I confess

the only Doris Lessing book I've ever read is Particularly Cats. so I have no opinion on the Nobel Prize.

when I was younger I was an awards junkie. but now that I'm on the precipice of antiquity I find them silly. Tennessee Williams never won the Nobel. Hitchcock never was got an Oscar for Best Director. & Frank O'Hara never claimd a Pulitzer. awards are political things. I'm not saying all winners are asskissers but it helps.

I heard on the news that Harold Bloom isn't happy with this choice. Bloom -- the Alan Greenspan of literature -- thinks he's smarter than the rest of us. maybe he is. but why he thinks anyone besides his grad students shd listen to him is beyond me.

the best part of this award was watching the paparazzi descend on an elderly writer as she got out of her taxi. when told she'd won Lessing mutterd "christ" & turnd her back on the cameraman. now that was priceless.