Engdahl's Anti-American Bias

(The following is a comment made in agreement with a recent blog entry in "The Sycamore Review."  It was made in response to the recent selection of French author JMG Le Clezio, an author largely unknown in the US, to receive this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, at the expense of several worthy American authors.  While I do not begrudge M. Le Clezio his win, not having had the opportunity to judge his work for myself, I am more disturbed by comments insulting to the US literary community made by the Nobel permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl.  Among other things, Engdahl, prior to the award announcement, declared that, "the US is too isolated, too insular.  They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature...That ignorance is restraining."

  

Upon hearing of the news of Le Clezio's win many Americans expressed their disappointment in the selection.  After all, it's been 15 years since the United States has won the award, when it was awarded to Toni Morrison.  Since then, many have been waiting to hear that Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, or any number of possible American authors have been given the award.  But every October, our hopes are dashed by a committee that seems intent on ignoring American talent.  This is especially disturbing to us when we hear the permanent secretary go on to say that "you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world...not the United States."  This and other statements made seem to confirm what we Americans have long suspected, an anti-American bias.

  

What became even more disturbing for me was to stumble upon European attitudes of resentment against the US, based not just on justifiable political and economic considerations, but on what they perceive as American literary arrogance.  (I must note here that not all the European attitudes I encountered were negative.  Indeed, some were supportive.)  But those negative attitudes attempted to attribute an anti-French position to the American literary community, which I think is neither fair nor accurate.  Further, they unfairly condemn Americans as focusing only on ourselves, as if we are unwilling to even consider the rest of the world as worthy of attention.  The only somewhat valid point that I think is made is that American  publishers tend to focus in a very narrow way on American authors that sell.  But to blame the American literary community for this is like blaming the victim for the crime.  American publishing is run ultimately by business concerns, not literary ones.

  

I also doubt that that aspect of the claim is accurate anyway.  The complaint the Europeans may have is that European authors are under-represented by American publishers.  This is probably true.  But in the post 9/11 era, the focus of a good deal of publishing has been shifted to the Middle East.  American bookshelves are filled with novels, memoirs, etc. by Middle Eastern authors, some immigrants, and by authors of Middle Eastern descent.  Despite tensions between East and West, these works have helped to bridge the gap in some small way, to which the Nobel committee seems completely oblivious.  Those Europeans making these charges come off a bit like a small child tugging at the skirt of its mother while she is a little busy doing something else.  But this child holds the reigns of the Nobel Prize, which despite recent events still means quite a bit.

  

Forgive me. If I seem bitter, it's because I am. 

 

What follows is the response expressing agreement with a blog I stumbled upon last night.  I think the preamble may actually be longer than the actual amble.)

I was surprised by my own resentments toward the statements of Engdahl and others who, first characterized Americans as being too ignorant and insular, and then suggested that our reactions to Le Clezio's win were specifically anti-French.  I have always counted on the Nobel literature selection to help me expand my knowledge of world authors;  V. S. Naipaul, J.M. Coetzee, and Orhan Pamuk, come immediately to mind, among others.  I expect that, once some of his books come back into print in the US (that was probably the only fair criticism that was made), I will at least attempt to add Le Clezio to that list.  (To whatever extent I may have had a slight anti-French reaction, it was most likely a flashback to my aborted attempt to slog through Gao Xingjian's "Soul Mountain." 

The charges of an anti-French sentiment, were, for me at least, offensive because it systematically lumps any American who might have had an objection to the choice into the same wicked cauldron of right wing American-chauvinism which brought us those detestable "freedom fries" and which pretended to reject John Kerry on the basis of him "looking too French."

One blog entry I read (which I didn't bother to record), on the point of American ignorance and insularity, expressed disappointment and something close to shock that Americans didn't know who Le Clezio was, despite the fact that no less a commercial media enterprise as "Time" magazine reviewed his first novel.  But considering that this review was written and published in 1964, can it really be that shocking that it escaped our collective attention?  I'm not clear on the chronology of the selection versus the odious statement, but I can't help thinking that it was a deliberate attempt to deflect criticism from the choice.  How can we on the one hand argue that we are not ignorant and insular, while on the other argue that it was a bad selection based on the fact that nobody here (except for those who collect old issues of "Time")  had ever heard of him.  They can argue his importance to the literary world by simply insulting us and presenting a Euro-chauvinism that is equally offensive to the American chauvinism that exist here in certain quarters; and not having access to the material in question, we have no defense.  (As I said, the one fair criticism made was that American publishing tends to leave big holes)

But the criticisms made can work both ways.  If we are angered by the selection of Le Clezio, it can in part be attributed to the lack of access.  If Engdahl and others cannot see the importance of so many American writers, they cannot use lack of access as an excuse. One criticism made dealt with American's focus on things American, and on American pop culture references.  I have always been of the belief that the universal can be viewed in the specific.  (The archetype of a mother can be filtered through an allusion to Florence Henderson.)  Authors from around the globe are often revered for giving us a glimpse into that which is universal within their culture.  Orhan Pamuk's "Snow," for instance is a uniquely Turkish novel, but certainly transcends the particular.  I reject the notion that no American writer could be found to whom that claim could be made.

There have been feeble attempts to smooth ruffled feathers.  It's been pointed out that Le Clezio is "nomadic" and lives much of the time in New Mexico.  So what?  My beef is not with Le Clezio.  I do intend to give him the benefit of the doubt.  But I am quite upset with Engdahl's statement's, which can only be seen as (uh, what is the literary term?)  Snotty.  It does also seem quite unprofessional to announce in advance that the committee has rendered the US to be the literary equivalent of Susan Lucci.  (Oh, God, not another one of those detestable American pop references.  Junot Diaz, be on alert!)