I probably would just poke the pages of Roman history with a long stick to try to save them…sorry Teddy.) But even the small samples I found were well worded and impressively thoughtful.
“The grandest system of civilization has its orbit, and may complete its course, but not so the human race, to which, just when it seems to have reached its goal, th eold task is ever set anew with a wider range and with a deeper meaning.”
“The great problem of man–how to live in conscious harmony with himself, with his neighbor, and with the whole to which he belongs–admits of as many solutions as their are provinces in our Father’s kingdom; and it is in this, and not in the material sphere, that individuals and nations display their divergence of character”
Message
I’m sure there’s more to it if I read more of the 7 volumes and the life’s work Mommsen dedicated to the Eternal City. Perhaps you could even see the parallels between his work and his progressive views (I was impressed that he took time to specify ways that Rome only reached its heights due to ancient tribes of India). But realistically, the primary message he seems to have is: “Did you know that Rome was super cool?” (Also that lets me link Mommsen to Momoa)
Position: #1 Goalkeeper
Mommsen’s traditional mindset and emphasis on the past aligned him with my other Goalkeepers in this project. He’s not a terribly adventurous guy (despite being politically progressive), so I likened him to some of the strongest shot-stopping keepers of his native Germany’s Bundesliga. While some folks might fan out about him, he’s more of an acquired taste and a deep cut from Nobel lore, so I put him in line with many of the good spot starters (rather than true stars of international soccer).
Next Time, we start off the 2026 class with one of the 2020 honorees we haven’t covered yet: Abdulrazak Gurnah
The most recent honoree for the Nobel Committee has been lauded as one of the best writers in the world for many years now. More than a few scholars have declared it being a matter of when, not if, he was honored (though, given how many “deserving” winners ended up medal-less, I’m more inclined to say that it was some very strident projecting).
But before the universal acclamation, Kraszhnahorkai was born in a small Hungarian village to a family of both Jewish and Transylvanian extraction. He grew up studying Latin and then Law under a repressive Soviet-aligned government. Though his dad was a lawyer, he pursued the law because he sought to emulate his favorite writer: Czech master, Franz Kafka. He witnessed tragedies during military service but still found power in art, both writing and playing in Jazz and Rock groups (apparently, he wanted to write like Franz Kafka, play like Thelonious Monk, and sing like Aretha Franklin…which is as wild a sentence to consider as it is to write).
After leaving the Law, he became a freelance writer, and then literary marvel in Hungary. As the Soviet Union broke apart, he was able to explore the world more widely, including long stays in Germany and New York City. In all of it he witnessed a great deal of suffering (like his Soviet-era youth) but remained optimistic and hopeful which clearly has gone on to influence his writing, so widely appreciated. Eventually, the critics were right and he did take home the laureate for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”
Works
Kraszhnahorkai has a wide range of work, most of which fits in the category of “door stops” aka books big enough to keep doors open. As an added bonus, most of those massive tomes are also one sentence that ebbs and flows through any number of phrases and ideas. So reading a whole work in a month was a little beyond my abilities, but I did get through a number of essays/stories/prose poems in the collection The World Goes On, here now, a few select quotes (all translated by John Bakti)
“We are in the midst of a cynical self-reckoning as the not-too-illustirous children of a not-too-illustrious epoch that will consider itself truly fulfilled when every individual writhing in it…will finally attain the sad and temperorarily self evident goal: oblivion.”
–He Wants to Forget
“The most lasting and most profound melancholy springs from love.”
