Whatever I Write Will be Proven Wrong, Likely in Catastrophic Fashion

October 3, 2022 4:57 AM

Who Will Win the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature? is Alex Shepard's annual guess [archive]

Ladbrokes Favorites That Actually Have a Shot

Pierre Michon (French quasi-biographer; 12-1 odds)
Annie Ernaux (French autofiction pioneer; 20-1 odds)
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Kenyan novelist and perennial Nobel favorite; 16-1 odds)
Gerald Murnane (Australian small-town resident; 20-1 odds)
Can Xue (Chinese novelist and short story writer; 40-1 odds)

There’s a Lot of Buzz Around These Norwegians—Well, Not Dag Solstad (Sorry, Dag Solstad)

Jon Fosse (Norwegian septologist; 20-1 odds)
Karl Ove Knausgård (Rugged Norwegian season expert; 33-1 odds)
Dag Solstad (Norwegian trickster; no odds)

These Favorites Definitely Aren’t Going to Win

Michel Houellebecq (The Gollum-like physical manifestation of Europe’s rightward drift; 16-1 odds)
Haruki Murakami (A pair of pristine orange Nike Air Zoom AlphaFly Next% sneakers; 16-1 odds)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (First, but definitely not the last, Nobel contender to be best known for a TED talk; 20-1 odds)
Sally Rooney (Irish novelist whose books people pretend take place in Brooklyn; no odds)
Elena Ferrante (Italian Banksy, also the actual Banksy; no odds)
Claudio Magris (Italian translator; 25-1 odds)

These Americans Most Definitely Aren’t Going to Win

Stephen King (In one book, a spooky car kills people; in a different book, a spooky clown kills people; in another book, a spooky duvet kills people; he has written 600 of these; 16-1 odds)
Cormac McCarthy (Mud-spackled Stetson ; 20-1 odds)
Garielle Lutz (American experimental writer; 20-1 odds)
Thomas Pynchon (American novelist and stoner icon; 20-1 odds)
Don DeLillo (author of White Noise—the novel, not the bloated E.T. homage); 20-1 odds)
Colson Whitehead (American novelist; 33-1 odds)
Edmund White (American legend; 33-1 odds)
Jamaica Kincaid (American novelist and gardening icon; 20-1 odds)
Robert Coover (Somehow still alive American writer; 33-1 odds)
Wendell Berry (Somehow still alive American writer and gardening icon; 33-1 odds)
William Vollman (Writes books by spinning a giant wheel with entries on it like “train conductor,” “nuclear power,” “perversion”; 33-1 odds)
Joyce Carol Oates (Wan little husk; 33-1 odds)
Martha Nussbaum (American philosopher; 33-1 odds)
Charles Simic (American poet; 40-1 odds)
Jonathan Franzen (Podcast subject; no odds)
Marilynne Robinson (Writes books about Calvinism for Episcopalians who go to church twice a year; 50-1 odds)

Could One of these Writers win?

Mia Couto (Mozambican novelist; 25-1 odds)
Scholastique Mukasonga (French-Rwandan novelist; 25-1 odds)
Nuruddin Farah (Somali novelist; 25-1 odds)
Amitav Ghosh (Indian historical novelist; 33-1 odds)
Andrey Kurkov (Ukrainian crime novelist; 33-1 odds)
António Lobo Antunes (Portugese novelist; 33-1 odds)
David Grossman (Israeli novelist; 33-1 odds)
Homero Aridijis (Mexican poet; 33-1 odds)
Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (Iranian novelist; 33-1 odds)
Marie NDiaye (French novelist; 33-1 odds)
Yan Lianke (Chinese novelist; 33-1 odds)
Ivan Vlaidslavic (South African novelist; 40-1 odds)
Linton Kwesi Johnson (Jamaican dub poet; 40-1 odds)
Murray Bail (Australian novelist; 40-1 odds)
Xi Xi (Hong Kong–based Chinese writer and poet; 40-1 odds)
Ko Un (Canceled South Korean poet; 50-1 odds)
Yu Hua (Chinese novelist; 50-1 odds)
Zoë Wicomb (South African novelist; 50-1 odds)

posted by chavenet (33 comments total)

Not giving the Nobel to Salman Rushdie has a long and proud history, but if there’s a year to do it, then just after he gets stabbed, while also sticking a finger in the eye of the loathsome Iranian regime, is when do it.
posted by Kattullus at 6:19 AM on October 3, 2022 [11 favorites]

I almost wrote that not even Rushdie’s worst enemies would begrudge him the prize this year, but his worst enemies are a lot worse than most writers’ worst enemies.
posted by Kattullus at 6:30 AM on October 3, 2022 [17 favorites]

"The Nobel is not immune to these conversations. Recently, following the horrific attack on Salman Rushdie, David Remnick and Bernard-Henri Lévy both published columns arguing that the novelist deserves the Nobel in recognition of his work on behalf of free expression—and also because he was brutally stabbed (and also—implicitly—because he had to endure the indignity of convalescing in Western New York)."

