Literature: Nobel lit prize goes once again

to some semi-obscure world author. As long as Philip Roth and John Updike are alive, then anybody else getting the Nobel Prize in literature is a joke. Oh I'm sorry, we can't give it to another white dude for a while, Seamus Heaney got it in 1995. So an Austrian feminist gets it. Because that's cooler than giving it to a white male.

I don't mean to be culturally insensitive here, but my God. Sinclair Lewis got the Nobel Prize. How the hell does Sinclair Lewis get the Nobel prize, but not Roth or Updike? Be very clear that I've never read Elfriede Jelinek's work, I just added The Piano Teacher to my Amazon wish list. I'm sure she's a wonderful writer. I'm sure I'll probably like this book, reading a few excerpts about it. Hell, I'll probably wish I could learn German so I could read all her stuff in all my medical school free time. But in my limited (it's limited--I'm fervent and passionate, but I'm in med school--I don't have the time I wish I had to be as well read as I wish I were) opinion, Roth and Updike are geniuses. Period. Like in the absolute. I don't think V.S. Naipaul can hold their jocks, but because he writes smack about Muslims after 9/11, he got the 2001 prize. Seems shady to me. And not that Naipaul wouldn't deserve the prize, but the award was fairly political given the historical context, and as I keep saying, Roth and Updike didn't have one yet!

The goal of modern literature is simple: illuminate alienation. That's my definition, anyway, and it's all encompassing enough that nobody has figured out a way to say I'm wrong. My definition accepts the holy trinity of Race, Class, and the Gender. And you can live in America and be alienated, seriously. You can even be white. You can be Protestant, Jewish, and maybe even have money. And you can, *gasp* be male all at the same time!

I'm as feminist as I can be without chopping my penis off and selling to pay for somebody's abortion. But give this pup to Updike or Roth in 2005 (Roth looks like one hell of a candidate, judging by reviews of his newest, The Plot Against America). Not because there aren't world authors who are amazing--there certainly are, TONS of them, I'm sure. But because Roth and Updike are the Da Vinci and Michaelangelo of the last half of the 20th century's literature. If these guys don't get their due soon, then the Nobel Prize for Literature should rename itself the Nobel Prize for World Literature. That'd be fine with me.

Note to the inflamed reader: don't take this post too seriously. Please. Don't take it seriously at all, just take it as cheerleading for Roth and Updike.