When you mention the fact the Nobel Committee has often nominated writers who seemed motivated by political causes, I totally agree. But they have always (in my lifetime at least) been for those writers who wrote against totalitarian regimes. I would also say, that living through the nineties in Europe, I saw many people rooting somewhat for The Serbs, mostly intellectuals of the left who felt US hegemony was a thing to criticise. I did not understand that at the time (I mean the Serbian part of it), but I noticed it. When the Nobel Committee gives the prize to Handke they must have known that they would get the kind of reaction that you presented. And they must have had their reasons, they are quite clever , after all. Might it be that they think some of the totalitarian dangers lie in the way we tend to go after people who once said or did something that we now see as horrible. That seems to me an interesting discussion.
From 1964 onward several sympathizers and collaborationists have been awarded the Nobel in Literature. For example, Sartre, Sholokhov, Neruda, Morrison. In keeping with the usual prejudices of the Western intellectuals, no fascists were awarded the prize, only communists. Sartre, at least, was, at his best, a great writer. Morrison, in contrast, is merely a black American writer of mediocre fictions. The other two I am relatively unfamiliar with. Your comments on the danger of retrospective totalitarianism are insightful.
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When you mention the fact the Nobel Committee has often nominated writers who seemed motivated by political causes, I totally agree. But they have always (in my lifetime at least) been for those writers who wrote against totalitarian regimes. I would also say, that living through the nineties in Europe, I saw many people rooting somewhat for The Serbs, mostly intellectuals of the left who felt US hegemony was a thing to criticise. I did not understand that at the time (I mean the Serbian part of it), but I noticed it.
When the Nobel Committee gives the prize to Handke they must have known that they would get the kind of reaction that you presented. And they must have had their reasons, they are quite clever , after all. Might it be that they think some of the totalitarian dangers lie in the way we tend to go after people who once said or did something that we now see as horrible. That seems to me an interesting discussion.
From 1964 onward several sympathizers and collaborationists have been awarded the Nobel in Literature. For example, Sartre, Sholokhov, Neruda, Morrison. In keeping with the usual prejudices of the Western intellectuals, no fascists were awarded the prize, only communists. Sartre, at least, was, at his best, a great writer. Morrison, in contrast, is merely a black American writer of mediocre fictions. The other two I am relatively unfamiliar with.
Your comments on the danger of retrospective totalitarianism are insightful.