He's a fantastic author, but beware: most of his books say… nothing? It's about someone, possibly a man, to whom something happened. And he meets someone he used to love at the time. Not sure he still love her. She looks more beautiful now. That's it: I just spoiled the entire plot, in every detail. And there's a house, too. Looks smaller now.
I believe that makes it easier to translate (I read them in the original French) but the absolute lack of detail, story line, makes it incredibly either relatable (if you are in that mindset) or frustrating (Whyyy?! Why did she leave him? Or he left? Did he? You can't tell.) I love it - but beware, it's very tacit.
The lack of a conventional plot is nothing unusual in literature since Joyce. I've never heard of him, and would be more interested in learning what you find fantastic in him - can you compare him with some other authors, perhaps? (Aside from what we know from the fact the he won the Prize: that he espouses leftist politics, for example.)
I've never read any of his literature, so I may be either really misinformed/clueless but hopefully with some objectivity.
I think that your comment corroborates the Nobel committee's decision: "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation"
Despite what you say about a lacking plot, which you may have exaggerated, you still call him a "fantastic author." Which is either irony or there's something to that.
Despite what you say about a lacking plot, which you may have exaggerated, you still call him a "fantastic author." Which is either irony or there's something to that.
It's not necessary for a book to have a great plot, to be a great book. I haven't read any of this guy's work, but Murakami has a similar "thing" going on... the plots in his books are often fairly dull and leave a lot of plot-lines unresolved... but yet the books are very enjoyable and thought provoking. It's almost like it's the atmosphere that matters, not the plot itself. Perhaps this author writes something similar?
Read two books by him, both had the same exact plot except for locations. There's a man, loses his cat, loses his wife, loses his job, and then there's something magical that is somehow related to the Manchuria war.
The only Murakami novel that has the author lose a cat, his wife and encounter "something magical that is somehow related to the Manchuria war" is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I can only assume you read it twice by mistake.
Several of his novels do feature a man with a cat, and several novels feature distant women. But if I remember correctly, the only other married narrator is the protagonist in South of the Border, West of the Sun, and there is a character in 1Q84 who is married and divorced.
To say that the plots of any of his books have exactly the same plot would be a huge mischaracterization, though. The only two books that are even vaguely similar are Wind-Up and the earlier Dance Dance Dance (the last part of a quadrilogy about the "Sheep Man"); the latter feels a lot like a preliminary sketch for the vastly superior Wind-Up, in particular the fascination about hotel rooms and shared dreams. But the plots are completely different.
Kafka by the River is also related to missing cats (killed), ancient wars and something magical.
I loved Kafka by the River, but couldn't finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Kafka by the Shore. It is very different from Wind-Up Bird even though there are cats in it.
I recommend trying Wind-Up again. The first ~100 pages are difficult to get through at times (the narrator is infuriatingly apathetic), but one you get past that, it's an incredible page turner. I liked Kafka a lot, but Wind-Up is his masterpiece.
I read a literary essay years ago touching on plot and how it affects narratives. Basically, the essay claimed that plot can be a trap. You introduce characters and actions and they must be explained. The reader wants to know what comes next. You frustrate them if you don't tell them.
You started out, perhaps, with other goals, but you've become tied up in explaining how and why everything happens.
Exactly! Do you have a link? Maybe the following illustrates your point: for me, watching an episode of curious george is much more fun than watching curious george the movie because the former has a plot and the latter has a PLOT.
With the recent fluff-up on H.P. Lovecraft and the World Fantasy Awards, that is an interesting read.
I particularly like his first reason:
"A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own—that is, the written word. All the honors he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prizewinner."
...especially after Pres. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for simply not being G.W. Bush.
As a side note, in Greece, Thessaloniki, there is a building that bears his family name. His family was a prominent part of the local Jew community and in 1922 they built a gallery as part of a building known as the Modiano Market. It’s one of the most important sightseeing places in the town partly because most of the shops inside remain as they were when they were built and for many decades served as the main marketplace of the town. There is also a gathering of living family members every two years in the town.
