October 7, 2004

Nobel for Elfriede Jelinek.

Die Klavierspielerin The Swedish Academy has announced that his year's Nobel Prize for Literature goes to Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."

Jelinek's reaction, currently the top story of the hour at many German-language news sites, will come as a surprise to many, but perhaps not to those who've seen The Piano Teacher, Michael Hanecke's adaptation of what's widely regarded as her semi-autobiographical novel. As Stephen Brown reports for Reuters, "Jelinek said at her Viennese home she felt 'more desperation than happiness' at the news."

Whether or not one can relate to that desperation in general or to her social phobia in particular, her anger at those like the Austrian president who have immediately claimed the prize as a triumph for "Austrian literature as a whole" is more than understandable: "I do not hope that it has a significance for the country. I am completely distanced from this government."



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Posted by dwhudson at October 7, 2004 12:41 PM

Comments

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/16512

Posted by: Matt at October 7, 2004 4:54 PM

Goodness, what a bizarre response. Thanks for pointing that out, Matt. I think Kevin Lee's reply is spot-on: Not anti-populist, but anti-corporate. Craig Keller's windier reply also hits a few good notes.

But back to Lee, I've got to point to those CiNobels in the next batch of shorts!

Posted by: David Hudson at October 8, 2004 1:18 AM