Waiting for the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature this year was like " Waiting for Godot"
I'm writing this in a hurry, because my Better-Half and I are leaving home for dinner and the theatre at 1800 hrs.
With freedom of speech comes freedom to speculate. After the controversial choice of Dylan last year, the one thing that was almost sure about this year is that the choice would be classic – not some unknown poet man or poet woman in the street. There is no way it could have been Chidi or Ogbeni Nwakanma...
This afternoon , waiting for the announcement or rather revelation of this year's Nobel Prize winner in Literature, I found myself listening to one of the versions of Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister Fuji Garbage 2, to ease me into the right frame of mind. It was only then whilst listening to their inimitable percussion, that I realised once more ( like Newton's apple falling upon my head) what I have always known, and I was not sitting under any mango or Bodhi tree but was sitting in a comfortable armchair in front of my smart Samsung TV : That just as with music, the world of literature is a big world, and even with Africa's favourite Ngugi in mind, the literary world is bigger than any one person or any one country, one tribe, Luo or Kikuyu, Black, White, Yellow or Blue, bigger than any one dominant language or art form and that deciding any year's Nobel Prize winner, whether for peace, or in economics, chemistry, physics, is not an easy or a foregone conclusion, - you can't please everyone, some people are even going to feel they have been cheated (Obi of Biafra @ 1000/1) although some cases are sometimes easier than others, for instance should a team of Yoruba researchers from the university teaching hospital in Ibadan find a cure for cancer next year, their place would be assured not only by the Nobel Prize Committee sitting in Stockholm, their names would forever be etched in gold – FOREVER - in the annals of medical history, and on the day of the announcement Yoruba-man in Ibadan Nigeria and Yoruba-Man in the diaspora the world over would be beating chest and boasting all day long, dancing and boasting, "We great man!" -as happened when Brer Soyinka and not Brer Somebody else was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986
If there were a Nobel Prize being awarded in History then with bated breath, everybody in this forum would be waiting for the Nobel Prize in History announcement, having rooted for – having moved heaven and earth (for lack of a more elevated honorary Yoruba title) for our beloved Ojogbon Falola – and if not elated or jolly-fied we would not have to be "disappointed" because the prize went to some Chinese or Indian Professor of History.
Tuesday's DN cartoon by Martin Kellerman was about what it would be like if there was a Nobel Prize for philosophy, the problem being that
" Philosophy is not taken seriously since it's something that all of us can do" such as in this type of tattoo: "Happiness and Peace can be found in a single drop of dew on a piece of grass". The question being, " What have the leading philosophers come up with - what did the latest Nobel Prize winners in Philosophy get a prize for? The answer being, "There is no Nobel Prize for philosophy! - No, because they haven't discovered anything new since they wrote that " It should be good to live, otherwise we die !"
Suddenly, the doors of the Swedish Academy burst open as expected , at 1300hrs sharp and there was Sara Danius just like last year in front of an spellbound audience of the assembled world press flashing their cameras and lancing their microphones to see and hear
It's remarkable that this year's laureate was not even in the betting lists...
In the words of Sara Darius - a rough translation, : "He's something like a mixture of Jane Austen's later comedy" and Franz Kafka's absurdist - there's a little - not too much of that mix and there you have Ishiguro in a nutshell."
Having said that, she adds with unrestrained enthusiasm, "Ishiguro is an author who writes with great integrity - he doesn't look aside – he has created and developed his own aesthetic universe and at the same time renews it from book to book - this he does through stellar experiments"
Her personal favourite? The Buried Giant ( 2015) - "with a very moving end" she says, raising an eyebrow, and his well known, The Remains Of The Day (1989) --- the past can be the big story it can be something on a deeper personal level, but in the end shows that the history and the past is the same. - not just playing for effect, laidback, very discrete and precise diction, no drama I the style everything happens between the lines . in his art of the novel everything happens between now and the past and that can be the big story
The panel of literature connoisseurs all had their say - some of his works have been filmed "Never Let Me Go" - "amazing moral depiction of high class" " a fantastic choice, unexpected and surprising, a good choice, not only for English Literature, because he is also a global writer ( a writer with a global audience? ) whose theme is about being a minority in England … he is read, has been filmed c, is not a difficult writer , is a writer that people already relate to - he has depth , has a large public, is crisp, and subtle, an exercise in e.g. British understatement ( another subtle characteristic) - in a wonderful way – it's difficult to find someone with such - he's also a fantastic interview object, nice, "unbelievably polite breadth and pointedness" etc etc etc from the Swedish TV panel of entusiasts
Kafkaesque, his The Unconsoled
"He belongs to a generation of British writers - a great generation in which he sticks out - a generation consisting of people like Martin Amis , Ian Mcewan, Salman Rushdie - his specific artistry as a subtle culture critic in e.g Never Let Me Go -
Science fiction is a genre that gives added possibilities for culture critique…sorry about all the mistakes typographical and otherwise, no time to read over, never time to read over, some guys even miss doing some of their final exams papers or turn up drunk for Shakespeare (over-confidence or indifference !) At this point, Better Half is about to yank me off the chair to some wine and dinner and some small talk with some Theatre folks before before the theatre event
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