A heads up that Honeymoon, Missing Person, and Catherine Certitude (a children's book) by Modiano are all available from David R. Godine, Publisher, for those looking for English translation. [0] To the best of my knowledge, English translations of Modiano are actually shamefully rare and these might be the only available editions at the moment.
We don't currently have ebooks available for our Modiano titles unfortunately, though reprints are already being scheduled so it's possible ebooks might be a part of that. I can't personally make any promises. Edit: The office is very much aware of the interest in an ebook edition!
Modiano is a genius, one of several fantastic writers coming from France in the last 20 years -- see also Marie Darrieussecq, Sylvie Germain, Camille Laurens, ...
Add Pierre Michon to that list. Just finished reading his novella, "Origin of the World" (translated by Wyatt Mason) and am still in awe. The density of thought he is able to pack into his sentences, some of which go on for pages but yet remain wholly comprehensible and focused, is incredible.
Another year goes by, and once again the Nobel prize comitee fails to award the prize to Thomas Pynchon. Really. If I was president of the US, I would declare not awarding the prize to Pynchon (or maybe Cormac McCarthy) an act of war and threaten to nuke the hell out of Sweden if Pynchon does not get the prize (just imagine the delicious irony if Barack "Nobel Peace Prize" Obama did that!).
That is not to say that whoever got it this year does not deserve it. But still.
There are many who might deserve a Nobel. But it's worth keeping in mind that the literature prize has traditionally followed the precept given by Nobel that it be given for writing that is "idealistic". I'll just quote Wikipedia here:
Nobel's choice of emphasis on idealism in his criteria for the Nobel Prize in Literature has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the word idealisk translates as either "idealistic" or "ideal".[2] In the early twentieth century, the Nobel Committee interpreted the intent of the will strictly. For this reason, they did not award certain world-renowned authors of the time such as James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Henrik Ibsen, and Henry James. More recently, the wording has been more liberally interpreted. Thus, the prize is now awarded both for lasting literary merit and for evidence of consistent idealism on some significant level. In recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Hence the award is now arguably more political.
This is why a lot of authors, who are otherwise considered world-class, don't win.
The Nobel Prize in Literature always has been and likely always will be a controversial category. No doubt any book-lover can name a handful of authors that ostensibly deserve the honor, but there are a lot of great authors and only one Nobel Prize per year! For what it's worth, Pynchon is notoriously reclusive and not the kind of person who's likely waiting for the spotlight that the Swedish Academy would be shining. As things stand, the film adaptation of Inherent Vice seems to bring promise of greater attention to his work that it has received in a while now.
I suspect that is a big part why he didn't get the prize and probably won't in the future. If I remember correctly, the Nobel prize commitee was already kind of annoyed that Elfriede Jellinek did not come in person to receive her prize, and Pynchon most likely would not even send a video message.
That, and the fact that there are, of course, lots and lots and lots of breathtakingly great writers out there. I've had the feeling over the past couple of years that the Nobel for literature was often given to authors the commitee felt deserved more attention.
The Nobel committee is becoming a standing joke. Their general incompetence and overt political bias is even evident in the physics category these days. (Blue LEDs? Really?)
Blue LEDs, and the more general Gallium Nitride film technologies have tremendous impact in our everyday world. Enormous, tangible energy savings in lighting. Enabling of zillion medical applications. Blu-Rays, high density DVDs, high mobility transistors...seriously, what discovery do you have in mind?
Secondly: There are different committees for each category. The Peace prize (which I agree it's a joke) is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel committee.
I strongly disagree with your claim that the other prizes, specifically physics and chemistry, are either incompetent or obviously biased.
Blue LEDs, and the more general Gallium Nitride film technologies have tremendous impact in our everyday world. Enormous, tangible energy savings in lighting. Enabling of zillion medical applications. Blu-Rays, high density DVDs, high mobility transistors...
And if there were a Nobel Prize in Engineering, I'd be on board with this.
seriously, what discovery do you have in mind?
I don't know. It's not my job to keep up with physics research, it's the Nobel committee's.
That's part of it, yes. But on what planet does it make sense to award the prize to the blue LED guys when the original developer of commercially-viable LEDs didn't receive it?
