The Prize

correct, that students reading it will feel they are learning all there is to learn of Alfred Nobel, your Foundation, the history of the prize giving, the stories of the many winners, the ceremonies, and so forth. I want to do full profiles on this year’s winners. Make the series topical, you know. I’ll want to see each of them personally. Do you think you could arrange it?’

‘I’m afraid, Miss Wiley, that would be somewhat outside my province. I would suggest you contact the parties personally.’

‘I’ll want to talk to you, too, and loads of the Nobel judges and officials and so forth. Surely, that kind of co- operation is in your province?’

‘Yes, it is. The only difficulty will be the matter of time. I am certain you understand. This is Nobel Week. All year, we aim towards this one week. We are hosts, and we have duties and functions. The demands on our time are great.’

‘I can’t think of anything more important than what I’m trying to do for you.’

Jacobsson smiled bleakly. ‘We appreciate it, Miss Wiley. Do not misunderstand. We are here to serve you. I would suggest you telephone me at the Foundation tomorrow morning. After ten. I shall do my best to arrange what I can for you.’ Jacobsson heard his own voice, and realized that the room was beginning to quieten. He looked off. ‘I believe the interview is commencing again.’

Straightening in his chair, Jacobsson remembered one point and was curious about it. He leaned towards Sue Wiley. ‘How has it gone so far?’ he inquired. ‘How has Mr. Craig been?’

Sue Wiley blinked, sniffed, and looked off. ‘I don’t like him,’ she said. ‘He’s too disdainful.’

Across the room, setting down his empty glass on the end table beside the couch, Andrew Craig, preparing to endure the last portion of the press conference, felt no emotion akin to disdain. If some few, like Sue Wiley, had misinterpreted his too quick, too curt replies or his over casual attitude, as scorn for them, the rabble journalists, and their stupid questions, it was an unfortunate accident of behaviour. As a matter of fact, Andrew Craig, when he was able to pin his mind to the activity at hand, had been favourably impressed by the intelligence of his inquisitors and the quality of their inquiries.

What had affected Craig, shortly after his arrival in the Swedish Press Club, was not scorn for Grub Street, but rather self-despair. If he hoped, as Leah and Lucius hoped, that the change of scene and the high honour accorded him would revitalize his interest in life, in creativity, he was wrong, and they were wrong. The laureate Craig was a mockery of the other man he had once been. The reception and adulation, also, seemed intended for someone else, someone who had written The Perfect State and Armageddon, and not for him, this day, an impostor, an impersonator of the real Andrew Craig. His attendance at the Press Club seemed even more futile. The questions asked were being asked of another man, and his replies were by proxy. The other man might have cared. He did not. It all seemed wasted, like giving information for a story that would never be printed.

The fresh drink had helped, and he uncrossed his legs, and put the unfilled pipe in his mouth, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, trying to appear interested, determined to do better by that other man who had written those books.

The room was attentive, and the interrogation resumed.

‘Mr. Craig,’ said the man from the Stockholm Dagens Nyheter, ‘is it true that you are only thirty-nine years of age?’

‘Only?’ echoed Craig with surprise. ‘Since when is anyone only thirty-nine?’

‘In terms of the Nobel literary award, sir, that is extreme youth. I believe you are the youngest winner to date. Previously, Rudyard Kipling was the youngest. He was forty-two when he came here in 1907, and Albert Camus was the second youngest, forty-four when he came here in 1957.’

‘Well, I assure you, I’ve established no record,’ said Craig. ‘I would allow Mr. Kipling to remain your juvenile lead. He was always younger than forty-two, and I’ve always been older than thirty-nine.’

‘Thank you on behalf of the British Empire,’ called the man from Reuter.

Everyone laughed, and Craig smiled boyishly, and good cheer was restored to the room.

‘I wonder,’ said the man from Dagens Nyheter, ‘why our committees honour so many young scientists and old writers? Would you have any comment on that?’

