Why can't I read books by a Nobel Frenchman?

David Sexton
10 Oct 2008

J M G Le Clézio, who has just won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, has many connections to Britain. The son of a British doctor, he grew up speaking both French and English. As a child, he regularly holidayed in Britain and went on to study English at Bristol University.

He cites Stevenson and Joyce as his favourite novelists, both because they "drew their inspiration from their first years of life". VS Naipaul is also important to him for the same reason, he says. Conrad has been another great influence.

So why haven't we even heard of him before? In France, Le Clézio's stature has long been recognised. As far back as 1994, the readers of the dominant literary magazine Lire elected him the greatest living writer in the French language. He was commonly said to be the only "nobélisable" of his generation, the French actually having a word for that sinister condition. Only last year, a French paper announced that, at 66, Le Clézio reminded one of the formidable Victor Hugo publishing Les Misérables.

But here Le Clézio's work is barely available. Quite routinely, the Nobel serves to expose the insularity of our publishing and literary culture, but this year is surely the most drastic example yet. There is perhaps just one of Le Clézio's many books that can, at a stretch, be classed as being in print in Britain Wandering Star, published by Curbstone Press, a "non-profit literary arts organisation" based in Willimantic, Connecticut, available through Amazon. Otherwise, zilch.

And it's not because his books have never been translated. They have, by many dedicated translators, but they have not been kept in print for any length of time.

There is no effective backing here for anything like that to happen. The Arts Council Literature Department is a sad joke that might as well be abolished. In its broad policy statement, it piously says it wants to increase the profile of international writing in this country, but its actual "priorities" are the usual social engineering mishmash: "To support a more confident, diverse and innovative arts sector ... To enable more people to take part in the arts ... To help create vibrant communities across the country ..."

Why not also to make everybody happy as a lark while they're about it? Or better, to fold up their tent and creep quietly away.

Meanwhile, worthless new titles fill the shops each season and good books have ever shorter shelf-lives. The Nobel, with its wacky track record won by Galsworthy, not by Tolstoy, Joyce or Proust is far from infallible as the ultimate award. But if it makes us feel momentarily abashed about that complacency, it serves some purpose.

Now I want to read some Le Clézio. All I've been able to find so far, a few extracts from his most famous book, Desert, seem a bit simplistic about noble savagery. But what do I know?

Unbuttoning David Brent

British comedians rarely prosper in the States — even the superbly abusive Little Britain USA has been getting a mixed reception. However, the new rom-com starring Ricky Gervais, Ghost Town, out here in a fortnight, is a triumph. Gervais plays a fabulously rude and selfish British dentist, working in Manhattan. After briefly expiring on the operating table, he becomes able to see and talk to the ghosts of the many New Yorkers who have gone over to the other side leaving unfinished business behind them.

Gradually, the dentist realises that other people and their feelings matter. What we see is David Brent humanised. Or to put it another way, what it takes to make an Englishman unbutton. Something supernatural. And by the end, that's no joke. In fact, it's enough to make you weep. A corker, this.

The Goddess of stereotypes

Nigella has spoken. After seeing her husband Charles Saatchi lose five stone by eating nothing much but eggs for nine months she has now moved him on to a more normal diet of lean meat, fish and vegetables. And, she reports, being a man, hubby barely noticed the difference. “It's been a remarkably easy transition for him, actually. Men are impulsive eaters. Food means so much less to them than it does to women.”

Of course it does. Thank you, Nigella. It is only women who obsess so desperately about cakes, choccies and biccies.

And while we're at it, let's admit it's not just noshing that means so much less to men, either. Friends and family, too. Birthdays and presents. Shoes. Bags, obviously. Christmas. Fitted kitchens. Talking things through. Feelings altogether ... Don't let me commence, as Truman Capote used to say.