October 11, 2004

A list of unknown, undistinguished, leftist fanatics

Posted by Chris

I’d come across Stephen Schwartz as TCS’s resident ranter against “Islamofascism” and producer of ex post facto rationalizations for such wise decisions as the Tariq Ramadan exclusion and the Cat Stevens deportation. Now I see that he’s turned his hand to literary criticism . Apparently, the Swedish Academy “have returned to their habit of awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to an unknown, undistinguished, leftist fanatic.” At one point he interrupts himself, mid-rant, to write

But the Nobel Prize is bestowed for writing, and one must therefore address Jelinek’s publications.

Before going on to make clear that his only knowledge is based on a film adaptation of one of Elfriede Jelinek’s books!

Anyway, that list of unknown, undistinguished leftist fanatics ….

scolding lefty turned Nazi-nostalgic Gunter Grass, in 1999; Jose Saramago, a vulgar enemy of religion and former Communist censor in revolutionary Portugal, in 1998; and the repellent Dario Fo, an Italian playwright specializing in denunciations of capitalism, in 1997…. Other Nobel stars have included Claude Simon (1985), a Stalinist who defamed George Orwell; Castro-lover Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1982); Pablo Neruda, Stalinist secret police agent (1971); and Soviet plagiarist and propagandist Mikhail Sholokhov (1965).

Incidentally, is “Nazi-nostalgic” Schwartz’s take on Crabwalk ?

Posted on October 11, 2004 10:35 AM UTC
Comments

Look closely: his only knowledge is based on a review of a film adaptation of one of Elfriede Jelinek’s books. He doesn’t seem to have actually seen the movie.

Posted by PZ Myers · October 11, 2004 10:56 AM

Good God, you’re right. He hadn’t even seen the film!

Posted by Chris Bertram · October 11, 2004 11:57 AM

Ah, what a lovely argument he pursues: arbitrary nationalist attacks and an outrage over that the Academy follows its own (apparently broad) tastes rather than worrying about wheter Stephen Schwartz finds them to be ideologically pure enough.

Posted by G. Svenson · October 11, 2004 12:15 PM

We all know the winner should have been that immortal essayist, David Horowitz—unless our dear leaders’s speaches qualify him for the prize . . .

Posted by rea · October 11, 2004 12:53 PM

That Stephen obviously missed to mention the oh so progressive communist Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn that also got the prize! [/sarcasm]

(I do love Solzhenitsyn, however. Whatever I might think of some of his political ideology)

Posted by Olle Jansson · October 11, 2004 01:55 PM

I did find Saramago’s “Blindness” disappointing. Other than that, I guess we’ve got another live one for the huge Tedious Bombastic Fool tank. Toss him in.

Posted by John Isbell · October 11, 2004 02:05 PM

Hey, I’m a unknown, undistinguished, leftist fanatic. Those listed, however, are not. Perhaps they are known unknowns?

Posted by Sandriana · October 11, 2004 03:15 PM

And I’m the unknown unknown.

Posted by Anonymous · October 11, 2004 03:27 PM

I think a lot of the Nobel lit. prize winners in fact classify as unknown knowns…

Posted by g. svenson · October 11, 2004 03:30 PM

The right’s still seething over the fact that Ayn Rand never got it.

Posted by fyreflye · October 11, 2004 05:06 PM

Notice that the prize to Ezra Pound, fascist collabortor and propagandist, isn’t denounced. I’m not saying it should be; I don’t think that literature should be by politics.

The whole thing does remind me of a stanza from the first version of Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”, later excised.

“Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,

Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.

Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.”

But then it’s the Weekly (No)Standard(s).

Posted by Robin · October 11, 2004 06:12 PM

Christ, I’ve known a number of Pinochet defenders who love Neruda’s poetry. Chile recently honored the Centenary of Neruda’s birth.

Schwartz apparently is unaware of Saramago’s public break with Castro’s Cuba last year.

Perhaps he needs to unwedge his head from somewhere.

Oh, he also left out former Franco toadie, Camilo José Cela. You gotta love a selective memory.

Posted by Randy Paul · October 11, 2004 07:10 PM

Pound never won the Nobel. There was some controversy when he won the Bollingen prize.

