2 out of 4 stars
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The Nobel Prize by Mois Benarroch is an interesting work of meta-fiction. Benarroch goes outside of the box with this short story and throughout the work not only addresses the reader directly, but also discusses his current work, the book you are currently reading. As a work of meta-fiction, the book features writers prominently, their works, and the prizes that they win.
The story is essentially a tale of a struggling writer who is told by a friend of his that a mutual acquaintance is, although a successful (well published) author, spending time in a psychiatric hospital. Although the diagnosis is Paranoid Schizophrenic Personality, the main character quickly finds out that this acquaintance genuinely thinks he is a character from one of his novels each day. Our protagonist, although with many challenges of his own, goes through the process of finding out more about this old acquaintance. Along the way he meets several interesting individuals, has unique experiences, and thinks he comes up with the idea for his next big novel.
I enjoyed the meta-fiction and self-referencing nature of this book. Although I don’t know much about the Benarroch himself, I’m sure he has inserted a lot more references to him and his life within the work. The twists and turns that this story takes not only keeps the reader guessing as to what is actually real, what is created in the minds of the characters, what is wholly invented by the characters who are authors, and what just doesn’t exist. The nature of identity plays a strong role in this story and even up to the end it is not entirely clear where the boundaries of the identity of some of these characters merge. The thing I liked most about the story is how it kept you thinking and doubting yourself the entire time.
Besides the interesting meta-fictional nature of this book, I am not a fan of Benarroch’s writing style. Perhaps it is intentional, perhaps it is an artifact of translation, but I found his writing simplistic and choppy. The book is full of very short and simple sentences and using terminology that just doesn’t seem to flow naturally in English. Perhaps this was intended in order to mimic the anti-social nature of our narrator and main character, but I found it distracting throughout the read. In addition to this, there are many inclusions in the book that seem entirely unnecessary and frankly distracting. Again, I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be a part of the novel or of Benarroch’s own writing. For example, at the end of a chapter, Benarroch (the narrator) writes, “Yes I am gallant. And goal, goal, goal, goal, goal, I just reached the 10,000 words that for me are a key point in the progress of any literary work. GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAL!” Another time he, or his narrator, follows a chapter by the following sentence, “Yes, I know that chapter 23 is not a good chapter. I tried not to write it but it interfered with me and would not let go…” This quote however at least fits within the narrator’s character, but I found it quite distracting. The thing I disliked the most about the novel would have to be the writing style itself.
I rate this book a 2 out of 4 stars. I am not a fan of the book primarily due to the writing style the author has adopted for this book as well as the fact that the story itself did not capture my interest. That being said, I did comprehend and enjoy the bits of word-play, self-referencing, and other “meta” aspects of the book’s story and therefore did not rate it any lower. Others, more attuned to his style may enjoy this book more than me. I get the feeling that the author was going for a “Kafka-esque” style to this story and this plot, but as the narrator in the book says himself, “He was no Kafka, but Kafka was not Kafka when he was alive, so who knows, maybe others saw in his work something I could not see.”
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The Nobel Prize
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