Book awards revelations
Sep. 26th, 2006 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSunday evening I was at the Corine, which is Germany's attempt to make handing out annual awards for books look glamorous. Was amused that while Kazuo Ishiguro was there (because he got an award for best book for Never Let Me Go), all the photographers predictably ignored this awesome writer in favour of, wait for it, not even Diana Gabaldon (who got "best beloved author of the year by the general public") but the actress presenting said award to Ms. Gabaldon and hence sitting next to her. Ishiguro also had an actress as a presenter sitting next to him, but his was Regine Lutz, introduced as "the last living Brecht actor" (err... that's one way to express it), a classy old lady and hence not of interest to photographers, either. Ah, the media.
All in all, the ceremony was well done, with one of the highlights being Klaus Maria Brandauer reading a letter from Mozart as he had won an award for "audiobook of the year" (said audiobook was Brandauer reading a great selection of Mozart's letters, something he also went on tour with). He was in fine form, with his slight Austrian accent just right for Mozart; his presenter, Sir Peter Jonas, started the laudatory speech by remarking that if people thought of Austria's other big export article after Mozart (and the Mozartkugel, aka that bit of chocolate all the tourists buy), they hopefully didn't think of "the governor of California" but of Mr. Brandauer. Here's hoping, though I fear they think of "The Sound of Music", aka the best way to drive Austrians mad first.
Other outstanding moments: Necla Kelek, a Turkish-German author who won for best non fiction, talking about how "Gone With the Wind" and Scarlett O'Hara changed her life as a teenager right along with Alice Schwarzer and discovering feminism. Why Scarlett? Because Scarlett walked out of that hospital and later fought tooth and nail to be never hungry again, which teenage Necla translated at getting what she wanted instead of conforming to traditional expectation.
And: Diana Gabaldon talking about how she got the idea for her Highland-saga. She watched an episode of Dr. Who, saw a Highlander (I went "omg, she must have managed to catch one of those rare ones of the second Doctor! She saw Jamie! I thought Two made it never to American screens and that they started with Four over the ocean?) and got inspired. Despite not being a fan (I read the first book which left me cold and didn't read on), this cracked me up. Clearly, this makes the Second Doctor the inspiration for Claire. *veg*
All in all, the ceremony was well done, with one of the highlights being Klaus Maria Brandauer reading a letter from Mozart as he had won an award for "audiobook of the year" (said audiobook was Brandauer reading a great selection of Mozart's letters, something he also went on tour with). He was in fine form, with his slight Austrian accent just right for Mozart; his presenter, Sir Peter Jonas, started the laudatory speech by remarking that if people thought of Austria's other big export article after Mozart (and the Mozartkugel, aka that bit of chocolate all the tourists buy), they hopefully didn't think of "the governor of California" but of Mr. Brandauer. Here's hoping, though I fear they think of "The Sound of Music", aka the best way to drive Austrians mad first.
Other outstanding moments: Necla Kelek, a Turkish-German author who won for best non fiction, talking about how "Gone With the Wind" and Scarlett O'Hara changed her life as a teenager right along with Alice Schwarzer and discovering feminism. Why Scarlett? Because Scarlett walked out of that hospital and later fought tooth and nail to be never hungry again, which teenage Necla translated at getting what she wanted instead of conforming to traditional expectation.
And: Diana Gabaldon talking about how she got the idea for her Highland-saga. She watched an episode of Dr. Who, saw a Highlander (I went "omg, she must have managed to catch one of those rare ones of the second Doctor! She saw Jamie! I thought Two made it never to American screens and that they started with Four over the ocean?) and got inspired. Despite not being a fan (I read the first book which left me cold and didn't read on), this cracked me up. Clearly, this makes the Second Doctor the inspiration for Claire. *veg*
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Date: 2006-09-26 10:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 11:27 am (UTC)Re: D. Gabaldon - like I said, the one book of hers I read left me cold, but some friends of mine are big fans, so who knows?
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Date: 2006-09-26 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 06:56 pm (UTC)I'd be just skimming the Gabaldon book anyway, as my fiction reading time is sadly limited but my to-read list is nearing infinity.
