Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel?

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

The will of Alfred Nobel states that the Nobel Prize in Lit is to be
given annually to an author "who has produced in the field of literature
the most outstanding work with an ideal/idealistic tendency [det mest
framstående verket i en idealisk riktning]."

Joyce, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Proust et al did not qualify in the eyes of the
conservative Nobel Committee of the first decades. Their works were not
regarded as "idealistic" which for the committee equalled "morally,
aesthetically and/or politically uplifting". On the contrary, these writers
were considered "non-idealistic" iconoclasts in their different ways.


Heikki

Lainaus Rev'd Seventy-Six <revd.76 at gmail.com>:

> "Joyce never got a Nobel and there's some politics involved."
>
> There always are with these things.  Borges being a perfect example:  the
> committee would take vocal supporters of Stalin, but not an established,
> well-regarded author who vouched for a pseudo-populist despot?
>
> How did Joyce foul his chances?  I don't know this story.
>