As a Western New Yorker, this seems fair.
posted by triage_lazarus at 6:44 AM on October 3, 2022 [12 favorites]

Nobel prize long/short lists are my annual reminder that I work too much, because I'll never be able to read even one book by all of them, and they always include someone I've never heard of before. This fills me with an incredible sadness. And after they gave the prize to Dylan, a truly cursed moment in award history, I have given up on guessing what would make someone the frontrunner.
posted by dis_integration at 6:45 AM on October 3, 2022 [6 favorites]

triage_lazarus: As a Western New Yorker, this seems fair.

Shephard is from Elmira.
posted by Kattullus at 6:57 AM on October 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

Nobel's Hits and Misses (The Atlantic, 1966)

Now I'm wondering who my least-favorite Nobel literature winner is.

It's probably Winston Churchill.
posted by box at 7:46 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Now I'm wondering who my least-favorite Nobel literature winner is.


I'm gonna go for Bosnian genocide revisionist Peter Handke (2019).

Another fall, another year that I can't believe Ismail Kadare is still alive, another few weeks I cross my fingers for him, and reread General of the Dead Army.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 8:03 AM on October 3, 2022 [6 favorites]

This is my anual reminder that Adonis is an astonishing poet who deserves this.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:44 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

After the Bob Dylan fiasco, I find it hard to care as much as I once did. When Alice Munro won, I was transported with joy, and I had nursed some private hopes for Ursula Le Guin once upon a time. Mostly I think they should spend the next couple of decades giving the award to women of colour to rectify the imbalance of an overwhelming number of white men with a Nobel on their shelf.
posted by jokeefe at 10:23 AM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Joyce Carol Oates (Wan little husk; 33-1 odds)

*Snort*
posted by The Bellman at 11:00 AM on October 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

> "... Dylan, a truly cursed moment in award history"
> "...the Bob Dylan fiasco"

Have to say I'm a little surprised by the disrespect for one of the world's greatest living poets.
posted by kyrademon at 12:50 PM on October 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

Have to say I'm a little surprised by the disrespect for one of the world's greatest living poets.

Surely you jest, my fellow Mefite.

(You do jest, don't you?)

He's not even one of the world's greatest living lyricists, let alone a poet.
posted by jokeefe at 1:06 PM on October 3, 2022 [6 favorites]

I read the Alex Shepherd piece, got maybe 20% of the cultural snipes, and learned a thing or two by following up. So that's a win for me. I wouldn't cry "foul" if Wendell Berry (Somehow still alive American writer and gardening icon; 33-1 odds) got the 2022 gong . . . 'eard of 'im.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:24 PM on October 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

He's not even one of the world's greatest living lyricists

I’m not particularly even a Dylan fan but begrudging him “one of” seems rather harsh.
posted by atoxyl at 3:37 PM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

You know, Dylan won the Nobel prize for immortal lyrics like:

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a g*psy queen

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle all dressed in green

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle ’til the moon is blue

Wiggle ’til the moon sees you

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle in your boots and shoes

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, you got nothing to lose

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a swarm of bees

Wiggle on your hands and knees

Wiggle to the front, wiggle to the rear

Wiggle ’til you wiggle right out of here

Wiggle ’til it opens, wiggle ’til it shuts

Wiggle ’til it bites, wiggle ’til it cuts

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead

Wiggle—you can raise the dead

Wiggle ’til you’re high, wiggle ’til you’re higher

Wiggle ’til you vomit fire

Wiggle ’til it whispers, wiggle ’til it hums

Wiggle ’til it answers, wiggle ’til it comes

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like satin and silk

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a pail of milk

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, rattle and shake

Wiggle like a big fat snake

posted by MythMaker at 4:20 PM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

0h, yeah, cherry pick his worst album ever for the cheapest of cheap shots.

Try that trick with Blonde on Blonde...

The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

...comes to mind, for example.
posted by y2karl at 4:35 PM on October 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

Or even Nashville Skyline -- not at all my favorite album -- for another...

Once I held mountains in the palm of my hand...

I think of him as a lyrical and musical collage artist myself but, all in all, his place in history is carved in stone.
posted by y2karl at 4:39 PM on October 3, 2022 [6 favorites]

MythMaker, he also wrote,

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees

Which is a better line than 99% of anything written by anyone at any time.
posted by dobbs at 5:40 PM on October 3, 2022 [5 favorites]

Not to mention...
posted by y2karl at 7:42 PM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees

What does that even mean? And "peeking through her keyhole" is a bit disturbing--exactly what is her keyhole? Is it in her body? How do you peek through it? Is it because a misogynist view would hold that women are only worth the sum of their "holes"? The lock and key is a very unoriginal metaphor for sex, but I'm not sure here if he's trying to elevate a sexual image, or riff on some other idea that doesn't quite work.