–Universal Theseus (Pt. 1)
“Good can never catch up with evil, because, with the gap between good and evil, there is no hope whatsoever”
–Universal Theseus (Pt. 2)
BONUS QUOTE! (Luckily found this within three random tries to flip pages in one doorstop)
The inspiration of Krasznahorkai’s Dante
[When a conniving schemer asks to be called “Dante” another character challenges him as that is too synonymous with the famous Italian poet, but the schemer defends himself…thusly]
“getting over his surprise in one brief moment interrupted him, saying that the Baron shouldn’t think that he was speaking about a nobody here, Bayern Munchen was one of the world’s greatest teams, if not the greatest, certainly he must of heard of them–well never mind, that’s not important, the self-designated secretary interrupted, the main thing was that he proudly bore the name of Dante, because the Dante who played for Bayern Munchen, you could say, had reached his peak, and for him–he pointed at himself–such a comparison could only be advantageous, nameely it expressed that within his own realm of endeavor (the colorful world of slot machines) he himself was regarded as an expert…[the poet] didn’t matter at all, the secretary quickly replied because according to many, his Dante was the greatest rearguard ever.”
–p. 137 Baron von Weckenheim’s Homecoming (trans. Ottilie Mulzet)
Message
As the committee mentioned in their citation, Kraszhnahorkai is a master of the apocalypse, but it’s not so much about the desolate wasteland of that future, it’s the existential dread that accompanies our quickly evolving, increasingly threatening modern world. He does a fine job of capturing the fear that comes within our modern global society, but (despite the often dire quotes that I selected above) balances it beautifully with artistic sincerity. Even in a time of unprecedented disaster and terror, there is–and always will be–beauty.
Position: #6
I went back and forth on this position for a while. John Fosse and Han Kang fit what I imagine to be literary equivalents of Box-to-Box midfielders, and Kraszhnahorkai has some clear similarities to those recent honorees, running the gamut of emotions through writing that ebbs and flows as well. But the apocalyptic parts of his work led me to position him more defensively (though not as far back as the “Dante” who is now immortalized in the quote I lucked upon).
I’m putting Kraszhnahorkai in as a Defensive Midfielder. He is absolutely able to dwell on defensive destruction, but there’s a silver lining there that suggests that he knows that such destruction has its own value and (here’s that word again) beauty.
I’m definitely not done reading Kraszhnahorkai (just like I’m still working on this literal doorstop I’m having for lunch), and you can jump in the mix too! I have an additional outpost of nerdery over on Fable, and have a book club for people who love high-falutin literature discussed in decidedly non-high falutin’ language: Nobel, No Bull. Come join us and try to read some Kraszhnahorkai.
Next Time (I’m going to finally do it…[deep breath]…monthly posts)-In December, roll back the clocks and let’s talk about Theodor Mommsen (1902’s winner)
In just over a week, the Nobel committee will announce the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature. Just like last year, the honoree will join an elite group of writers from around the world, and a small selection of those writers who we have read, reviewed, and classified as members of Nobel FC: The only Fantasy Football team where the Fantasy is that these people would spend a bunch of free time together playing soccer rather than, you know, talking about books.
Here now is my third annual prep-blogpost for the prize. If you need an explainer on “sports drafts” (book nerds) or “who decides the Nobel Prize for Literature” (sports nerds) take a look at my posts from years gone by and you should be better informed.
So Who Could be “Drafted” This Year?
While about 2 million people published books in the last year alone, the field probably isn’t quite that big: instead eagle-eyed sleuths and prognosticators have developed a system for scrupulously combing the Swedish Academy’s Library databases to find some likely candidates. After reviewing both betting odds and the message boards at worldliteratureforum.com, I am ready to toss out the following 11 candidates based on my own gut instincts.
Last year’s 11 now off the list:
First, the sad news: Ngui Wa Thiong’o of Kenya, who had appeared on the last two lists passed away in May of this year. He was a rare author who wrote in his native African langauge, and was widely beloved. Another African writer who never gained a lot of traction but wrote one of my all time favorite plays Master Harold and The Boys, Athol Fugard of South Africa passed away as well.
