I've only read ten of them:
Kipling, O'Neill, T.S. Elliot, William Faulkner, Winston Churchill,Ernest Hemingway, Steinbeck, Morrison, Marquez, and Coetzee.
I love Toni Morrison and I enjoyed the one Steinbeck novel (East of Eden) that I read. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K was also good but painful.
Which ones have you read? Which are your favorite?
My God! How is it that this group isn't loaded with members?
My favorite book by a Nobel laureate...let's see...ummm...well, the first winner chronologically whose work I've read is Rudyard Kipling (1907), whose book
Kim annoyed and offended me as a teenager in the 1970s.
Selma Lagerlof's
The Story of Gosta Berling was a wonderful read. She won in 1909.
Romain Rolland wrote the astounding
Jean-Christophe, still a proudly worn notch in my belt for finishing that doorstop! I think the prize for 1915 was given on the basis of his having written six billion readable words. (The book does have that many words, doesn't it? Or does my memory play tricks on me all these years later?)
The
Knut Hamsun cult got me briefly...I read
Hunger in my 20s and liked it, then completely forgot about the man. His 1920 Nobel didn't mean much to me, I guess.
I've never read anything by Anatole France that I liked even a little bit. I think it's really his work I don't like since I have seen stuff by various translators and have tried to care. Just doesn't hit me, 1921 Nobel notwithstanding.
William Butler Yeats won for 1923. I liked his collected retellings of Irish fairy tales all right.
GBS...1925...a good pick. Can anyone say they've read and disliked
Pygmalion? Personally, though, I liked
Major Barbara better.
Sigrid Undset and
Kristin Lavransdatter. 1928 was a bad year.
Thomas Mann's selection in 1929 makes up for it, though, since Death in Venice is a gem of a book and his magnum opus, The Magic Mountain, should be required climbing for any serious student of literature as an art form.
Whew! A third of a century in, and my fingers hurt. Maybe more later.
I just started it last month and I don't know how to get the word out! I'm new to Librarything...
Apparently lots of the Nobel people like to comment on the "prizes" group. There's a long strain under Nobel Prizes.
I'm excited to read some of those! I'm really just beginning, so I hoped to find more people recommending what they liked, as you did!
Great idea! Reading through that list of winners made me want to read all of them.
Most of the ones I've read are from the 1990s - I enjoyed José Saramago's
The Year of the death of Ricardo Reis. It was bizarre in that almost nothing happened. Things happened around the main character and he just avoided getting involved as much as possible, and then died. (sorry, I suppose that counts as a spoiler).
Kenzaburo Oe's
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids was short and I don't remember a thing about it so I guess I didn't get much out of it. I tend to be very hazy about things I read more than a few months ago, though - that's a big reason for joining LibraryThing. Talking about books and writing comments and reviews should, I hope, jog my memory.
Most of the older names on the list I don't even recognise.
Theodor Mommsen I know from university as a historian , but had no idea he wrote literature too. His history books were quite unreadable as far as I remember, so I won't be rushing to find out why he won the Nobel. In the 40s and 50s it gets a bit more familiar. I liked André Gide's
Strait is the Gate and love Sartre and Camus.
Has anyone read the latest Nobel winner, J.M.G. Le Clezio? His work sounds quite interesting from the reviews I've read, but haven't got around to getting any of his books yet.
Message edited by its author, Nov 28, 2008, 7:28pm.
I've read most of them. Some of them only once though. Every one of them from Montale (1975) to the present with the exception of Lessing. Everyone from 1920 to 1973 with the exceptions of Bergson, Undset, Karlfeldt, Galsworthy, Buck, Jensen, Russell, Churchill, Seferis and Sachs and I've read neither of 74's Johnsson or Martinsson. Between 1901 and 1919 I've only read Echegaray, Sienkiewicz, Hauptmann and Tagore. Many of them are hard to find. Scandinavians are over represented for a long time.
These are the people who choose the winners:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Aca...Mommsen won as a historian. There was a fear when naming the first recipient Prudhomme that Emile Zola might instead have been picked. Zola died under mysterious circumstances in 1902.
My personal favorite Nobel pick as it happens is a Scandinavian--Iceland's own Halldor Laxness (1955). I'd particularly recommend
Independent People,
Iceland's Bell and
World Light. Other favorites of mine include this year's winner Le Clezio--I have all his translated novels including the early ones. Those are very hard to find now. Hamsun is one of the better ones as well. Samuel Beckett. Kenzaburo Oe. Faulkner. Claude Simon. Saramago. Gunter Grass. Coetzee. Camilo Jose Cela. Dario Fo. Wislawa Szymborska. Camus. Pablo Neruda. Solzehnitsyn. Elfriede Jelinek has been growing on me. Seamus Heaney Pamuk. O'Neill. Garcia Marquez. Boris Pasternak.
