Knopf 100--Day 10

Nobel, anyone? Knopf is the home for a ton of Nobel Prize winning authors, and here are four books from this illustrious group.

33. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing, originally published in 1988. Check this out. It's the film clip of when Doris Lessing found out she won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

"Oh Christ!" The Fifth Child probably isn't her most famous book, but it's one I loved. It's no secret that I like creepy, gothic reads that dismantle families, though. The premise is that a happy couple have brought four children into the world and created an ideal familial life in '60's Britain. Then they have Ben, baby #5, and their world unravels. Ben's not a cute baby or kid. He eats everything and he's abnormally strong. He's not the child they wanted or expected. The other kids are scared of him and his parents are appalled. What happens when you can't love your child, even when the child is an innocent? Good stuff.

34. Beloved by Toni Morrison, originally published in 1987. This is the second Toni Morrison novel we've included on our list, but so what? TM is terrific. You know what's fun? Walking up to strangers and croak-whispering "Beeeeloooooovveddd" like it was uttered in the movie. I love doing that. Anyway, Beloved, considered Morrison's best work, is the story of Sethe, a former slave living in Ohio who can't escape her memories of the atrocities of her past or the unnamed daughter she lost, whose tombstone simply reads "beloved." This novel twists up your insides, a sign of narrative genius.

35. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro, originally published in 2001. Alice Munro is the greatest living short story writer, and I could have picked any of her books to feature in this spot. I chose Hateship in part because it's received attention from Hollywood with several film adaptations. Remember that devastating and beautiful movie called Away From Her, about a man whose Alzheimer's impacted wife develops a romance in her assisted living facility because she no longer remembers she's married, and he must deal with the loss and her found happiness with another man? The movie starred Julie Christie and she was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal. That movie was based on one of the stories in this collection. Munro writes about relationships and the human drama of daily living. She's one of my two pretend-Canadian-grandmas.

36. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, originally published in 1988. The godfather of magical realism, it's an honor to say that I work for the publisher of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I haven't read all of his books, but I am a fan of Love in the Time of Cholera, among others. The story here is that a couple declare their love when they're young, but she ultimately decides to marry a doctor. He, on the other hand, goes the other direction and has affairs. LOTS of affairs. Over six hundred affairs. Dude keeps busy. After fifty years, though, the doctor finally dies and our oversexed hero finally has his opportunity to spread a venereal disease declare his undying love once more.

Betting on Nobel, 2013

The Nobel Prize for Literature is expected to be announced on Thursday, so it's time to place your bets. While the politics of the Nobel Prize don't necessarily mean much (as I mentioned last year here), the people in Book Land need something to debate, so here we are. The good people at Ladbrokes, everyone's favorite literary odds maker, have once again taken bets on who will win the Nobel Prize, so let's break down the favorites.

Haruki Murakami: 5/2 odds
Why this pick would be okay: No one has done more to popularize Japanese fiction worldwide, and Murakami's books already have tons of fans. His last book, 1Q84, provided the name inspiration for my brother's cat. What? Isn't that enough reason to give the guy an award? The cat? How about that 1Q84 sold 1,000,000 in its first week on sale in Japan and was a bestseller in the US too? I root for the booksellers here...and it doesn't hurt that I work for Murakami's US publisher, Knopf. Also, Murakami has a new novel that is being translated right now and will go on sale in 2014. The Nobel committee seems to favor writers who are still publishing works.
Where to start reading: Norwegian Wood is the book that made Murakami famous, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle moved him to the forefront of Japanese literary authors. It's more indicative of the surrealistic elements found in the author's work.

Grammy Munro
Liz's fictitious grandmother

Alice Munro: 4/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: First, a Canadian has never won the Nobel Prize, but there are several celebrated Canadian authors reaching that age where lifetime achievement awards are handed out. Alice Munro, along with being my imaginary grandmother (but with less racism than the real version), recently announced that she's retiring from writing, and in the last two weeks she's climbed the Ladbrokes odds list. And Grammy Munro writes short stories, a genre typically unheralded by prizes. An award for Grams would be a validation of the format as equally worthy as longer fiction and poetry. Alice Munro plumbs the humanity of her characters. Right, and she's also published by my company, so she's obviously worthy.
Where to start reading: Since Munro writes stories, diving in isn't a time commitment. One place to start would be Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, one of my favorite collections.

