Comments on: Picking the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature Winner

By: mikerol

mikerol — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:39:07 +0000

Rignt you are Laura on bookies, the legal as well as illegal, not being as scientific with Nobel Prize winners for Literature. I will try to find out via Hanser Verlag who Lars Gustaffson had picked this year. I am not at all surprised by their choice of Herta Mueller, a true Nobel Prize choice, true to their form. Her name had been spooking around the background of my mind the past few days once I saw the list, and that she was even on it. Nothing really wrong with that, but nothing really right with that either. Old school Humanism. Yrs. truly Michael Roloff

By: Laura Nathan-Garner

Laura Nathan-Garner — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:32:29 +0000

You’re right, @mikerol — there are certainly many factors that bookies consider when developing odds. But while I can’t claim to know much about the topic, I doubt the the method or odds for things such as the Nobel Prize in Literature are quite as scientific. I say this because the Nobel Prize nomination process is so secretive. The Swedish Academy has a policy of waiting 50 years before disclosing nominees’ names. Maybe I’m just naive and like to think that it’s more top secret than it is, but my guess is that the bookies don’t have quite the direct line to the Nobel Prize that they do to sports. (Then again, Ladbrokes did apparently give higher odds to winner Herta Mueller just days before the Nobel Prize was announced, so …)

By: Laura Nathan - Bookmarked – German Writer Herta Müller Wins 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature - True/Slant

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:23:18 +0000

[...] Herta Müller has won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. The site Ladbrokes had given Müller 50-to-1 odds to win the [...]

By: mikerol

mikerol — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:39:42 +0000

Nothing wrong with Achebe, he’s even at Brown University right now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe
I will ask my Nigerian friends, all scientists at the University of Washington what they think. I expect they will love him…
I think maybe there should be a half dozen Nobel Prizes, one for each continent, there are a dozen writers who are deserving on that list. My insistence on Handke is because I knew quite precisely the many ways he has really enlarged the capacity for communicating, and also why.
A London Betting site
Nobel Prize for Literature 2009 Betting Odds | Systemlays Free …
By Number 10
Peter Handke 20/1. Shlomo Kalo 20/1. Alice Munro 25/1. Arno�t Lustig 25/1. Bob Dylan 25/1. Juan Marse 25/1. Les Murray 25/1. Ngugi wa Thiongo 25/1. Yves Bonnefoy 25/1. Atiq Rahimi 40/1. Margaret Atwood 40/1 A. S. Byatt 50/1 …
Systemlays Free Sports Betting Tips – http://www.systemlays.co.uk/
says not to bet the favorites but make a side bet on Handke. I myself have translated two Nobels, a lot of Hesse and Nelly Sachs, and published Montale. There are great winners, like Thomas Mann, Elliot, Faulkner, Bellows, and some not so great, like Tony Morrison…

By: jasonjprice

jasonjprice — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:10:57 +0000

Achebe deserves the Nobel, perhaps more than any other on this list.

By: mikerol

mikerol — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:57:47 +0000

i don’t know, it would open up people’s thinking. handke actually wouldn’t mind deferring, take a look at some point at chapter 2 of his A SLOW HOMECOMING where he writes better about Dylan than has anyone else… and does so by NOT NAMING him! I have meanwhile set up a betting site where I am wagering that Handke will win between 2010 and 2015, and am giving 5:1 odds:
http://handke-nobel.scriptmania.com/

By: mikerol

mikerol — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:14:17 +0000

I am just wondering what the odds were on Elfriede Jelinek winning when was it about five years ago, and whether she was even on anyone’s list? who then turned around and said that Handke ought to have won it in Austria. How many Nobel Prize winners nominate someone more important than themselves? http://www.elfriedejelinek.com/

I am giving 5:1 that Handke wins within the next five years!!!

By: mikerol

mikerol — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:18:14 +0000

Bookies don’t fly blind, Laura. My author Bob Kalich – his customers bet on college basketball, and even fixed some teams – was on the phone for nights on end to get the inside dope on injuries, etc. E.G. when the University of Washington Huskies basketball team played in fairly intimate and very loud Hec Ed arena, that was, let’s say, worth six extra points in the “spread” – the bookie made his money that way! So the boys and girls at Ladebroke have some kind of dope. A Skandinavian [Skandi], give him or her those extra six points in the spread for playing at home! I wonder whether there’s a Vegas line on this, for Kalich it was a matter of doing better than the Vegas line, and so he had informants at all the colleges!

By: Laura Nathan-Garner

Laura Nathan-Garner — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:48:57 +0000

Well, for what it’s worth, the list was created by bookies. It’s certainly possible that the committee is considering people not on that list.

By: mikerol

mikerol — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:41:52 +0000

When I was publisher of Urizen Books, in the late 70s Lars Gustaffson came by who very much needed an American publisher and we went for a long walk through what was then called “the landfill” and is now Battery Park City down along the Hudson, and discussed that in about 25 to thirty years it was time for another Skani to win the prize! He isn’t even on the list, fine and interesting writer that he has become, done by New Directions I think, but he knows all the judges, so for some inside dope says someone who also edited but fortunately not publishing Bob Kalich’s THE HANDICAPPER [or: How Became a Millionaire betting nickels and dimes for the Jewish Mob!]