Additionally, even though last year’s winner, Han Kang was not on my radar, she still has a clear effect on this list. While betting favorite Can Xue still tops the odds list, it would be extremely unusual for the Nobel to reward the same area (other than Europe) in back-to-back years, and the committee has a recently established streak of awarding things in the same boy, girl, boy, girl order so beloved by Elementary School Gym Teachers. So while Xue was my “will win” pick last year, she’s not even in the top 11 candidates this year. Ditto the popular but similarly geographically disadvantaged Haruki Murakami (sorry millions of people who buy his books, this isn’t about popularity.)
Leading Candidates:
As mentioned above, there’s a clear Boy/Girl/Boy/Girl pattern going on in Sweden’s salons, and while this is vastly preferable to a 25 year jag of nothing but dudes, it does impact the perception of the award. Given the recent parity, the most buzzy names this year belong to men. But the question is what region the Academy will recognize.
Many feel that after adding in a token Asian writer, they will return to familiar European ground while adding linguistic diversity. In that vein, the most likely laureates would probably be Romanian novelist Mircea Cartarescu or Hungary’s Laszlo Krasznahorkai (who is a new name on our list) and seems to be consistently buzzed about as a guaranteed future winner. After reading short-stories from each, these writers struck me as similar to Jon Fosse, though Cartacescu felt more estranged from reality, and Krasznahorkai seemed truly depressing. Europeans are usually a good bet, but I’m not sold.
The other option would be to keep globetrotting and approaching a few regions that could use some more love. For example: the Arab world is often overlooked as a slice of land that’s not quite Asia but not quite Africa either. There hasn’t been a winner from the Arab world since 1988, so Syrian poet and frequent betting pool favorite Adonis (aka Ali Ahmad Said Esber) would make a lot of sense as an overdue honoree. What I’ve read of Adonis has made me think his style is a good match with other recent winners (very fluid and stream of conscious) but less dark and dire than other writers I’ve named. At 95, it’s hard to tell if the Academy will deem him too old to travel for the prize or be motivated to finally give it to him.
But you can also make the case that no Australian has ever won (Sure, Patrick White (1973) lived there, but given his upper-crust English heritage and education…that’s a selective choice). Gerald Murnane has popped up on several lists as a worthy and true Aussie, fair dinkum. I finished his A Season on Earth a month or so ago and found his interior monologue reverie style to be perfectly in keeping with recent winners even if some passages grated like an overwrought Holden Caufield.
Other Candidates
The final region worth mentioning would be the Hispanophone world. As South America and the Spanish language has not seen a winner since 2010, they fit “geographic region rotation” logic. But I’m struggling to see a consensus winner. Two writers in the top 5 of betting pools fit the bill, but as one’s a woman and the other’s from Spain, I’m going to look elsewhere. One buzzy candidate at longer odds is Argentina’s Cesar Aira. He was kept in the wings of my list last year, but I’m adding him in this year after finding some kooky and odd bits in his writing (which apparently, he never edits…which is a look). And while I considered dropping Homero Aridjis, a widely appreciated poet/environmentalist from Mexico who is even farther down the odds list, I’ve grown too fond of him in my three years of this project (but I freely acknowledge that’s more my stubbornness than popular opinion).
Rushdie would be a popular and thus, unlikely pick
Without Murakami on the list, the biggest name out there is probably Slaman Rushdie despite his recent decline in critical acclimations, a career retrospective award could make sense (see Hemmingway, Ernest). Thomas Pynchon‘s another name from the New York Times’ Best Seller list (and above Rushdie in many of the betting pools) but as I actually read a work of his this year (Inherent Vice) I’m wildly underwhelmed and certainly won’t put him in my top choices.