Posted by Vance Maverick · October 11, 2004 09:59 PM

The Swedish Academy is indeed a poor judge of literary talent:

Kipling (1907) - apologist for imperialism

Rolland (1915) - communist

Hamsun (1920) - member of Nazi party

France (1921) - communist and outspoken atheist

Yeats (1923) - fascist sympathizer and member of eugenics society

Shaw (1925) - Soviet and Nazi sympathizer

Lewis (1930) - socialist, mocker of religion

Pirandello (1934) - fascist, supporter of Abyssinian genocide

O’Neil (1936) - socialist

Gide (1947) - communist

Eliot (1948) - fascist sympathizer, supporter of eugenics, anti-semite

Faulkner (1949) - slavery apologist

Russell (1950) - socialist, atheist

Hemingway (1954) - socialist

Camus (1957) - socialist, supporter of colonialism

Andric (1961) - communist

Steinbeck (1962) - socialist

Sartre (1964) - communist, Stalin apologist

Beckett (1969) - nihilist

Boll (1972) - Baader-Meinhof sympathizer

White (1973) - socialist

Posted by blah · October 11, 2004 11:24 PM

And don’t forget Churchill (1953), who relied on a vast army of ‘researchers’ to write his books.

Personally, I’d love to see Kurt Vonnegut win the prize, just to hear heads explode with indignation.

Posted by Nick · October 12, 2004 12:13 AM

Nick, Churchill did that more with WW2 than with The World Crisis or Marlborough, was my impression.

Besides, I think the reality is that he got the award more for his radio broadcasts. The only Nobel laureate whose merit was in public speaking.

Posted by Anderson · October 12, 2004 12:20 AM

Oh, he also left out former Franco toadie, Camilo José Cela. You gotta love a selective memory.

damn, i was going to say that one. i guess i’ll say naipaul instead.

Posted by drapeto · October 12, 2004 12:21 AM

Vance, I stand corrected. But I do think that the larger points stand: (i) TWS has no interest in applying the standard symmetrically to supporters of brutal right wing regimes, and more importantly (ii) it’s doubtful that the politics of the author (as opposed to that of the work, with all the problems that phrasing entails) is a useful standard with which to judge literature. Kiplings imperialism doesn’t take away from his beauty of his poetry. Is Virgil a bad writer/poet because of his praise of Roman Imperialism? Certainly, if people who are moved by Cancer Ward suddenly judge the work to be bad upon learning of his defense of tsarism and apologies for pogroms, we would think that their faculty for judgement itself was off. This is problem with Blah’s list. I doubt that either Milosz or Brodsky, both good humanist, anti-communist liberals, with social democratic sympathies, would think that politics made their works or even those of the people they politically hated. (And by the way Blah, when did atheism become a political crime?!?!?)

Frankly, I actually do find in these reductions of literary talents to the politics of their authors echoes of both fascist and Stalinist aesthetic policy, which did excatly that, judge art by political standards.

Posted by Robin · October 12, 2004 05:34 AM

C’mon: Hemingway might have shared a few drinks with Castro from time to time, but his “socialism” was pretty bland by historical standards. Boxing fights were his thing - not proletariat rights. If you’re looking for revisionist denunciations, file him instead under “Cruelty to Animals”.

Posted by Peter Murphy · October 12, 2004 06:01 AM

This is a special case of the Achilles/Che/heroism argument. Writers may be remembered for their daimonic brilliance, however they applied it.

Posted by clew · October 12, 2004 09:03 PM

Has anybody else noticed the part of the article where Schwartz implicitly gigs her on being less attractive than Britney Spears?

That suggests a likely candidate for Schwartz’s fantasy Nobel Prize. Which leggy blond essayist hates Islam even more than V. S. Naipaul?

Posted by Harry · October 12, 2004 09:14 PM

Someone should tell Mr. Schwartz that hate is not clever, no matter how cute he tries to get with phrasing and pop culture references.

Posted by Goddess of Swank · October 14, 2004 12:28 AM
Followups

→ It takes a special kind of dork.
Excerpt: I takes some qualities, with such a fierce competition around the blogosphere, to post something outstandingly disgusting. Weekly Standart's Schwartz does just that. Easy.Read more at Anglais Cassé
→ http://www.retrogrouch.net/MT/archives/000652.html.
Excerpt: How surprised should I be that this Weekly Standard article on Elfriede Jelinek--the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for literature--calls her a "hack" based his close reading of a review of the film adaptation of one of her...Read more at Barefoot And Naked
→ http://www.retrogrouch.net/MT/archives/000652.html.
Excerpt: How surprised should I be that this Weekly Standard article on Elfriede Jelinek--the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for literature--calls her a "hack" based his close reading of a review of the film adaptation of one of her...Read more at Barefoot And Naked

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.