‘I didn’t know you favoured young scientists,’ said Craig. ‘It’s hard for me to imagine. When I see news pictures of them, they always seem wrinkled and stooped, as though they invented seniority to give you confidence in their magic.’

‘Quite the contrary,’ the man from Dagens Nyheter persisted. ‘The Nobel Prize- winning physicist in 1960, Donald Glaser, was thirty-four years old. Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee, of your country, who divided the physics prize in 1957, were thirty-five and thirty-one, respectively. Dr. Frederick Banting, of Canada, who won the medical prize in 1923, was just thirty-two years of age. William L. Bragg, of England, who won the physics prize in 1915, was only twenty-five. I believe that is the record. But you are the first winner of the Nobel Prize in literature under forty. Can you explain that?’

‘I should imagine the reason for this may be found in the nature of the awards,’ said Craig. ‘You give all your science prizes for a single discovery. A man may make this discovery in his twenties or thirties as easily as in his fifties or sixties. But you give the literary award not for one work, but for a body of work. It takes a long time to build up a list of books. It’s taken me thirty-nine years to write four novels, and you say I’m the youngest. Most writers are elderly gentlemen by the time they have produced sufficient quantity to be judged. Also, I believe, writers ripen more slowly than scientists. A brilliant physicist can often display his genius all at once, at an early age. Experience is less important to him than flash perception and inspiration. Writers, no matter how brilliant, are immature and callow when they are young. Words are not enough. Life provides their materials, and usually they are not good enough until they have lived enough.’ He half smiled. ‘Living enough takes time.’

‘Despite the necessity of the ageing process, do you not think too many old authors are given the prize?’ asked the Dagens Nyheter man. ‘Many of us believe Alfred Nobel meant his prize money to help the struggling and promising young, and did not want it wasted on the advanced in years who are usually secure and perhaps no longer productive. Nobel once said, “As a rule, I’d rather take care of the stomachs of the living than the glory of the departed.” Another time, he said that he wanted “to help dreamers, for they find it hard to get on in life.” Do not these statements imply an interest in aiding younger artists who lack means?’

‘I hope so,’ said Craig with amusement, ‘I hope that is what Nobel wanted-for, by your standards, I am young-and, by my standards, l lack means.’

The Dagens Nyheter man would not be put off. ‘Then why do our committees pour all their funds into the laps of old men who do not need it? The first seven literary winners averaged seventy years of age! Anatole France was seventy-seven when he doddered in here for the Ceremony and cheque; and his countryman, Andre Gide, was seventy-eight. Sir Winston Churchill was seventy-nine. Why does our Swedish Academy do this? I do not think it is fair. We wish your opinion, Mr. Craig.’

‘It comes down to the purpose of the award,’ said Craig carefully, ‘and that was not defined by Nobel and has never been clear since. I’m not sure I agree that the handling of the literary award is as unfair as you imply. I don’t think age should be the issue at all-only merit-and older writers, proved writers, generally have more merit and deserve more honours. This may be playing it safe, true enough. But honouring younger men, simply because they are younger and promising, may be equally unfair. They may not improve, may not endure-indeed, may retrogress. I have heard that your Academy considers Sinclair Lewis a case in point. I’m no Pollyanna, and I’m not given to toadying, but all things considered, I think your Swedish Academy is doing the right thing. I’m sorry I can’t agree with you, but that’s how I feel. Call the Nobel Prize in literature an old-age pension, if you will, but I think that is better than turning it into a young man’s subsidy.’ He might not receive the most sympathetic write-up from the Dagens Nyheter, he told himself, but it did not matter. His attention was diverted to someone else’s upraised hand. ‘Yes?’

The young male correspondent, with the short-cropped beard, was standing. He introduced himself as representing Sweden’s Bookseller Magazine.

‘Mr. Craig, past winners of the literary award, in recent years, have often stated-whether out of honesty or modesty-that they were less deserving than some of their contemporaries. Sinclair Lewis, in his public speech here-that was back in 1930-felt that James Branch Cabell, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, all were Americans more deserving of the Nobel Prize than he. Six years later, when Pearl Buck was notified of our award,