Friday Afternoon Research, Vol. II
The National Book Award nominations were announced this week. It is an interesting list, especially the fiction category. Among the nominees was Marilynne Robinson, mentioned here last week for her novel Home (valuable signed first editions here), which we're currently reading and enjoying very much. Also, Aleksandar Hemon, the Sarajevo native whose work we've admired for years, earned a mention for his novel, The Lazarus Project, and perhaps most interesting of all, Peter Matthiessen (pictured) was nominated for his novel Shadow Country.
We felt somewhat vindicated, we must admit, having put off reading Mr. Matthiessen's Mr. Watson trilogy for years, to see that the author has condensed and rewritten his saga to fit in one 800-plus page novel, which is now being heralded a great American novel, a magnum opus that is as ambitious as Moby-Dick. Now, we fear, there is no hope for our reading the original three-book story, but we hope to hustle away to some cabin and consume Shadow Country, perhaps before it wins the National Book Award. In the meantime, view this clip of Charlie Rose interviewing the esteemed Mr. Matthiessen, if you can stand Rose's enthusiastic interruptions. It's nearly an hour-long, but the first 6-8 minutes are most concerned with the real-life Mr. Watson and the re-envisioning of this trilogy.
As we eagerly await the results of this nation's grand literary contest, we have felt compelled to wring our hands over the recent Nobel Prizes, especially the much-ballyhooed snubbing of America's powerhouse writers. Is it just us, or has our nation's recent political and economic vulnerabilities elicited a new wave of criticism from the rest of the world? Now they're going after our culture.
And don't expect us to suggest that perhaps we as a nation have been asking for it. The Blame America First coalition is much despised by the rabble. Where are the sensible to reside?
Rather than get mad, perhaps we, each serious reader, should take the pulse of world literature instead. Here's a good starting point — the French.
Finally, they take their literary prizes seriously in the Commonwealth of Nations, where the annual Man Booker Prize receives intense scrutiny, speculation and cash betting. This year's prize was recently awarded to The White Tiger, a first novel by India native Aravind Adiga (left). The book has been hailed as the great novel of modern-day India, illustrating the drastic shifts in wealth since the nation has enjoyed an economic upswing in recent years. Check out the Man Booker coverage at the Telegraph's site, where you'll learn all about Adiga, modern India, and the hoopla surrounding the prize.