The same could be said of other writers recently on top of the pools who have fallen a bit but can’t be totally discounted. Canadian Anne Carson has a broad appeal and parcel of awards while anti-Putin Russian author Lyudmila Ulitskaya may have faded from public consciousness as the autocrat digs in but remains a powerful read. (I read Ulitskaya’s Funeral Party this year and found it a great distillation of expatriate experiences (“[The USA] hated suffering; it rejected it ontologically, admitting it only as an instant which must be instantly eradicated“) full of funny jabs at home culture (“the finest monument to Soviet power was an empty pedestal“) and romantic foibles (“over time the small sums [she loaned her lover] grew unnoticed, like children“). Her slide may be owed to her gender, or the less lyrical, florid style that has been popular among recent winners, but I still want to shout her out.
After compiling a list of likely candidates who match the common leading contender profiles, I’m opting for Caribbean author Caryl Phillips whose fluid writing touches on a wide array of topics and especially delves into issues of race. One factor that’s also worth noting, locals who share the Swedish academy’s library reported that suddenly Phillips’ works were all checked out at once…perhaps because he was being seriously considered for the prize.
Left Out of the Line up (no points to me if they win)
Injured–have been in the 11, but aren’t there now: Can Xue, Haruki Murakami, Pierre Michon, Helene Cixous
On Bench: Good writers widely recognized (and highly touted by the odds) that I haven’t included yet Michael Oondjaate, Peter Nadas, Colm Tobin, Cristina Rivera Garza, Enrique Vila-Matas, Vladimir Sorokin, Botho Strauss, David Grossman, Antonio Lobo Antunes, Ibrahim Al Koni and Tahar Ben Jelloun.
On Loan: Names that might make big noise soon, but are still betting pool long shots: Louise Erdrich, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Percival Everett, Yan Lianke, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Javier Cercas
Analysis: Who will it be? Who should it be?
In articles analysing a team’s draft-day decisions, writers look at two things. What they think the team leaders will do, and what the author themselves would do if they had a chance.
This year I’ve made an effort to expand my reading of the potential honorees going through whole books by a few (Thomas Pynchon, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Javier Cercas, and Gerald Murnane) and here is my earnest evaluation.
The Academy Will Pick
The last two years I’ve done this, the Swedish Academy has continued to prioritize authors with something artistic to offer in their work, primarily through stream of conscious and fluid prose poetry. They have also been doggedly consistent in their “boy/girl” alternating since 2017, and while they could truly drive to parity by picking only women for the next 87 years, I don’t see that happening now.
So I think they will pick: Syrian Poet Adonis. I think his writing speaks for itself, and he has long been considered a contender for the prize which arguably makes this an overdue award. At the same time, I don’t think it’s just a matter of finally throwing him a bone. Politically the moment is ripe with Syria emerging from a dictatorship, and a 95 year old with a broad and significant body of work balancing out 53 year old Han Kang’s win for youthful promise.
I’m not quite so hidebound as the committee and I’d really rather prioritize looking beyond the common-sphere of Nobel winners (ie Western Europe/America and white men). A more diverse writer with a point of view that connects to the wider world would be the ideal for me. Artistry is something I think lies in the eye of the beholder, so better to be clear than artful in my eyes.
As time in this project has gone on, I’ve come to accept that I’m a bit of a Basic Bookworm, with little tolerance for artistic writing for art’s sake. I prefer clarity and focus in writing, and so, even though he’s been entrenched for two years as my best writer available, I’m standing with Homero Aridjis. Come at me.
Honorable Mentions: Salman Rushdie (I still think of him as an Indian writer despite his increasingly American identity) and Caryl Phillips
Chaos Pick
Here’s a totally left field suggestion: Japanese animator/story teller: Hayao Miyazaki. Plenty of folks will get up in arms about a film maker and an artist getting awarded, but if literature is “written work” not “published books”–then he counts. Add in his fierce opposition to AI and he could be a bit of a statement (even if he would double up East Asia’s wins)
Who would you pick?
Leave a comment below, please, there’s dozens of you who will talk about this, so I’m just going to keep begging for you to comment with your pick.
