If you would have to divide serious literary writing in two broad categories, style versus message would be a good one, the talented word magicians (Nabokov, Marquez, Flaubert) versus the socially committed (Hugo, Tolstoj, Allende), the writers’ writers versus the mass favorites. If you prefer the first over the latter, like the Zac, you have to admire the Tzumprize. The Tzumprize hands out a yearly award for the most eloquent sentence produced that year in the Dutch world of fiction. The prize is worth the number of words in euros. Last year was a record, with a winning sentence by Jeroen Brouwers .
Posts Tagged ‘Nabokov’
Style über Message
Thursday, September 4th, 2008On the Verge of a Simple Solution
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
“He seemed to be quite unexpectedly (for human despair seldom leads to great truths) on the verge of a simple solution of the universe but was interrupted by an urgent request.” Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin.
According to the Literary Encyclopedia, Pnin is the most accessible of Nabokovs novels. I personally found it rather boring, but even in his less interesting works (again, a subjective matter) little beauties can be found.
No thanks
Friday, September 14th, 2007
In a two-year stretch beginning in 1955, Knopf turned down manuscripts by Jean-Paul Sartre, Mordecai Richler, and the historians A. J. P. Taylor and Barbara Tuchman, not to mention Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (too racy) and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (“hopelessly bad”).
More on Knopf’s rejection record at The NY Times
Imagination without knowledge
Friday, June 30th, 2006
A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the unborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world. In order to do this adequately, (more…)