I enjoy Sunday’s Oregonian section, O! to catch up on the latest book reviews. Then, I go the library and find them online and reserve them for myself to read.
The latest was the information on the 2008 Nobel Prize winner 
in literature announced by the Swedish Academy – they awarded French novelist J.M.G. Le Clezio 
the prestigious award in 2008 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2008/bio-bibl.html –
. The article appeared in the Sept 2009 edition of the O just before the 2009 Nobel Prizes are to be awarded. Here is the link
http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2009/09/fiction_review_desert.html
They spoke about Clezio’s book Desert just translated into English as well as other books, and I tried to get Desert but could not get that one, so I got the Prospector in my hands and have just started reading it. It is rich and poetic and deep and not formulaic.
The question the article in The Oregonian had in The O story is why have American writers not won this award since Toni Morrison in the early 90’s? I quote from The Oregonian: “The permanent secretary of the Academy inflamed sentiments further when he was quoted saying that U.S. literature is “too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.”
I just like to read new books those winning awards are a great place to start. . . and I like to challenge myself with books from various genres and countries and I talked to my son’s teacher Ms. Shannon about this in our parent teacher conference tonight, and she said I should tell my children what I am doing with books I am choosing to read. Why I read what I read. So, I write this blog with our conversation in mind.
Ms. Shannon also asked for the name of the book I am reading so she could share it with her book group. As I noted, it is Prospector. And, I quickly wrote this short review for her.
It looks like a challenging read, intriguing, a Nobel Prize winning author. It begins with the protagonist’s love for all things water. It starts like this:
“As far back as I can remember I have listened to the sea: to the sound of it mingling with the wind in the filao needles, the wind that never stopped blowing, even when one left the Shore behind and crossed the sugarcane fields. It is the sound that cradled my childhood. I can hear it now, deep inside me; it will come with me wherever I go.”
– here is Barnes and Noble review http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Prospector/J-M-G-Le-Clezio/e/9780879239763/
First, I am finishing up my Jodi Picoult book, Nineteen Minutes, as I like to first finish a book before I start a new one. I read another book of Picoult’s this summer and need to review that as well.
Enjoy. Let me know what you think. The start of it tells me it is Nobel prize worthy.
