One of the things that has had the lit blogosphere all abuzz is the Nobel Prize secretary Horace Engdahl's remarks that "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don?t translate enough and don?t really participate in the big dialogue of literature," indicating that an American writer would not be getting the big prize this year. People are up in arms, saying that the Nobel Prize committee has "no clue" about American literature. However, to me the whole thing begs a larger question. Why do we care who wins a Nobel, anyway?
Over and over again, we hear the litany of great 20th century writers who never received the prize; Joyce, Kafka, Nabokov, etc. The implication in this list is that the Nobel has to go to writers who really matter and when it doesn't it's some kind of great tragedy. Yet, looking back on the list of laureates past, does it really seem like the creme de la creme is always represented? Sure, you've got Hemingway, Faulkner, Yeats, Mann, Eugene O'Neil and Gabrial Garcia Márquez. But you've also got dozens of names that even the extremely well-read will have never heard of, and also writers, such as Rudyard Kipling, whose star has long since fallen. There's even the occasional touch of the ridiculous, as with the award to Winston Churchill.
Why are we so hung up on awards? If you win one, you have it appended to your name; Jack Nicholson is now Academy Award-Winner Jack Nicholson. Likewise, José Saramago is really Nobel Laureate José Saramago, as if the award conferred some kind of divine rechristening like God changing the name of Abram. Yet, at the same time it's common to debate whether someone deserved an award, whether there were politics involved, whether the award-givers were trying to make some kind of statement. And when someone disagrees with an award, out comes the declamation "Awards are meaningless," to be widely agreed with by all within earshot.
Why do we care if the Nobel people don't understand our American literature? Most of America doesn't understand American literature at this point. Don't we have bigger things to worry about?
Spoiler alert: don't read this if you haven't watched the latest episode of Heroes.
Is it just me or has Heroes gotten really very bad? It's like the writers have no sense of character integrity or character development at all, and everyone is just slaves to a plot that barely makes sense. Which was a problem in season 2 that only seems to have gotten worse.
Problems:
So Syler's "hunger" is a product of his power and not of his psychosis? Doesn't that take away all of his character development, the whole point of his wanting to gather power so he could finally be special? Now he's just someone who would be a nice, normal guy if he wasn't inflicted with a sort of disease instead of a deeply damaged individual who lusts for power and recognition.
After everything Maya has been through, killing all those people, being manipulated by Syler, having him kill her brother, why does she now come off as a normal, stereotypical girl who seems to be around just to react in obvious ways to Mohinder's transformation? You'd think she'd have issues at this point with aggressive, super-powered individuals and not want to just jump in bed with them. You'd think she'd be a lot more freaked out and jumpy.
Mohinder's transformation is a direct and uninteresting retread of The Fly. Why?
So a bunch of scientists working for the Company created three super-powered identical twins and then split them up (why?) with random families and let them grow up without any supervision from the people who created them? Huh?
Why in the world would you have a man-sized vent in a prison cell?
Is it just me or did Molly not age at all in four years?
Wouldn't Adam have at least grown a beard after being in a coffin for several months?
The climatic fight seen in Costa Verde makes no sense at all. Peter and Syler are SO much more powerful than the three they're fighting it's ludicrous that they would even try to go head to head with them. Peter and Syler could have pinned them all up against the wall the moment they showed up. At the least it would have been very easy for Syler to pull his son away.
Also, is EVERYONE related to the Patrelli's now?
So now we have an injection that can give you super powers, as well as a magic desert paste that can make you see the future. These powers really aren't all that special are they?
"Totem" is a native American word, so why is it being used by an African mystic? In fact, the whole journey with your spirit animal thing is very native American and not very African at all. This is lazy writing.
And that's just off the top of my head. It's really getting to the point where I might not bother to watch this stupid show anymore.
exoskeletons become a reality
Through the ELITE program
