Mario the lone bookwolf's Reviews > The Clown

This one is ideal to show the overestimation of the classic, upper literature, especially if it is mixed with patriotism and this idealization of "our" author who is treated like a national sanctuary. Yes, a long time ago there weren´t many authors, but one must differentiate between the ones that sold many great books because they were talented and loved by a huge audience and those who got hyped by the decadent establishment and so-called intellectuals. Böll is no bad author, but this work is simple, minimalistic and of average quality, nothing outstanding or unique.

There could be a kind of tutorial to get a Nobel Prize for literature that goes as follows: Just take large, epic topics that have influences on in contrast small, in detail described persons that deal with many inner and outer demons and avoid to be entertaining, funny, logical, have too many settings or follow the thousands of years old rules of good storytelling.

There were so many great authors at any time that never got a Nobel Prize and enriched my life while many Nobel Prize laureates where disappointments. If they had written pure sociological, psychological, philosophical nonfiction books it would have been ok because the reader would have known what to expect from the work. There is so much Zeitgeist that it is difficult to understand without detailed foreknowledge, the often strange writing style, open ends and yes, mumbo jumbo. And it doesn´t make fun to read it, there is no flow kicking in. Kids hate reading because of stuff like this that they are forced to read in school and each country has these ancient works of strange authors in the schedule. Do you know how many of them had really weird views of the world that used to be normal at those time? The joker, on the other hand, is a clown beloved by kids, but comics aren´t good enough for school.

Mark Twain or Jane Austen made real art that is old, but entertaining and timeless. The Nobel Prize, it appears to me, has in many cases always been and more and more become a kind of intellectual self- gratification of readers, writers and the jury. And what may be more difficult, to write a lord of the rings or game of thrones or always similar story about a tearful, mentally unstable person with a cynic world view that is behaving like an arrogant emo kid with severe personality disorder (quite kind always the same)?

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clo...