Ah, yes, as Nobel season approaches it's time for concerns like these: at People's Daily Online they wonder When can Chinese shed 'Nobel Prize complex' ? -- asking:
Cruelly taunting them, I note that China has had two Nobel laureates -- okay, it's simply mean to saddle them with 1938 winner Pearl S. Buck (even though she won: "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces" ...), but 2000 winner Gao Xingjian is a bona fide (if disowned ...) Chinese writer through and through (the occasional written-in-French work notwithstanding ...). And they even gave him the prize: "for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama"-- paths that, however, do not seem to have been embraced and followed back home.
The problem is, of course, not that a Chinese author hasn't been honored with the Nobel, but rather that the right kind of Chinese author hasn't been honored. (Hey, Julia Lovell wrote a whole book about this Chinese hang-up, The Politics of Cultural Capital.)
Alltaunting joking aside, the Chinese could do worse than embrace Buck, whose Nobel lecture seems right in line with the official party line.
She acknowledges: "it is the Chinese and not the American novel which has shaped my own efforts in writing" -- and explains:
Of course, the Chinese aren't the only ones with a Nobel-inferiority complex -- recall two weeks ago I mentioned a misguided Indian Nobel campaign, and nationals from many other countries complain equally bitterly.
Meanwhile, in Nobel watching, the Ladbrokes odds have remained largely unchanged -- the exceptions being ... Bob Dylan (his odds down to 10/1, making him the second favorite -- if you know anyone who has actually generously donated money to Ladbrokes by 'betting' on him please try to get them professional help, either from a psychiatrist or an accountant ...) and Tom Stoppard, who is down to 16/1 (from opening odds of 66/1). Remember that final deliberations for the winner have not yet begun -- and won't for two more weeks; new names and odds-changes might indicate some information about who is on the shortlist, but given that Harold Pinter won only a few years ago I have my doubts another British playwright is already back in the running, and as far as Dylan goes ... oh, get serious people: he is not in the running, never has been, never will be.
Why does China, a country with an ancient civilization and world's large population, always miss the Nobel Prize for Literature ? How can the Chinese literature be ignored and pushed to the edge of the world literature since the Chinese economy had a significant impact on the world and Chinese culture is loved by the people of many countries ?Ah, yes, why and how indeed ?
Cruelly taunting them, I note that China has had two Nobel laureates -- okay, it's simply mean to saddle them with 1938 winner Pearl S. Buck (even though she won: "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces" ...), but 2000 winner Gao Xingjian is a bona fide (if disowned ...) Chinese writer through and through (the occasional written-in-French work notwithstanding ...). And they even gave him the prize: "for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama"-- paths that, however, do not seem to have been embraced and followed back home.
The problem is, of course, not that a Chinese author hasn't been honored with the Nobel, but rather that the right kind of Chinese author hasn't been honored. (Hey, Julia Lovell wrote a whole book about this Chinese hang-up, The Politics of Cultural Capital.)
All
When I say Chinese novel, I mean the indigenous Chinese novel, and not that hybrid product, the novels of modern Chinese writers who have been too strongly under foreign influence while they were yet ignorant of the riches of their own country.(Which I imagine is what officialdom there says about Gao Xingjian .....)
Of course, the Chinese aren't the only ones with a Nobel-inferiority complex -- recall two weeks ago I mentioned a misguided Indian Nobel campaign, and nationals from many other countries complain equally bitterly.
Meanwhile, in Nobel watching, the Ladbrokes odds have remained largely unchanged -- the exceptions being ... Bob Dylan (his odds down to 10/1, making him the second favorite -- if you know anyone who has actually generously donated money to Ladbrokes by 'betting' on him please try to get them professional help, either from a psychiatrist or an accountant ...) and Tom Stoppard, who is down to 16/1 (from opening odds of 66/1). Remember that final deliberations for the winner have not yet begun -- and won't for two more weeks; new names and odds-changes might indicate some information about who is on the shortlist, but given that Harold Pinter won only a few years ago I have my doubts another British playwright is already back in the running, and as far as Dylan goes ... oh, get serious people: he is not in the running, never has been, never will be.