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I’m not a fan of The Lord of the Rings, but I have wondered how such a monumentally influential author was overlooked for a Nobel Prize in literature. C.S. Lewis nominated J.R.R. Tolkien in 1961. The governing committee considered him, but ultimately awarded the prize to the Yugoslavian writer Ivo Andric. Why? Recently declassified documents explain the committee’s reasoning:
Swedish reporter Andreas Ekström delved into 1961′s previously classified documents on their release this week, to find the jury passed over names including Lawrence Durrell, Robert Frost, Graham Greene, EM Forster and Tolkien to come up with their eventual winner, Yugoslavian writer Ivo Andri?. [...]
The prose of Tolkien – who was nominated by his friend and fellow fantasy author CS Lewis – “has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality”, wrote jury member Anders Österling. Frost, on the other hand, was dismissed because of his “advanced age” – he was 86 at the time – with the jury deciding the American poet’s years were “a fundamental obstacle, which the committee regretfully found it necessary to state”. Forster was also ruled out for his age – a consideration that no longer bothers the jury, which awarded the prize to the 87-year-old Doris Lessing in 2007 – with Österling calling the author “a shadow of his former self, with long lost spiritual health”.
Durrell, meanwhile, “gives a dubious aftertaste … because of [his] monomaniacal preoccupation with erotic complications”, while Italian novelist Alberto Moravia “suffers from … a general monotony”.
Greene, who never won the Nobel, was 1961′s runner-up, with Danish writer Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa, coming in third.
Do you agree with the Nobel committee?
Link -via blastr | Photo: Biography Channel
Your knowledge of American literature will be sorely tested in today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Eleven Americans have won the Nobel Prize for literature. You get to match their names with a statement that describes him or her. I only got five right, for a score of 45%. I am so ashamed. Link
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The Nobel Prize committee has announced the 2010 Nobel Prize laureates for Physics. The honor will be shared by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene“. However, this is not the first physics prize for Andre Geim.
Congratulations to Andre Geim, new Nobel Prize winner in physics. He becomes the first to win, as an individual, both a Nobel Prize (this year, together with Konstantin Novoselov, for experiments with the substance graphene) and an Ig Nobel Prize (in the year 2000, shared with Sir Michael Berry, for using magnets to levitate a frog).
You can see a video of the levitating frog at Improbable Research. Link
So. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, I’m sure you’ve heard that President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize (surprise!)
The blogosphere was immediately abuzz with … confusion. What has Obama done to deserve to win? Isn’t it a bit premature? Are Norwegians just Obamafans? And does this mean that the Olympics is ditching Rio to come to Chicago? You’d expect this kind of reaction from his political opponents, but it seems that *everyone* was scratching their heads.
I know, I know – no politics on Neatorama. But I’m genuinely puzzled. What do you guys think is going on?
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And yes, I made that Super Obamario Bros. photoshop
Congratulations to Liz Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine:
Molecular biologist Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, 60, of the University of California, San Francisco, today was named to receive the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Blackburn shares the award with Carol W. Greider of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Jack W. Szostak of Harvard Medical School.
The scientists discovered an enzyme that plays a key role in normal cell function, as well as in cell aging and most cancers. The enzyme is called telomerase and it produces tiny units of DNA that seal off the ends of chromosomes, which contain the body’s genes. These DNA units – named telomeres – protect the integrity of the genes and maintain chromosomal stability and accurate cell division. They also determine the number of times a cell divides—and thus determine the lifespan of cells.
I remember taking Liz Blackburn’s class when I was a graduate student in UCSF and she was actually one of the professors in my thesis defense – you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer and smarter person. A well deserved prize for Liz. Congrats!
