Day: October 6, 2011

Swedish Poet Tomas Tranströmer Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature

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From the Nobel committee–

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2011 is awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality”.

Here’s Tranströmer’s “After a Death,” translated by Robert Bly—

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.

“Steinbeck Is Sincere” — William T. Vollmann on East of Eden

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William Vollmann writes about John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (excerpted from Imperial via Expelled from Eden)—

The book of his which I admire the most is East of Eden. For a decade now the character of Kate, whom some critics find unconvincing has haunted my head; she’s horrific, she’s pathetic, she’s steady and successful and lonely; she is perfectly what she is. The retelling of the Cain and Abel story is brilliant, the landscape descriptions lovely and lush, the plotting as careful and convincing as the best of George Eliot. And of course there’s a message, a flaw, personified by a Chinese servant who tells us, sometimes at great length, what to think. But Lee has never annoyed me. He speechifies intelligently, at times wittily, and sometimes compassionately. Do I care that nobody I’ve ever met talks like that? He is sincere because Steinbeck is sincere. And this is what I love about Steinbeck most of all, his sincerity.

Agnostic Symbol — Salvador Dali

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