Tea at Trianon: Why Tolkien Lost the Nobel Prize

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Why Tolkien Lost the Nobel Prize

Revealed at last. (Via Lee Hamilton.)

Basically, in the eyes of the Nobel jury, Tolkien just wasn't good enough. The Nobel committee keeps a vise-like grip on its secrets, only making its inner processes available to the public 50 years after the awards are handed out. A Swedish reporter found the records for the 1961 Nobel Prize and found Tolkien's name on the ballot—he'd been nominated by his good friend and contemporary, The Chronicles of Narnia's C.S. Lewis.

And, while the competition was fierce—Robert Frost, Graham Greene and E.M. Forster were also nominated in '61—Tolkien lost because, in the eyes of the jury, his prose "has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality." (The 1961 Nobel would eventually go to Yugoslavian writer Ivo Andrić.)

Ah, there's nothing quite like being so fundamentally wrong ... and then having people find out why. (via The Guardian)

(Read entire post.)

It only proves to me the whole thing is a big nothing.

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1 comment:

Alice Seidel said...: Exactly like the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the People's Choice Awards, all drivel. All so unimportant people who have never really contributed to anything of any worth in life, can preen on the red carpet and hope you're still looking.; January 17, 2012 at 9:48:00 AM EST