The Nobel archives remain sealed for fifty years -- but then ! on the first of January (well, the second, this year) ! another year's deliberations are opened up to public scrutiny -- and the secrets are revealed !
The 1961 Nobel Prize in literature went to Ivo Andrić -- apparently a pretty pre-determined choice. But Andreas Ekström -- the first to really root around in the archives this year -- reports in Sydsvenskan that Greene tvåa på listan 1961 !
Yes, apparently Graham Greene was the runner-up that year -- with Karen Blixen the third choice. Of course, among the others in the mix was ... J.R.R.Tolkien ? (Naturally not taken very seriously -- but amusing to see that C.S.Lewis was the one to nominate him).
In The Local they have more about the Secrets behind the 1961 Nobel prize in Literature revealed -- along with a(n annoying) gallery of choice quotes about the rejects. Others in the discussion included Lawrence Durrell (whose "monomaniacal preoccupation with erotic complications" apparently was no help, but now makes me eager to seek his work out ...), Alberto Moravia (who: "suffers from schematism in the characterization and a general monotony"), Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and Robert Frost -- who, at 86, was apparently just too damn old.
It's Friedrich Dürrenmatt who -- beside the ridiculous idea of Tolkien being Nobel-worthy -- most surprises me -- and if he was a 1961-contender he must have come even closer in later years. (1961 ! He was only 40 ! And recall that The Physicists only came out in 1962, and quite a few of his other major plays and impressive prose-works only much later. Of course, taking on the Nobel Prize in Der Meteor (1966), among other works, might not have helped his cause.
The 1961 Nobel Prize in literature went to Ivo Andrić -- apparently a pretty pre-determined choice. But Andreas Ekström -- the first to really root around in the archives this year -- reports in Sydsvenskan that Greene tvåa på listan 1961 !
Yes, apparently Graham Greene was the runner-up that year -- with Karen Blixen the third choice. Of course, among the others in the mix was ... J.R.R.Tolkien ? (Naturally not taken very seriously -- but amusing to see that C.S.Lewis was the one to nominate him).
In The Local they have more about the Secrets behind the 1961 Nobel prize in Literature revealed -- along with a(n annoying) gallery of choice quotes about the rejects. Others in the discussion included Lawrence Durrell (whose "monomaniacal preoccupation with erotic complications" apparently was no help, but now makes me eager to seek his work out ...), Alberto Moravia (who: "suffers from schematism in the characterization and a general monotony"), Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and Robert Frost -- who, at 86, was apparently just too damn old.
It's Friedrich Dürrenmatt who -- beside the ridiculous idea of Tolkien being Nobel-worthy -- most surprises me -- and if he was a 1961-contender he must have come even closer in later years. (1961 ! He was only 40 ! And recall that The Physicists only came out in 1962, and quite a few of his other major plays and impressive prose-works only much later. Of course, taking on the Nobel Prize in Der Meteor (1966), among other works, might not have helped his cause.