Next Time…I rush to judgement on whomever our winner is László Krasznahorkai
Given the repetition of 11s in this site, I wanted to see how soon I can hit 11 points with
5 points if I correctly predict either on the *will win*, should win, or chaos pick
2 points if they’re on either “honorable mentions” list
1 if they’re in my 11 top candidates—Krasznahorkai fits here so 1 more point to me
Nonsense Point total: (was) 2/11… (now) 3/11
For an added Challenge, I’m also going to award points to the Universe for the other side of the coin
1 point if the winner is in one of my “left out of the line up” lists
2 points if they aren’t on that list but are within 25/1 on the odds
5 points if they are outside of 25/1 odds
…and since I got points for 2023 and 2025, I shouldn’t omit 2024’s winner. So congrats Universe, the unexpected Han Kang pick nets you 5 points and gives you the lead…for now.
You can join in this too! I will keep pleading for comments until I get them.
The first winner of the Nobel Prize in literature lived his whole life in Paris, where he spent time studying to be an engineer, working in a steel foundry, and writing poetry. He struggled with his eye sight after serving in the war and had to turn his career goals to arts and philosophy. Good news, that sure look like it worked out.
Well…up to a point. Prudhomme’s inaugural win has remained a controversial one as he suffers from the incurable case of not being Leo Tolstoy, a case that infuriated a wide range of Swedish intellectuals and prompted accusations that the Swedish Academy just wanted to butter up the French one. Yes, Leo Tolstoy is a master of novels and an absolute game changer of a writer…but he also wasn’t officially nominated, which makes winning tricky. So, Prudhomme has the distinction of being the first winner because his work has “evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect.”
Works
The vase where this verbena is dying was cracked by a blow from a fan. It must have barely brushed it, for it made no sound.
But the slight wound, biting into the crystal day by day, surely, invisibly crept slowly all around it.
The clear water leaked out drop by drop. The flowers’ sap was exhausted. Still no one suspected anything. Don’t touch! It’s broken.
Thus often does the hand we love, barely touching the heart, wound it. Then the heart cracks by itself and the flower of its love dies.
–Broken Vase
Ma premiere lecon d’histoire mon premier pas vers l’infini
My first history lesson My first step towards infinity
–The Alphabet (Prudhomme’s thoughts about an old Alphabet reader…we found that reader! (not really))
Songez que nous chantions les fleurs et les amours Dans un age plien d’ombre, au mortel bruit des armes, Pour des coeurs anxieux que ce bruit rendait sourds;
Lors plaignez nos chansons, ou tremblaient tant d’alarmes Vous qui, mieux ecoutes, ferez en d’heureux jours Sur de plus haut objet des poemes sans larmes.
–Aux poetes futurs (To future poets)
Message
Alright, it’s gotta be said: Prudhomme is not Leo Tolstoy. His writing isn’t as good as Tolstoy’s, but the fact that nobody remembers him and there are still full careers built off studying Tolstoy, suggests that maybe winning a Nobel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Still, Prudhomme is the one who won, so Prudhomme gets a write up and Tolstoy doesn’t.
As such, Prudhomme provides pretty simple and direct lesson: what we write thrives on what we love.
Position: #4 Center Back
Prudhomme is clearly a pretty traditional poet. His writing is simple and genuine. He thrives on emotion and romance, while doing all the traditional things you’d expect of a poet. While many have said that he is not worthy in contrast to Tolstoy, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who was. He sure looks plenty worthy in comparison with some other writers I’ve put in the defensive line…well enough that just being a standard Ligue 2 Center Back (a Loic Nestor, if you will) he automatically becomes a starter for our 4-4-2 formation.
Next Time, we gear up for this year’s award winner with our annual preview post! Like a mock draft…but somehow nerdier.