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Date: 2006-09-26 10:20 am (UTC)Indeed. ::shakes head:: I would have loved to be present; it sounds fascinating.
Love the Scarlett thing as well as being inspired by Dr. Who.
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Date: 2006-09-26 11:31 am (UTC)Dr. Who: of course, when the presenter (the much-photographed actress) said "she saw an English time traveller named Dr. Who who met a Scot" I had to restrain my inner fangirl yelling "he's not English and he's THE DOCTOR, not "Dr. Who", for Gallifrey's sake!". *g*(To her credit, Ms. Gabaldon did not make the same mistake in her own speech.)
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Date: 2006-09-26 12:59 pm (UTC)Of course, like most Americans of my generation, I saw TSOM when I was far too young to have any critical faculties. And fell in love with Captain Von Trapp at a very early age, so I can't really be rational about that movie--.
Glad you had fun at the awards!
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Date: 2006-09-26 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 07:18 pm (UTC)PS to myself
Date: 2006-09-26 07:20 pm (UTC)Re: PS to myself
Date: 2006-09-26 08:35 pm (UTC)Oh, I love the title already. Tell us more? *puppy eyes*
Re: PS to myself
Date: 2006-09-26 09:45 pm (UTC)The short version -- Horwitz, who is a one-time foreign correspondent, and a full time Jewish Yankee from Maryland, revisits his childhood obsession with the Civil War, in a book that's a blend of memoir, history, experiential journalism, and plain old fashioned reporting. There's humorous stuff like the search for Tara, and then he turns around and writes about the scary revisionist history that happens at Andersonville (site of a former civil war prison camp, where the residents seem devoted to whitewashing the war crimes that happened there). It's an absolutely great book.
Re: PS to myself
Date: 2006-09-26 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 01:19 pm (UTC)WTF? How about Haydn, Schubert, the Strausses, Mahler, Freud, Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, Joseph Roth, Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder, Friedrich Hayek, Herbert von Karajan, even Sissi, for cripes sake?
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Date: 2006-09-26 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 08:29 pm (UTC)All the same, KMB RULZ. Re-watched Mephisto on cable the other week. The man is GOOD.
(And I've been trying very hard to forget Sachertorte. *gulps* Really, what I need is another Buchinger stay.)
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Date: 2006-09-26 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 05:41 pm (UTC)That's sort of backhanded, indeed.
Sir Peter Jonas, started the laudatory speech by remarking that if people thought of Austria's other big export article after Mozart (and the Mozartkugel, aka that bit of chocolate all the tourists buy), they hopefully didn't think of "the governor of California" but of Mr. Brandauer. Here's hoping, though I fear they think of "The Sound of Music", aka the best way to drive Austrians mad first.
This had me laughing out loud! And of course the first thing I think of is the Sound of Music, having had a big thing for the Captain when I was seven! Or perhaps a big thing for the Baroness. I was rather unclear about which of them I would rather be!
Scarlett O'Hara changed her life as a teenager right along with Alice Schwarzer and discovering feminism. Why Scarlett? Because Scarlett walked out of that hospital and later fought tooth and nail to be never hungry again,
It always amazes me to see Scarlett, the quintessentially Southern heroine, so beloved in Europe. She's our homegirl, and it always strikes me.
I've heard the Diana Gabaldon story before. Yep, the second doctor! (Even if you can't stand the Outlander books, you should try Lord John and the Private Matter. I swear she's gotten better!)
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Date: 2006-09-26 07:27 pm (UTC)Scarlett: yes, we love her faithfully since decades. I think it started because many women identified with her when the movie was shown in Germany at last in the late 40s, early 50s, for obvious reasons. Or it might be that a good story and strong characters translate everywhere!
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Date: 2006-09-26 06:38 pm (UTC)This is very cool, though I always thought she was inspired by this--how many red-headed Jacobites were there, after all?
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Date: 2006-09-26 07:30 pm (UTC)Who can say? The relevant Dr. Who ep would have been in black and white, so for all we know, that was another readhead...