Ruminations on Modiano –The Nobel Prize for Literature 2014 by Mike Fish

At midday on Thursday, the French novelist Patrick Modiano was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2014. Like many around the world intrigued by this most politicised of awards in the arts, my initial reaction was one of an internal bemused “Who?” After doing some digging (By which I mean using the laptop mouse to gradually passively scroll down through a live feed of updates on The Guardian’s website), it transpired that the man is regarded as something of a national hero in France and more than arguably justified in his receiving of the prize. Apparently, he was eating lunch in a restaurant with his wife when the news finally reached him three hours later, leading him to respond with a delighted chuckle and his wife to burst into tears of joy. This only makes me like the man even more, if not yet on a wholly artistic level. 

There is however, a problem with the very nature of this article. I dislike opinion columns, which the modern media is constantly excruciatingly submerged in, like a water-boarded Ocelot. I also am not fond of competitions and prizes, which for the most part remove the transcendental nature of artistry out of the artist and turn us into jumping dolphins, actively searching for the hoop which is marked ‘1st Place’ or ‘The Finest of Our Generation’. There is a wonderful Irish poet of our time by the name of Michael Longley, a man whom I have heard read his work and have had the pleasure of meeting. I’m willing to bet that the majority of you once again echo: “Who?” He is a poet from the same generation of and close friends with Seamus Heaney. When Seamus was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in 1995, Michael Longley was being interviewed on radio. When asked as Seamus’s friend how he felt about the news, he replied that he was angry and upset, for 

now there was to be only one ‘great Irish poet’ of their generation. Such is the nature of awarding prizes in the arts. Seamus, through no fault of his own is now regarded as THE POET of his time and many other great poetic writers have been consigned to a collective cultural amnesia. For my own part as an actor, much of my time reading is spent emerged in play scripts rather than novels and stand-up rather than short stories. I can however, bring my own emerging sense of what it means to be an artist to these proceedings and attempt to piece together some positivity for this article. 

Modiano was unfamiliar to many before he was awarded this prize. Now, his name is being echoed throughout the library halls and the campuses of literature students. If there is indeed any artistic merit to be found in this prize underneath the layers of political 
pseudo-bureaucracy, it is the simple act of a relatively unknown author being recognised 

for his work and for a whole new audience to embrace that which he has to offer. Perhaps this could set an interesting precedent for authors like him with extraordinary talent to win the prize in the future. When Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 for being a poet, the speech which he subsequently delivered focused not on his poetry as expected, but on the Irish Theatre and the local struggles of setting up such an unprecedented institution in Ireland like the Abbey Theatre. Even in accepting a prize, Yeats continued to surprise, taking struggles of the relative unknown and bringing it into the global consciousness. This is where the creation of art never stops and the recognition of work aids and complements it, rather than hindering and placing the creator on a pedestal. 

Congratulations to Mr. Modiano and his ‘art of memory’; I raise a glass to him and look 
forward to seeing what 2015 brings to recognition.

http://www.michaelfishactor.com