Harold Pinter grew up in a thoroughly middle-class family, but like most kids in London fell in love with an active and physical sports scene. Unfortunately for the purpose of this Soccer/Literature/Life Lesson mash-up of a blog, he was more deeply invested in Cricket. (Don’t worry, I will not try to squeeze Nobel winners onto a Cricket side…although maybe if I get my head around enough Booker Prize winners…)
Pinter’s physicality and directness translated pretty clearly into his work. He started as an actor, then became a writer, and ultimately seemed to do just about everything there was to do in putting on a show short of selling salted nuts at intermission. His wide and varied work became a critical building block for modern drama and ultimately earned him the Nobel in 2005 for how his work “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”
Works
Ben: If I say go and light the kettle I mean go and light the kettle. Gus: How can you light a kettle? Ben: It’s a figure of speech! Light the kettle. It’s a figure of speech! Gus: I’ve never heard it…I think you’ve got it wrong…They say put on the kettle.
–The Dumbwaiter
Hey! A bunch of superhero actors in a production of Harold Pinter! (Charlie Cox (L) would deliver this line)
Jerry: Listen to me [Emma]. It’s true. Listen. You overwhelm me. You’re so lovely. You’re so beautiful. Look at the way you’re looking at me. Look at the way you’re looking at me. I can’t wait for you. I’m bowled over, I’m totally knocked out, you dazzle me, you jewel, my jewel, I can’t ever sleep again, no, listen, it’s the truth, I won’t walk, I’ll be a cripple, I’ll descend, I’ll diminish, into total paralysis, my life is in your hands, that’s what you’re banishing me to, a state of catatonia, do you know the state of catatonia? Do you? Do you? The state of … where the reigning prince is the prince of emptiness, the prince of absence, the prince of desolation.
–Betrayal
We blew them into f***ing sh** They are eating it.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew their ****s into shards of dust, Into shards of f***ing dust.
We did it.
Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth”
–American Football
Message
Pinter is absolutely political, incisive, and direct. Yet he also revels in silences, quiet, and absurdist humor. There are no shortage of lessons and influences that he has had in theater and film. To pick one key lesson from the many on offer, I feel a clear resonance with the idea that what we say, and what we omit is both our greatest weapon and our only defense.
Position: #9 Striker
While I hate to disagree with a very funny Vice article that connects Pinter to legendary defensive manager/egomaniac Jose Mourinho (while also taking a swipe at Manchester City as the Andrew Lloyd Weber of British Soccer), to me Pinter is absolutely an attacking player. Unlike many other dramatists who I have slotted into the creative midfield role, Pinter’s sharpness and wit (and less overt reliance on stage directions to manipulate every moment of the story) feels more appropriate for a striker. I had a brief pause considering how frequently he enjoys leaving out clear endings (given that striker goals are always a clear end point), but perhaps he’s more of a chaos agent striker (like Diego Costa or Darwin Nunez). (84-88?)
Next Time, I’m feeling like I’m on such a role, let’s knock off some laureates I’ve missed!! Let’s read the OG Nobel Winner: Sully Prudhomme!
I’ve been having a hard time lately with Alex’s newly found favorite game.
Every time there’s a deck of cards at hand, or a parent without a clear chore in hand, or a new person walking in the room Alex will ask: “Do you want to play a game of War?”
Dear Kids,
War is a perfectly fine card game. It is not quite the test of skill and strategy Alex seems to think it is. There’s a lot more luck and circumstance that influences the outcome (even if you are a seven year old who will carefully stack the deck–without admitting it). And the game can just drag on into eternity if you’re not careful with absolutely no one winning.
And so, I realized for the first time in forty-two years on the planet: the game truly is war.
It’s been a bloody year. The war in Ukraine drags on. The war in Gaza batters people pleading for help. There was a staggering 12 day battle in Iran that ended suddenly (and may restart just as suddenly). All that and there continues to be simmering conflicts that draw little international attention in Sudan, Haiti, Myanmar, Congo, Kenya, and Ecuador. These wars are brutal and bloody affairs that have their origins long before even your grandparents were born.