Among those I'll avoid at least from now on are Hesse, Reymont, Martin du Gard, Lagerkvist, Mauriac.
Message edited by its author, Nov 30, 2008, 5:21pm.
An interesting exercise, revealing that I've mostly read Nobelists who wrote in English, with some notable exceptions, and mostly the most well-known names. And that there are some I've never heard of! A big potential reading list here.
Doris Lessing -- a lot, but mostly back in the 70s and 80s
Orhan Pamuk -- only
My Name Is RedHarold Pinter-- read some of the plays years ago
J. M. Coetzee -- only
DisgraceToni Morrison -- many
Nadine Gordimer -- many
Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- many
Isaac Bashevis Singer -- many
Jean Paul Sartre -- years ago
John Steinbeck -- years ago
Ivo Andric --
The Bridge on the Drina, one of my favorite books this year
Albert Camus -- years ago
Ernest Hemingway -- many, years ago
William Faulkner -- many, years ago
T. S. Eliot -- in school
Herman Hesse -- years ago
Eugene O'Neill
Thomas Mann -- several; reading him now, in fact
W. B. Yeats -- one of my favorite poets
J. M. G. Le Clézio:
Onitsha,
The Round and Other Cold Hard FactsHarold Pinter:
The Hothouse (and I saw this play at the National Theatre in London in 2007)
Elfriede Jelinek:
The Piano TeacherJ. M. Coetzee:
Dusklands,
The Life and Times of Michael K.,
Disgrace, Elizabeth
Costello,
Slow ManImre Kertész:
FatelessnessV. S. Naipaul: too many to list here, but
A House for Mr Biswas,
The Mystic Masseur,
The Suffrage of Elvira,
Miguel Street,
A Turn in the South, and
India: A Wounded Civilization are among my favorites
Gao Xingjian:
Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather; started but haven't finished
Soul MountainJosé Saramago: I've read almost all of his books, all of which I've enjoyed tremendously; I'll give a slight nod to Blindness and The Stone Raft
Kenzaburo Oe:
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids,
A Personal Matter,
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,
Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!,
A Quiet Life,
SomersaultToni Morrison:
The Bluest EyeOctavio Paz:
In Light of IndiaNaguib Mahfouz:
Palace Walk,
Palace of Desire,
The Day the Leader Was Killed,
Midaq Alley,
The Dreams,
Karnak CafeWole Soyinka:
You Must Set Forth at Dawn,
Climate of FearClaude Simon:
The TrolleySaul Bellow:
RavelsteinJean-Paul Sartre:
The Flies,
No ExitJohn Steinbeck:
Of Mice and Men,
The Grapes of WrathAlbert Camus:
The Plague, The Stranger,
The OutsiderErnest Hemingway:
The Old Man and the SeaWilliam Faulkner:
As I Lay DyingAndré Gide:
The ImmoralistHermann Hesse:
SiddhartaEugene O’Neill:
The Emperor Jones (didn't read it but saw the performance at the National Theatre in London in 2007),
The Iceman Cometh, and several other plays
George Bernard Shaw: several plays
Rabindranath Tagore: several short works
Okay, the 1930s:
1938 - Pearl Buck--
The Good Earth won the darn prize for her, but I myself preferred
The House of Earth among the Chinese works even though it's not a novel, and
Mandala among the later books...though
The New Year was good, too.
1936 - Eugene O’Neill-- "A Long Day’s Journey into Night" deserves its place in the canon. I don't enjoy reading plays much, but this one is simply astonishing and luminous and startlingly fresh no matter the era.
1934 - Luigi Pirandello--has any drama fag, such as I was, escaped high school without reading "
Six Characters in Search of an Author"? It was grueling, and I wouldn't wish it on my high-school nemesis (a red-haired jock named David O'Mary, which always gave me a secret chuckle).
1933 - Ivan Bunin--have only read "
The Gentleman from San Francisco" and enjoyed it; can't say that I felt compelled to follow it up, though.
1932 - John Galsworthy--I confess: I have no idea if Mr. G wrote anything at all other than
The Forsyte Saga. I liked "In Chancery" the best of the saga.
1930 - Sinclair Lewis--
Main Street is still chilling to read;
Babbitt still makes me queasy;
Elmer Gantry remains my favorite of his books, perhaps because I was raised by a freak-o Protestant fundamentalist mother who was prey to a lot of Elmer-like preachers.
