Word: nobelity
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Reading Soul Mountain in this version is a frustrating experience, chiefly because of the sense that there must be more to it than this. Surely the Nobel Prize cannot have been decided principally on the basis of what appears here. Gao, 60, a playwright as well as a novelist, is regarded as a master of the Chinese language. Perhaps that skill cannot be completely conveyed in a translation, but a better use of English might have helped...
When it announced in October that Gao Xingjian had become the first Chinese author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy singled out for particular praise his "great novel" Soul Mountain, calling it "one of those singular literary creations that seem impossible to compare with anything but themselves." Proving that fate sometimes smiles on publishers, an English rendition of Soul Mountain (HarperCollins; 510 pages; $27) was in the works well before the Nobel hullabaloo made its author an international celebrity, and has now arrived with the unexpected imprimatur of the Swedish Academy...
...BEOWULF: The Anglo-Saxon epic, the bane of English majors, looks brand-new and thrilling in a verse translation by Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. The tale may still strike readers as bloodthirsty, but Heaney's language evokes Beowulf's tragic stature, his helplessness to avoid - and his bravery while facing - the dictates of his fate...
...M.I.T., Ray Kurzweil acquired the nickname the Phantom because he tended to skip class to work on his inventions. His disappearing act paid off. Earlier this year President Clinton presented the native New Yorker, 52, with the National Medal of Technology--a sort of cyber-Nobel Prize. Kurzweil's eclectic career and propensity for combining science with practical--often humanitarian--applications have inspired comparisons with Thomas Edison...
Reading "Soul Mountain" in this version is a frustrating experience, chiefly because of the sense that there must be more to it than this. Surely the Nobel Prize cannot have been decided principally on the basis of what appears here. Gao, 60, a playwright as well as a novelist, is regarded as a master of the Chinese language. Perhaps that skill cannot be completely conveyed in a translation, but a better use of English might have helped...