Posted by Joffre on 21/10/2009, 11:10:48, in reply to "Re: Where is the 21st Century?"
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That's pretty much how I feel, Guillermo. One should almost never read books less than 20 years old.
And yet, I do want to read a little contemporary stuff. There are, of course, active writers of long standing reputation. If I see some list that contains nothing I feel sure doesn't belong, then I'm more interested in the suggestions for contemporary books. I like to know what Harold Bloom thinks. It must seem like I sometimes worship the guy, but that's not it. I just feel he's judging on purely aesthetic standards, and that he's more likely to overlook something worth reading than to recommend something perhaps not worth reading.
Finally, I guess prizes do mean something. I'm no longer quite so skeptical of the Nobel Prize as I used to be. Steven gave us an article last year in which they argued that they were not choosing politically. I looked into it a little and found that while perhaps not the greatest writers living, at least two thirds of the winners from the 80s and 90s did seem to have reputations beyond the Nobel prize. Many of them were poets who didn't interest me, but that's nothing against the prize. It is, of course, possible that the committee has slipped back into political judgements. The prize has had good and bad periods.
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