Nobel Prize for LiteratureA Story by penhiveThis short story aims to deconstruct the establishment of the Nobel PrizeTo
decide the Nobel Prize for Literature, the group of judges were handpicked due
to their vehement expertise and vulnerable contacts in and around the globe as
a theater. They were listed as follows: ""Cerebrated Literary Theorist "" Celebrity
Writer "" Oriental Scholar "" VIP politician with PHD in Literature "" Queer
Think Tank "" Dissident Writer "" Military Dictator for his taste in Literature
""Retired Circus Buffoon ""Illuminati on Poetics The
panel of judges could not unanimously decide which country/continent the Nobel
Prize for literature is to be given. The circus buffoon made a loud guffaw and
jerked into a full throated exclamation. He said: “Let’s do the Russian
roulette. Let’s ask the celebrity writer to place her sensitive diacritical
feminine fingers and use her well acquainted nails to push the globe gently,
and use her Gothic impressionistic nails as wisdom, with her eyes closed,
melodiously as the globe comes to tender stop like Schumacher’s racing pet.”
Ms. celebrity writer said: “Oh my goodness! How can I do that? I will spoil my
nails. They have acres of vanish, very eloquent Paris shoe polish.” The
military dictator got up and said: “No let her not do it; my Beretta is loaded.
I will shoot it right on target as the globe slows down. Swing you clown, swing
the globe. After this panel is over, you can look after my prized collection of
black panthers kept as my pets.” The
politician with PHD in Literature had certain other peculiar characteristics
like one finger less, a huge scar running all the way from the jaw to the
temple and bald patches on his head resembling the map of England. He got up
and intoned in the lexical parliamentary style: “How outrageous and scandalous?
What if the military dictator shoots into the oceans? “Here let me pick a safe
haven of land with hiding secrets; let me do it. Here I know.” He smiles in a
sly manner.” I know a writer of some sorts. Here let me award it to him. He
says: “He writes some sort of absurd symbolism of post-modern genres. Let’s
award him a prize for goodness sake. You could voice some interest about the
scope of business too. Think about the publicity it will generate and the
percentages too. The
dissident got up and remarked:” What, how terrible! The mortals of humanity, the
radical anarchists of today"- the ones who are writing for the would be
democracies all over the world. Dissidents are the wounded soldiers of
humanity. The prize should not be filtered away. It should be given honor and
representation to a writer whose country, where every cognition is interpreted
externally as the voice of the repressed. Dissidents are political prisoners
and the literature beyond the asylum is a gulag which needs your royal
patronage. The
queer think tank got up and started circling his hands in a very puzzling but
symbolic conundrum much to the consternation of the panel. He said: ” Queerism
is going through the nascence of a cult. Why even today it is negated to the
periphery of marginal literature. The evolution of Queerism to the main street
acceptance and the schisms of imagistic renaissance with its apocrypha have
plenty of talent. Circulate the globe"-if by any chance or mishap if it falls
in an anti-queer country award a prize, if there is to any of the samizdat
queer texts there. Illuminati
on poetics got up and cautioned:” I am ashamed and puzzled by your mediocre and
burlesque quest for the survival of anything remote to World Literature. I am
no proponent of poetics and for that matter I am hardly able to read anything
of prose either. I propose to give the Nobel Prize for Literature to a work I
read called the Death of the Language. It has a few blank pages and then a
chapter called Confusion where the writer says the experiment is to make the
letters the smallest so that they will be hardly legible to read. Then there
are two pages blank and a page embossed in medieval manuscript form titled:
Order beyond Hegemony and Anarchy. All the letters of the language are arrayed
like stars of a galaxy. Then there’s a chapter called Renaissance within the
association of Metaphors. Two images that are shown are weeds growing out of
tongues and eyes growing out of brains. Within the periphery called the End of
the Book there’s a title written hieroglyphic translated into English as the Organic
Museum. Here nudes are erotically described through various phases of
expressionism. There’s also an advertisement logo of curative organic food with
aphrodisiac intensity for sale. The last page ends with the denouement called
synthesis of fiction. Here a miniature doll, a shamanic one from Africa also
called Myth and Magic an esoteric hermeneutic one, hangs on a branch in
contemplation. As soon as the reader touches the page, an audio enabled script
proclaims hysterically: I killed the Tarot. This poly-magical-poetic-mythical-post-post-modern
work has the universe within it in every conceivable form. It is a simulated
chorus of many texts. It is a book which will displace bewilder the semiology
of the arcane world of the trans-generic where the sect, order and the
worshipers, secretly assume and proliferate the world into every imaginable
fictions of recognition. In the World of decadence it becomes a Xanthippe of
fiction. The
Oriental Scholar made a gesture of abject condescension, quite mystical as that
of a thaumaturge and said humbly with apologies of great reverence:” In this
Aquarian age, the body as consciousness within the realms of the mind is
hyperbolic spirituality, and its epiphany is manifested as Metaphors of the
Sign in the unity of Content. The cult of the revival and the charismatic has
many versatile polymath writers who sad to say write, but hardly reveal what
they write. They keep it a secret not to be handed down to the generations.
However I feel Schmidt Lewinsky Gardner’s work, as Oriental-ism within the West
and Ms. Spivak Chandra Sullivan’s Occidental-ism as the East are possible
inclusions for the Nobel Prize. The
cerebrated Literary Theorist jumped up like a pole vault and shouted;” You
hardly read the great theories of language called meanings of representation
within every symbol. Infinity like Shakespeare is blind Homer within every
representation. The blind eyes of Homer deceive speech and substitute as every
intention. Today the Babel-cipher-cyber can generate every combination of
literature, and it has the possibility to evolve and make everything called
Literature. It can adulterate the soul of the language and the freedom of human
expression and make all literature a simulation. I feel the Nobel Prize should
go to the machine. As
the committee started quarreling and disagreeing on everything, the military
dictator pointed his Beretta and said “Order Order or I fire since all
Literature is the semblance for imagination and mere creation there’s no
universal literature called World within Humanity and Humanity within every
Experience, therefore we can shortlist none for the Nobel Prize. The
circus buffoon laughed so loudly that all eyes were cast on him. The military
dictator took aim with his Beretta with the muzzle closing in; The last words
of the circus buffoon were: ” Please let this year’s prize be given to the
circus of readers.” His last words before being martyred were: ” This ceases to
be a writer’s prize as none except you have read it. © 2021 penhive |
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1 Review Added on February 19, 2021 Last Updated on February 19, 2021 Tags: Nobel Prize for Literature, Fiction, Short story, Postmodern fiction AuthorpenhivePathnamthitta, Kerala, IndiaAboutI am a Hellenic Philistine, an existential nihilist, a postmodern enthusiast, and I ontologize my being into religions of Christianity and Judaism with the being of an apologist. more..Writing
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