Let's See. I've read:
Orhan
Pamuk: I loved his Nobel acceptance speech. I've read Snow. I really want to read
My Name is RedElfriede Jenelik: I've read the
Piano TeacherToni Morrison: I've read
The Bluest Eye,
Sula, Song of Solomon and
Beloved. Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon are two of my fav. novels of all time. For some reason, I just can't get through her recent works. I've started
Jazz,
Tar Baby,
Love and
A Mercy...
Derek Walcott: Poetry
Octavio Paz: I LOVE Octavio Paz.
Wole Soyinka: He has essay about fasting, which I love. Random, eh?
William Golding:
Lord of the Flies was one of my favorite novels growing up.
Cselaw Milosz: My brother introduced me to his poetry, I have been in love ever since.
Pablo Neruda: Now that I think of it, my brother bought me my first Neruda collection as well.
Jean-Paul Sartre: My favorite philosopher.
John Steinbeck:
Albert CamusErnest Hemingway
Bertrand Russell
William FaulknerTS Elliot In high school I fell in love with
Waste Land and
The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockRudyard Kipling I don't know if I could stand to read any of his prose without being offended. But I must admit, I live by his words in "If"
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Maybe I should read
The Story of Gösta Berling later this year.
I've just received a swedish paperback of it.
I assume it is quite humorous. Or?
kjellika, mordantly amusing, but not laugh-out-loud funny.
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My list:
2009 - Herta Müller - The Land of Green Plums
2008 - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio - Onitsu, Wandering Star
2007 - Doris Lessing - Too many works to list
2006 - Orhan Pamuk - All available in English
2005 - Harold Pinter - The Caretaker and the Dumb Waiter
2003 - J. M. Coetzee - Too many to list
2000 - Gao Xingjian
Soul Mountain1998 - José Saramago Seeing, Blindness,Death with Interruptions
1995 - Seamus Heaney Selected Workss
1994 - Kenzaburo Oe A Quiet Life
1993 - Toni Morrison Sula, The Bluest Eye, Beloved
1990 - Octavio Paz Alternating Curren
1988 - Naguib Mahfouz Too many to list
1987 - Joseph Brodsky some essays here and there
1986 - Wole Soyinka Ake: The Years of Childhood
1984 - Jaroslav Seifert a few poems courtesy of fellow LTer Andrew
1983 - William Golding Lord of the Flies
1982 - Gabriel García Márquez Too many to list
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer The Manor, Gimpel the Fool
1971 - Pablo Neruda various poems
1970 - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn One Day in the Life of Ivan Densovich
1969 - Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godet
1968 - Yasunari Kawabata Of Beauty and Sadness
1965 - Mikhail Sholokhov Quiet Flows the Don
1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness
1962 - John Steinbeck Too many to list
1958 - Boris Pasternak Doctor Zhivago
1957 - Albert Camus The Stranger, The Plague
1955 - Halldór Laxness Independent People, Iceland's Bell
1954 - Ernest Hemingway Too many to list (and I don't even like Hemingway)
1950 - Bertrand Russell Authority and the Individual, Why I Am Not a Christian
1949 - William Faulkner Too many to list
1948 - T.S. Eliot Poetry, essays, Death in the Cathedral
1946 - Hermann Hesse The Fairy Tales of Herman hesse
1938 - Pearl Buck The Good Earth, Imperial Woman
1936 - Eugene O'Neill Too many to list
1934 - Luigi Pirandello Six Characters in Search of an Author
1932 - John Galsworthy The Forsythe Saga
1930 - Sinclair Lewis Too many to list
1929 - Thomas Mann Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain
1928 - Sigrid Undset Kristin Lavransdatter, Gunnar's Daughter
1926 - Grazia Deledda Cosima
1925 - George Bernard Shaw Too many plays to list
1923 - William Butler Yeats Collected Poetry, plays
1920 - Knut Hamsun Victoria
1909 - Selma Lagerlöf The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Charlotte Lo
1907 - Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book, Just So Stories
1905 - Henryk Sienkiewicz Quo Vadis
I read many of these authors years ago so I am listing the names with a few of the books.
Orhan Pamuk
Snow,
My Name is Red,
Istanbul,
The Black Book,
The White Castle Harold Pinter
José Saramago Baltazar and Blimunda
William Golding Lord of the Flies,
Pincher Martin Isaac Bashevis Singer -many books
Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godet
Jean-Paul Sartre
John SteinbeckErnest Hemingway T.S. Eliot
Eugene O'Neill
Mourning Becomes ElectraLuigi Pirandello
George Bernard Shaw -many, many of his plays. I like
Arms and the Man,
Major Barbara and
Mrs. Warren's ProfessionSaul BellowAlbert CamusV.S. Naipaul
Gunter GrassIvo Andric
Message edited by its author, Oct 22, 2009, 5:15pm.
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