Svetlana Aleksijevitj: 6/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Yeah, I have no idea who this is. Hang on a second.... ah. Svetlana is an investigative journalist from Belarus, according to my sources (Wikipedia; if it's good enough for Jane Goodall to plagiarize, it's good enough for this blog). She writes about Soviet and post-Soviet Russia and women. I've heard of one of her books, Voices from Chernobyl, an oral history of my favorite nuclear meltdown. This pick would be okay because I'd have the joy of hearing booksellers try to say her name. That's one of the secret joys of the Nobel.
Where to start reading:  Maybe Voices from Chernobyl since it's at least available in English?

Joyce Carol Oates: 8/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: I'm not going to lie. If JCO wins, I'm doing the butt dance of joy. The prolific US writer could break the 20 year drought on American winners, and though she's starting to get up there in years, she hasn't really slowed in her writing routine. No one embodies the idea of a writer in my mind like Joyce Carol Oates. She actually might just keel over if she stopped writing. Recently she's taken to Twitter, too, and her tweets are more interesting than yours. Not debatable. She's won the National Book Award, won or been nominated for every major award, and has spent a life trying to uncover America the violent, be it boxing, serial killing, abducting, family dysfunctioning, celebrity chasing/obsessing. Oh, and she wrote my favorite short story ever, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?," a story that totally warped my perspective of the world from a very early age.
Where to start reading: The aforementioned short story is a quick treat and captures Oates's need to dig out the darkness from American culture. I also loved Blonde, her novel about Marilyn Monroe. Or check out Black Water, the fictional exploration of the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick Incident.

Peter Nadas: 8/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: The world should be exposed to Hungarian literature? Peter Nadas writes a lot about death, and who doesn't love that? His parents were Communists in Nazi-occupied Budapest, which is intriguing at the very least? Not going to lie--I've never read Peter Nadas.
Where to start reading: I'm not sure, but since I own A Book of Memories, since it's about 1,000 pages long, and since it's compared to Proust, that seems like an excellent place to immerse yourself. Tell me how it is.

Jon Fosse... probably
no relation to Bob Fosse.

Jon Fosse: 9/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Jon Fosse is a Norwegian author and playwright. I've...got nothing. I'm sure he's terrific. He's written many, many plays, as well as novels and essays. I am starting a rumor that he's related to Bob Fosse.
Where to start reading: Seriously, no idea. This is the type of pick that makes booksellers crazy because no one will rush right out to scoop up the numerous dramatic works of a Norwegian guy.

Ko Un...probably no relation to
Kim Jong Un.

Ko Un: 10/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Ko Un is a South Korean poet who has been among the Nobel favorites for many years now. I am not a poetry reader, but I like the idea of Ko Un winning because it would undoubtedly piss off Kim Jong Un, and I love the North Korean crazy.
Where to start reading: It's poetry. You should know better than to look to us for advice on poetry.

Ngugi wa Thiog'o

Ngugi wa Thiog'o: 12/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Ngugi! Love this guy. He's a Kenyan writer who started a new form of
theater in Kenya back in the 70's which encouraged spontaneity and audience participation. It was a huge success until the authoritarian regime in Kenya decided that Ngugi should be imprisoned for his outspoken questioning of convention. While he was in prison, he wrote a novel on prison toilet paper. How can the Nobel ignore a political prisoner? Ngugi fled to the US after he was released from the clink and has taught at places like Yale and written a pooty load of books.
Where to start reading: Go with his memoir, In the House of the Interpreter or his novel Wizard of the Crow.

Thomas Pynchon (?)

Thomas Pynchon: 12/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Meh. I'm not a big Thomas Pynchon fan. However, I would LOVE to see the media storm around a Pynchon victory. Would the famous recluse show up? I'd watch that show.
Where to start reading: The Crying of Lot 49, since it isn't Gravity's Rainbow? Or just watch The Simpsons episode in which cartoon Thomas Pynchon wears a paper bag over his head.

Assia Djebar

Assia Djebar: 12/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Assia Djebar is an Algerian writer known for her feminist stance and whose work often deals with women's struggles. This would be an interesting pick politically since she's a Muslim woman who's been outspoken about women's rights and education. She was one of only two girls to attend her grade school. Assia Djebar is a pen name she adopted because she feared her father's disapproval (her real name is Fatima-Zohra Imalayen). She now teaches in the US.
Where to start reading: I am not sure, but I want to read this woman's biography if one exists. She seems like a bad ass.

