Just not good enough

The yawn in America that accompanies the annual announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature gaped even wider this year with the selection of French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. While Le Clézio is not entirely unknown on these shores — he spends part of the year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has had three stints as a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico — he was considered a fairly obscure author, and even in France he was not among the most widely read novelists of his generation.

Among those scratching their heads at Le Clézio's selection was Los Angeles Times book editor David Ulin. In discussing why it may be many years before another American author is chosen — the last to win was Toni Morrison in 1993 — Ulin surveys the current prospects:

In fact, the two most prominent American Nobel candidates this year — (Philip) Roth and Joyce Carol Oates — both seem unlikely laureates; Roth because he has actively lobbied for the award (which the committee is known to resist) and Oates because, to be frank, she's just not good enough.

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