Is it absurd that President Donald Trump has not been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? Of course – his achievement of a cease fire in Gaza is masterful and should be recognized, he has settled many conflicts and perhaps more significantly, began the process which led to the stunning Abraham Accords, the biggest breakthrough in the Middle East in decades.
But lest you suffer unduly that the president was slighted, I offer this comforting notion: the Nobel Committee is ridiculous.
Consider the award for literature, which makes the Academy Awards movie selections look downright Main Street. Last year’s Nobel recipient was South Korean writer Han Kang, whose best known work “The Vegetarian,” is a surreal novel about a woman who apparently stops eating and tries to survive off sunlight. (The paperback version translated into English is available on Amazon for $11.96, on sale from the list price of $18, which does not seem very respectful.)
More fun is this year’s literature award which was given to Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai (pronounced CRAS-now-hoar-kay, according to the New York Times.) The Academy commended the novelist “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” I have no idea what that means, but anytime I read about someone’s “oeuvre” I usually flip the page.
Apparently Laszlo has been in the running for the Nobel for some time. The Times reports that “Krasznahorkai has long been revered by fellow writers for his idiosyncratic style and bleak narratives that can often be slyly humorous.” One of his works, that was subsequently made into a “film” (see- I can sound artsy on occasion) is called “The Melancholy of Resistance.” The Times describes it as “filled with vast sentences” and “concerns events in a small Hungarian town after a circus arrives with a huge stuffed whale in tow.” A stuffed whale seems funny, but hardly sly.
Moving to today’s oeuvre, Laszlo’s latest work, which presumably inspired the Nobel acknowledgement, caused some merriment on social media. Here’s the description of the book from the Times, written with no humor, sly or otherwise:
“His latest novel to appear in English is “Herscht 07769,” published last year in the United States. The book, which unfolds in a single sentence, evokes fears about the rise of fascism in Europe, and imagines a graffiti cleaner in Germany who writes letters to Chancellor Angela Merkel to alert her to the world’s impending destruction. It features only one period in its 400 pages.”
In interviews, Krasznahorkai has said he wanted to create an “absolutely original” style of writing, which appears to mainly mean eschewing normal punctuation.
In fairness, Krasznahorkai early on wrote brave works that were considered anti-Communist by the intelligensia and got him into hot water with the former Hungarian government. He now openly criticizes Hungary’s right-wing leader Viktor Orban — which can also bring unwanted attention. He seems unsure of where he lands on the political spectrum, but that indecisiveness is fitting for someone unable to finish a sentence.
In case you might not feel up to reading Krasznahorkai’s works, absent periods and such, there are also film versions; one such was the treatment of his book Satantango, the anti-Communist screed. It runs more than seven hours.
I don’t mean to mock the lofty Nobel authorities. I do mean to suggest they’re not exactly like you and me. They can hardly be expected to understand or appreciate President Donald Trump. That requires common sense, a great sense of humor and a pragmatic world view. He will likely never win the Nobel Peace Prize, but thank heavens he delivers peace.
