this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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Tolkien, Lord of the Rings (LotR), etc.
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That price usually goes to the most obscure authors who are only relevant in ivory towers. Then their books actually sell, but most end up unread on the shelves or in goodwill donation boxes.
Just like with movie awards. The ones that win awards are usually snoozefests. Artistic, sure, but zero rewatchability. Meanwhile the goofy comedy that becomes a cult classic and remains relevant for decades gets snubbed and ignored.
Yep. Cannes, Berlinale, etc. All movies that would not exist without 80% external funding, because they are only shown in small cinemas as part of the Sunday matinee. And most of them have not much more story than "Watch Paint Dry" (an actual movie of 8 or 10 hours length).
Most people don't have the epitome of books at home, like people prefer Ban Brown over Umberto Eco, not because the former is better, but because the latter is a hard read.
I have both, and I like both (in a library of 10k books in different languages). Umberto Eco still makes sense, I crass contrast to a lot of literature price recipients.
Hard reading is not the issue. I actually liked how "The Name of the Rose" dropped my reading speed down to a hundred page per hour.
What I regularly notice in books rated high in literature circles is lack of internal integrity. Those people have not a single molecule of world building in them - they don't really think about what they write.
Hmm. Lot to unpack here.
I mean it's generally accepted that most of Ecos books are hard to read, even you had to slow down, right? Many people do not like that or have the mental energy to read one page phrases. Some don't amuse themselves reading those kinds of books, and read books that are simpler. Most good books are not simple even if there are counter examples (L'etranger for example is dead easy to read).
Maybe you're checking out bad litterature prices? Kundera got the nobel price, and I understand why (not because of the book itself, which is one of his worst IMO, but for his life œvre).
Also maybe you just don't appreciate some types of books? Do you have an example of a known book that's particularly bad in your opinion ?
If you like world building, and Eco, go read Baudolino if you haven't yet (it's fabulous in French if you do read that).