Josipovici, Pessoa, Naipaul A while back I ment…
Josipovici, Pessoa, Naipaul
A while back I mentioned Fernando Pessoa�s remarkable novel The Book of Disquiet in connection with the latest translation. This has now been reviewed by Gabriel Josipovici, the critic who first brought Pessoa�s name to my attention. He is not very impressed. (Readers should be aware that this is only an abridged version of the review because the TLS are stingy like that). However, I still recommend the Serpent�s Tail edition which is shorter and easier to read than the cumbersome new volume.
And today VS Naipaul, another author I mentioned in a blog recently, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The committee singled out his novel The Enigma of Arrival for particular praise (it’s my favourite too, although A House for Mr Biswas is perhaps the People�s Choice, and his travel book Beyond Belief is, of course, very topical).
Whether or not this award indicates greatness is another matter. In David Markson�s book Reader�s Block, which I�ve just read, the narrator lists five or six names of obscure and relatively undistinguished Scandinavian authors who have won the prize. Sigrid Undset, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Halldor Laxness, for example (these aren�t the authors he uses, but I don�t have the book with me). To which he added: Toni Morrison.
Say no more.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Theroux vs. Naipaul Like his eminently likeable…
- Josipovici in Paris
- Light on Josipovici
- Roth on NPR, Naipaul on BBC
- When night falls