There are some leaders who try to stack the deck in their favor, only to have it all come undone due to unforeseen circumstances: from the weather to promises of hotels. All of the beliefs of childhood, that there is a way to win the war (in card games, in nerf gun battles, in anything) are woefully mistaken. All the simplicity of good versus bad, right versus wrong, Jedi versus Sith that guide you kids in your understanding of conflict, is just not viable.
The Nobel Prize Laureates I’ve been reading get that. Again and again they revisit the theme that all war is unjust, all war is cruel, all war is random. From Bertha Von Suttner and George Bernard Shaw up to Harold Pinter and Elfriede Jelinek, it’s just danger and violence and then it repeats all over again.
This is where measured and sane sports coaches are a welcome distraction. Freiburg’s Christian Streich and Julian Schuster always made plain that they cared about the safety and well being of people in dangerous areas, and that they held no grudges or animosity against their opponents on the field. Minnesota’s Eric Ramsay, Montana’s Chris Citowiki, they both acknowledge the hard work that their team puts in to win, not the deplorable opponents. This spring saw the end of Big Ange Postecoglou’s run at a top English team, and through it all he was considerate and mindful of the other side and his own (maybe not as much the press, but…c’est la vie).
There are so many ways to play at War. And I know that the looming presence of shoot-em-up video games will add another layer of this. I know that politicians and media and historians love to dig in to the stratagems and offensives to assign medals and blame. I know that comforting narrative makes it easy to decide that War is a good way to show your intelligence, bravery, and worth.
But I hope you listen to the poets. I hope you listen to (some) of the coaches. I hope you listen to the victims: War harms us all.
Claude Simon was born in Madagascar, but is clearly French through and through. His family was part of the colonial service in Africa and returned to France after his father’s death for his education. Simon showed a great aptitude and studied in Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge. But not being satisfied with an academic life, Simon travelled to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War, and then joined the French Army at the outbreak of World War II.
His experiences with war and death deeply affected and influenced his writing. He is often cited as a prime example of the French Nouveau Roman (or new novel) which emphasized clear chronological story telling with distinct narrators. (That influential style has garnered a sizeable number of awards and multiple Nobels.) Simon’s Nobel citation specifically mentioned how he, “combines the poet’s and the painter’s creativeness with a deepened awareness of time in the depiction of the human condition.”
Works
I read his most popular novel: The Flanders Road (or La Route des Flanders) a hefty tome with Simon’s trademark “1,000 word sentences” (That’s not an exaggeration…maybe its an understatement). Here were a few pieces that stood out.
“..war and commerce had always been–one as much as the other–merely the expression of [people’s] rapacity and that rapacity itself was the consequence of the ancestral terror of hunger and death, which meant that killing robbing pillaging and selling were actually only one and the same thing a simple need the need to reassure onesself, like children whistling or singing loud to keep their courage up crossing through the woods at night…”–p. 40
“The turf was speckled and soiled by thousands of betting tickets lost like so many tiny stillborn corpses of dreams and hopes (the marriage not of heaven and earth but of earth and man, leaving it soiled by the persistence of that residue, of that kind of giant and fetal pollution of tiny furiously torn scraps of paper), long after the last hose had kicked up the last clod of turf and had left”—p. 159
Message
It’s been awfully hard to understand much of Simon’s writing as it dwelled on parentheticals and prepositions so much that Flanders Road seems to mostly consist of digressions about how cool horses are. But mixing that with the absurdity of war and more than a little reflection on relationships (both familial and romantic) I’d say he’s taking a position that: attempts to control (others, nature, war) are futile.
(Hopefully he would appreciate the parenthetical in my answer there.)
Position: #3 Left Back
Claude Simon is another entry in an increasingly common trend that I’ve noticed in these reading assignments: chaotic energy and the fullback position.
