Honors for Austrians, but with a dark lining

[Dave Monroe]

Honors for Austrians, but with a dark lining
  	
Richard Bernstein
	
Friday, November 12, 2004

[...]

Austria is a happy, rich place these days, doing
pretty well economically, especially compared with
troubled and depressed Big Brother Germany to the
north. Moreover, for a small country, it has had its
share of world class distinctions lately - a Nobel
Prize in Literature and [Kaiser] Karl's beatification
chief among them. But rather than produce eruptions of
joy, the honors accorded Austrian citizens, deceased
and still living, have come with a bit of a dark
lining. Austria is not collectively as happy as you
might expect.

The biggest attention-getter was, of course, the Nobel
Prize in Literature, awarded to Elfriede Jelinek, who
became only the second Austrian writer to win that
particular prize. Elias Canetti was the first, but he
was not really Austrian, or he was Austrian in the
adoptive sense, and while he lived many years in
Vienna, Austria was not really his subject. Jelinek,
by contrast, wrote about Austria with what many
Austrians feel was a poisoned pen, penetrating to its
dark heart, its invisible worm.

She gave an interview to a German newspaper this week
in which she said that, as long as there were writers
like Thomas Pynchon around, it seemed a bit strange to
her that it was she who got the prize.

The biggest attention-getter was, of course, the Nobel
Prize in Literature, awarded to Elfriede Jelinek, who
became only the second Austrian writer to win that
particular prize. Elias Canetti was the first, but he
was not really Austrian, or he was Austrian in the
adoptive sense, and while he lived many years in
Vienna, Austria was not really his subject. Jelinek,
by contrast, wrote about Austria with what many
Austrians feel was a poisoned pen, penetrating to its
dark heart, its invisible worm.

She gave an interview to a German newspaper this week
in which she said that, as long as there were writers
like Thomas Pynchon around, it seemed a bit strange to
her that it was she who got the prize....




		
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