Herta Müller and the Nobel Prize

I know nothing of Ms. Müller's work, and so am not qualified to comment on her recent receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Even if I had read and understood thoroughly every sentence Ms. Müller had ever written, I would not be qualified to comment on the event, because the purpose of the award is not at all clear.  Stumbling through the list of past awardees, one is often puzzled by the choices and confused by the criteria.Part of the reason for this is that the Nobel Prize, particularly in literature, isn't really about literature as literature.  It is difficult to discern what it is about.

Herta Müller may well have earned the Nobel Prize.  But I find it difficult to believe that her work is as influential on the whole body of literature as someone like Joyce Carol Oates or Philip Roth.  I find it difficult to imagine a literary world without Philip Roth and the various spin-offs and reactions to him.  Ditto Joyce Carol Oates.  On the other hand, I live and read through in a literary world virtually untouched by Ms. Müller.   Perhaps that is what the Nobel Prize is, a cri de coeur to the literary world, telling them that they OUGHT to be influenced by this magnificent writer. That's not to say that she isn't a worthy recipient, merely to say that influence on literature, now or in the future, obviously doesn't even cross the minds of the committee.

And really, that's all right.  It isn't the way I would choose to give the award.  But I've come to think (and I'm not alone in this, and must admit to being relatively late to the table) that except for the designated author, the Nobel Prize in Literature is largely meaningless.  We manage to include Faulkner and Hemingway alongside of Steinbeck and Pearl Buck.  The first goes to Sully Prudhomme, but prize-givers manage to overlook James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Wallace Stevens (or Robert Frost, or Jacques Prevert--take your choice). In short, lacking any critical standard, the Nobel prize is subject to the vagaries of committee members who seem out of touch with the mainstream of literature.  Sometimes that is good, raising to all of our attention people who deserve more notice.  But more often than not, it is a matter of confusion.  By what criterion is Ms. Müller more deserving than Amos Oz, or Thomas Pynchon, or Don DeLillo.

Well, obviously by the mysterious criteria that drive the Nobel Committee.  If you're looking for a prize that reflects on literature and it's relative importance, you could do better than to regard the Nobel Prize as any indicator.

(That said, I do plan to read some of Herta Müller's work--it sounds most interesting.  I just hoope that unlike previous recepient Jose Saramago, Ms. Müller has some clue about how to write a paragraph.)

Der Speigel offers us a different perspective. To which we have this dissent from Time.

From Time Online

What Americans may not realize is that Müller's selection isn't much less surprising in Germany. Müller, whose major works include The Land of Green Plums and The Appointment, is one of Germany's most decorated writers — her book Atemschaukel has been shortlisted for this year's German Book Award, which will be announced at next week's international book fair in Frankfurt — and critics there hold her in high esteem, but almost no one considered her a figure of global literary eminence.

And you can sample her work for yourself.

From the Nobel site itself, facts about the Nobel Prize. Including this excerpt from Nobel's will:

'As described in Nobel's will one part was dedicated to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”.'