Like Elfriede Jelinek, he is prone to the mass of text shoveled together, and a combination of ruthless aggression and aimless meandering that would suit a player who pushes up with the attack and charges back when needed. The biggest difference I see between Simon and others like him (including Frederic Mistral and Johannes Jennsen) is that his moments of brilliance are more random and less coherent, while his other work seems more likely to induce disbelief and confusion rather than joy or appreciation.
So let’s hear from our Nouveau Roman afficianados. What makes Simon so stellar? Am I right to see him as a more random Samuel Beckett, or is there a method to his madness? Oh and fullbacks of the world, you can also chime in to tell me if I’ve misunderstood your position…or you’d rather be compared with some traditional poetry instead of the chaos agents I’ve assigned you thus far.
Mikhail Sholokov is another in the long line of Eastern European writers who I had never heard about before starting this project because, well, that’s how Western education rolls. Sholokov was born in a rural portion of Russia known as “the Don” after the local river. That was about all he seemed to need in life. He fought in the army, made powerful friends, but his life and his work eternally revolved around his humble farmland beginnings and everyone around him.
However, those powerful friends and patrons push him into a slightly different realm that he might have liked. One of Sholokov’s friends was Joseph Stalin (who made time for some light reading while organizing a despotic regime that murdered approximately 9 Million critics and opponents). Sholokov used his influence with old Joe to earn concessions for his community, justice for persecuted neighbors, and punishment for the corrupt (and in one case–defending the local XI from having their best player abducted by CSKA Moscow). However, he didn’t exactly kick up a fuss about the wider injustices (if it wasn’t in the Don, for Sholokov, it wasn’t on). It’s hard to tell whether his closeness with Stalin encouraged soviet government, newspapers and schools to lift him up to the position of a laureate, or if those who opposed Stalin kept him off of shelves and confined to a controversial corner where he was accused of plagiarism.
Either way, Sholokov won the 1965 Nobel Prize for giving “expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people” through his work Quiet Flows the Don.
Works
From “Family Man” a short story of a father who fought with the Tsar’s forces against his own sons who had left home to join the Soviets. In this scene, the father Mikishara narrates what happens when he finds his son as a prisoner of war among his own battalion.
I did watch the movie…and as a former student said, “yeah, you didn’t miss much”
“The Cossacks roar with laughter.
” ‘Make them soak in their own blood Mikishara! It is obvious you’re taking pity on him, on your own Danilka. Strike him again or we’ll make your blood flow!’
“The captain came out on the porch; he was swearing but his eyes were laughing. When they began to slash them with their bayonets, my heart couldn’t bear it. I started running down the street. I looked back and saw them rolling my Danilushka on the ground. The sergeant stuck his bayonet in his throat but only Khrr came out”
Message
In both his work and his life, Sholokov’s devotion and dedication to Cossaks on the Don (both good and bad) brings to mind so many specifics that outsiders are left only to observe and ponder the culture. If I were to extrapolate that out into a message I might say “Live locally. It’s the immediate that matters.”
Position: #4 Center Back
There’s a lot in the plot of Quiet Flows the Don that reminds me of Tolstoy’s epics, albeit without the bourgeoise or occasional redeeming features of the protagonist. To be fair, I watched the 1957 adaptation rather than reading the book, but in small selections and a conversation with a former Russian student it sure seems to be an accurate adaptation of both tone and characters. With that Tolstoy-lite label and the uncertainty over his authorship or willingness to approve of Stalin’s worst traits, I’m left shrugging. Sholokov would clearly care about defending his territory, but he also seems like a player who has the unswerving allegiance of the coach without a whole lot of reason why.
So there you have it, an ultra HOT TAKE (about an author who has been dead for forty years). Feel free to challenge me in the comments below. (Also, I know that my numbers/colors aren’t matching for Sholokov…but until such time as someone tells me it matters, I’m going to show myself some grace and let it be)
Next Time, 1985 Honoree Claude Simon
Hooray a representative of Africa! And he’s…no…wait…white again.
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MacKenzie's Boot Room 