Adonis

Adonis: 14/1 odds
Why this pick would be okay: Adonis is a Syrian poet, and the Nobel committee loves to play political games with the prize. He's been an odds favorite for a bunch of years, so it may just be a matter of time before he wins the prize. He too was imprisoned for a period, and when released moved to Beirut, until the Lebanese civil war drove him to Paris.
Where to start reading: It's poetry. Have I mentioned that I gave up poetry for Lent? Poetry readers are pretentious. Yeah, I'm stereotyping.

Other favorites include Amos Oz, Philip Roth, Javier Marias, Margaret Atwood.

Betting on Nobel

This year's Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced on Thursday and the various book industry news venues are posting almost daily updates speculating on which esteemed writer might win this year's prize.  While I have no doubt that every source is, well, full of it, I do love the annual Nobel Prize build-up because it focuses attention on so many great authors.  And leave it to the Brits to take pleasure in betting on who'll win a literary award.  The British bookmaker Ladbrokes posts the top odds for the world's current literary giants (http://www.ladbrokes.com/lbr_sports?action=go_generic_link&level=EVENT&key=214493738&category=SPECIALS&subtypes=&default_sort=&tab=undefined). 

It's a fascinating list, but really, does the Nobel Prize for Literature mean anything?  I do think that award recipients are worthy, and considering my career I'm always in favor of any event that will generate book sales.  But how does one go about selecting the pinnacle of lifetime literary achievement each year, the one writer whose life work outshines the other six billion people on the planet?  It can't be done, and so the award tends to rotate from country to country, genre to genre, honored as much for the political climate of the year as for the author's body of work.  When Harold Pinter won the prize in 2005, speculation was that the outrage over the US invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration's treatment of detainees kept the selection committee from picking the first American since Toni Morrison in 1993.  It's a weird prize that lends itself to stereotyping, a single individual representing a whole group of people, a whole country.  There's the Chinese guy, the Holocaust survivor, the Irish poet, the South African, the Gulag survivor, the African-American woman...it's a little insulting to the talented writers representing their demographics, but the award also calls attention to important works.  Is it a good thing?  Is it wrong?  Maybe it just is.

So who are the bookies picking this year?  The popular choice is for a poet to win since the last decade or so of winners have been novelists or playwrights.  The favorite right now is Tomas Transtromer at 4/1, followed by Adam Zagajewski, Adonis, and Ko Un all at 8/1.  Generally I don't read much poetry and am only familiar with the work of Adonis.  For me the list becomes far more interesting with the 11/1 writer, Haruki Murakami, and then a cluster of my favorite writers hovering at 18/1.  The odds go all the way to the dark horse popular "poet," Bob Dylan, at 150/1.  Here are some highlights from the list of the world's greatest living writers, authors worth reading regardless of whether they ever actually go to Sweden.