In 1965 the Beatles released their breakthrough Rubber Soul, while Phil Ochs released I Ain't Marching Anymore; also that year saw Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence. All of those contain lyrics equal to or better than the lines quoted above, which are vague and sort of grimily suggestive. And of course Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young were in the wings, soon to begin their careers. Each of them (including Paul Simon) could write lyrical rings around Dylan and did. They all paid tribute to Dylan, but surpassed him almost immediately.
posted by jokeefe at 10:43 PM on October 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

He sucked as a Nobel winner, but I didn't know Dylan sucked as a writer until Mefi told me. Lol. Felt like he could qualify for something for his shit up to 1966 tbh.
posted by bootlegpop at 5:09 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

I love this tradition. A full year of literary gossip that I missed in one neat package. Tactical Bernard Henri Levy is worth the click.
posted by Think_Long at 8:22 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm going back to New York City; I do believe I've had enough.
posted by box at 8:26 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

What does that even mean? And "peeking through her keyhole" is a bit disturbing--exactly what is her keyhole? Is it in her body? How do you peek through it? Is it because a misogynist view would hold that women are only worth the sum of their "holes"? The lock and key is a very unoriginal metaphor for sex, but I'm not sure here if he's trying to elevate a sexual image, or riff on some other idea that doesn't quite work.

I too would hate Dylan lyrics if I had your brain interpreting their meaning for me.

A keyhole is a hole you put a key in in a door. In olden-days you peered through it to see what was on the other side.

The line means that love will inevitably take you from the highest highs to the lowest lows. You'll begin proud and tall and willing to do anything for it but eventually you'll be on the ground grovelling just to get a glimpse of it.

The line means love will make a fool of you, just as it does everyone.

Anyway, I'm gonna join box in NYC.
posted by dobbs at 9:01 AM on October 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

They all paid tribute to Dylan, but surpassed him almost immediately.


Yeah, I've heard the same around here about Arthur Lee of Love...

Phil Ochs wrote songs equal to Visions of Johanna or Mr. Tambourine Man, jokeefe, and The Sounds of Silence was rings around Desolation Row? Oh, please.

Man, I mean, I'd love to play your favorite music sucks but to paraphrase the bard himself, all those people that you mentioned, yes I know them -- they were and are his peers.

And for all his defects as a person -- and a Rotarian -- living all his performing life still ongoing in a tornado, nay, Category 5 hurricane of attention, I doubt they think so. Oh, I'm sure even they as much as today's postmodern young people hate the fact he's been shoved down their throats since forever because he's been around forever but jeez, but he is stuck in their collective craw for ample good reason.

Love and Theft came out on 9/11. Twenty-odd years ago. Nearly 40 years after his debut. We all grow old, deteriorate and eventually die but all the same, a song like Po' Boy has its moments:

Poor boy in a red hot town
Out beyond the twinklin' stars
Ridin' first class trains making the rounds
Tryin' to keep from fallin' between the cars

They all paid tribute to Dylan, but surpassed him almost immediately....

Tastes differ but c'mon. I mean, even Dylan covered The Boxer way back when but The Sounds of Silence ain't exactly The Boxer...

I mean even I had reservations -- remembering the scene in Don't Look Back where he's running away from some dude chasing him around,; trying to give a prize some committee gave him for songs he didn't write anymore -- about his Nobel Prize but, JFHC, back in the day, he was a wunderkind.

Eyolf Ostrem, btw, thinks Brownsville Girl is the GOAT of all his songs. I don’t know if I agree but his argument has its point.

Even the garage sales around here are corrupt

posted by y2karl at 9:45 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

And here is Bruce Springsteen on the topic.
posted by y2karl at 10:06 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

On topic, Karl Ove Knausgård would be one of my choices for the Nobel but Katullus is right about Salman Rushdie. It should go to him just because...
posted by y2karl at 10:22 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

This LitHub list of odds from last week still had the bookie's odds for Hilary Mantel on the list. Bummer.

Anyway, last year's award introduced me to Abdulrazak Gurnah, and I quite like what I've read of his since. So I'm hoping for another surprise.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:10 PM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

These Authors Probably Won’t Win the Nobel. Read Them Anyway. This, by Alex Shephard, is the earnest version of the main article.
posted by Kattullus at 8:18 AM on October 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I really enjoy Alex Shephard's yearly rundowns; they embrace the absurdity and the joy in taking this award both meaningfully and playfully. (And they catch me up on all the literary world ridiculousness I've missed.)
posted by mixedmetaphors at 11:52 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

It’s Annie Ernaux!
posted by oulipian at 4:03 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

He ruined his bit by picking an actual winner!
posted by Merus at 4:06 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Shephard hedged beautifully, not only did he put her on a list of possible winners in a podcast yesterday, but he was also on that list of probably not winners he published yesterday as an article, which I linked above.
posted by Kattullus at 4:39 AM on October 6, 2022