Hmmmmm–––––makes one wonder. One of my closest friend’s husband won the Nobel Prize for scientific discovery––RNA––years ago and she describes her experience during the ceremony in Oslo in very humorous terms. She is very outspoken and having been seated at a table between two very stogy gentlemen regaled them with tales of American foibles tinged, of course, with pride. They nodded politely, never really laughed, just a chuckle or two. It wasn’t until the dinner was almost over that she realized her two seating companions couldn’t speak a word of English except for the preliminaries like hello, nice to meet you, and goodbye.

well, lit, as the music biz, visual art, has always been highly political, and Mark Twains’s dead. i was warned, in ‘64, by Oscar Williams, that lit was a deal of ‘who you know…’—-so true—-but there is a ‘culture-gap’ amongst the Swedes and we, and even their Euro neighbors—-why? i woulds say, ask Max Von, or Bergman—-the idea of Eliot winning anything stumps me—-vs. ‘Fern Hill’— and true, i feel we have more Great poets than all of Europe—-including ‘The Bard’—-E.E. Cummings, etc.—we really have a superior knack for poetry—-and how could they ignore Joyce—-the true father of all modern prose? i may only guess his revolutionary style simply ‘flew-over-their-heads’? as for Updike? there i don’t blame them—-one more Harvard ‘Big-Mac’—-Ann Rice may write him away—-if you may see her craft as allegory—-and it’s her ‘craft’ that stuns—-she somehow fuses Twain and Joyce—-no east thing. a Nobel for a vampire-book? to me The Nobel remains the ream of physics/life-science—-not lit—-i do see your point on their either ignorance of American lit—-perhaps it’s a ‘language’ glitch—-‘culture-gap’? or simple politics. And how may they ignore Dr. Sheldrake’s ‘The Presence of the Past’? easily the most important 20th century ‘life/science’ work? because of his comments on ‘crop-circles’? totally taken out of context—-it is a ‘must-read’—-reviving Lamarck, now thanks to both Dr. Steele’s ‘Lamarck’s Signature’ and of all things, the absolute proof—-From SWEDISH records of ‘acquired-characteristics’, (they alone have kept centuries of records), as shown in the PBS Docu “Ghost in Your Genes’—-for them to ignore him, the only man ‘The Great Randy’, master BS defeater, ever apologized to? no excuse—-you are correct—-‘there’s something rotten, close to Denmark’—-welcome to Earth—-