• 11/1: Haruki Murakami.  Murakami is the best known Japanese writer in America, a post-modern writer who draws heavily from Western culture and music.  He's also an avid runner and recently completed his first ultra-marathon.  What to read: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which infuses music, the fantastic, and violence around the story of a seemingly boring man whose cat runs away, kicking off a chain of event.s  Also, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami's nonfiction account of his life as a marathoner and triathlete.
• 18/1: A. S. Byatt.  Antonia Byatt is a British writer who won the Booker Prize for Possession.  Her most recent novel, The Children's Book, was one of my favorite books of 2009, a rich, historical novel revolving around a writer and her seven children in turn of the century rural England.  It's a book about family, secrets, love, and the loss of innocence children--and nations--experience as they mature, culminating in the outbreak of World War I. 
• 18/1: Joyce Carol Oates.  Probably the most prolific writer of literary fiction alive today, Oates not only has cranked out dozens of books, essays, and short stories, they almost all been high quality.  She isn't afraid of violence and regularly pursues the darker corners of the "American Dream."  She won the National Book Award for her novel them (and should have won for Blonde, a finalist four decades later).  Oates also wrote my favorite short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"  Check out We Were the Mulvaneys, a moving, dark story about the disintegration of a "perfect" family after the only daughter is attacked one night and her father can't cope with the violation of his daughter.  I also love Blonde, Oates's fictional life of Marilyn Monroe; I had no interest in Monroe at all until reading this book.  The same is true for The Falls, a novel that begins with a new husband committing suicide on his honeymoon at Niagara Falls, a tourist site which also didn't interest me until JCO immersed me in her story.
• 18/1: Margaret Atwood.  I admit that I love Canada and therefore love Margaret Atwood all the more.  Atwood writes great literary fiction, great historical fiction, great speculative fiction set in a dystopian future.  She is known for her social conscience as well as her humor and lately has become an avid Twitter user (Tweeter?  Twitterer?).  Atwood won the Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin in 2000 and The Handmaid's Tale is required reading in many high schools and universities.  More recently Atwood has written two linked near-future novels, Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood, that predict apocalyptic catastrophe with the destruction of the environment and rampant genetic engineering.
• 20/1: Cormac McCarthy.  He's dark, he's twisted, he's reclusive, he's Cormac McCarthy.  McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for his post-apocalyptic novel The Road, and literary critic Harold Bloom called his novel Blood Meridian "the greatest single book since Faulkner's As I Lay Dying."  Two great places to start for readers wanting to try McCarthy--No Country For Old Men, which inspired the Academy Award-winning movie, and All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award.  Both books are superb examples of McCarthy's writing style but aren't quite as bleak as some of his other books.
• 25/1: Maya Angelou.  Poet and memoirist (and cookbook writer) Maya Angelou is best known for her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her story of growing up in rural Arkansas.  The book is required reading for many grade school students and I feel like it's sometimes dismissed because of the school-aged audience.  The best memoirs, though, seem to come from poets--Mary Karr, Nick Flynn, and also the first of the confessional memoirs, Caged Bird.  Angelou also composed and read a poem at Bill Clinton's first inauguration and is pals with Oprah.
• 45/1: Chinua Achebe.  The Nigerian born Achebe is best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart.  The book, about a tribal man whose life is complicated when Christian missionaries arrive in his village, has sold over 8 millions copies and is the most translated work of African fiction in the world.
• 50/1: Ian McEwan.  A crafter of fine characters and stories, McEwan achieved a new level of fame after the release of the movie version of his novel Atonement struck box office gold.  A war story and love story, Atonement centers around a girl misinterpreting an encounter she observes between her older sister and a servant's son, leading to the young man's arrest.  When war erupts across Europe, he leaves to fight.  McEwan also won the Booker Prize for Amsterdam, and his most recent book is a humorous, amoral romp through global climate change called Solar.
• 66/1: Michael Ondaatje.  Ondaatje, another one of my Canadian crushes, won the Booker Prize for The English Patient, which was later made into the Oscar-winning film.  The book is a sweeping love story set before and during World War II, and like most instances, the book is even better than the movie.
• 75/1: Atiq Rahimi.  I admit that I wasn't really familiar with Rahimi until last year, but one of the cool aspects of the Nobel Prize is that it does have the potential to expose audiences to great literature from around the world.  Rahimi is definitely a great writer.  Born in Afghanistan, Rahimi lives and writes in France now, where he works as both a novelist and film-maker.  In 2008, Rahimi's novel The Patience Stone won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary award.  The book tells the story of an Afghani woman caring for her wounded husband who lies comatose in a bed as war rages in the streets outside.  She's angry at her husband for deserting her via gunshot wound and slowly begins to tell him about her life for the first time, releasing her frustrations at her life, marriage, and the constraints placed on women in the Taliban-governed country.
• 100/1: Peter Carey.  Australian novelist Peter Carey is one of the most gifted storytellers writing these days.  He's twice won the Booker Prize, for Oscar & Lucinda in 1988 and The True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001.  His latest book, a historical novel based on the real-life social critic Alexis de Tocqueville, is entitled Parrot and Olivier in America, and it too is shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Who will win?  I myself think that it's about time a Canadian wins, so I'm crossing my fingers for Atwood, Ondaatje, or short story writer Alice Munro (also at 18/1 odds).  Unlike other prizes such as the National Book Award or Man Booker Prize, we won't have an inkling of the shortlisted books in advance.  In fact, the Nobel Prize doesn't reveal  finalists until 50 years after the presentation of the award.  It really could almost anyone walking away with the 10 million Swedish kroner and medal.