Yesterday Jan Wolkers was cremated in Amsterdam. He was best known as the writer of novels like Turkish Delight, Burning Love and The Dodo. I’m happily surprised that so much of his novels have been translated in english.
But he is also remembered for his rejection of two of the most important awards in Dutch literature: The P.C. Hooftprijs and the Constantijn Huygenprijs.
It is remarkable when awards gets rejected. It is even more remarkable when it is done for the right reason. For example, Wolkers refused the P.C. Hooftprijs because his colleague Marten Toonder never got one.
Jeroen Brouwers, another Dutch author, recently refused the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren this year. The reason why Brouwers refused his award was the prizemoney: 16.000 Euro.”It’s like someone saying to you: here old man, buy yourself a glass of beer”.
Of course, the best reason for rejecting an award is when you know you don’t really deserve it. It’s a shame that Al Gore let a golden oppurtunity to do just that, go by.
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Category: Dutch fuss, History | Tags: None
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Comments
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Dutch fuss, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I disagree entirely on the Al Gore reference. Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat both won a Nobel Peace Prize. If HK, and YA can have one, then certainly AG is deserving. Hell, with that kind of standard, they should be handing them out like candy
P.S. Love the new blog look. Very dramatic!
There is a Dutch saying that goes something like this: the best captains are on shore.
It perfectly illustrates why i have a problem with Al Gore winning the Nobel prize. When he was second in command of the biggest ship of the political fleet he did next to nothing to support the cause he is supporting nowadays. What makes it worse, he refuses trying to take the helm of that same ship right now. He is more comfortable touring around lecturing a message that anyone with a half functioning brain has been already aware of when the same Al Gore was sitting in office doing nothing while his government said FY to the Kyoto treaty.
So screw Al Gore. And if it makes you feel better, screw Arafat, Rabin and Kissinger too. But while you can criticize those three, the difference between them and Gore is that they were at the helm of their ships when they won the Nobel prize. And both Arafat and Rabin payed the price for their politics. Al Gore has not and it seems that will not in the foreseeable future. He is a captain on the shore, claiming power and demanding respect while knowing he does not have to bare any of the responsibility.
i’m happy you like the new look of the website. since it is all about me, it can’t be dramatic enough!