Review by Texas_Jazz2016 -- The Nobel Prize

[Texas_Jazz2016]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Nobel Prize" by Mois benarroch.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The Nobel Prize By Mois Benarroch

The story is written first person and is about a writer and his experiences and problems with writing. The story begins with the struggles of the main character who feels compelled to write books that usually don't sell well. Often the publishers tell him they will mail the contract and then never send it. He realizes they aren't really interested in his books. Two years previously he had won a prize for one of his books, but is unable to write another one that is that good again. He also translates books for them, but hasn't been hired to do that job for awhile either. Another problem he has to deal with is the fact his wife is supporting him while he writes. His guilt over this causes him to treat his wife unfairly and I think causes some depression.

One day he runs into a writer from his old writing group who informs him that another member of the group Pablo Pisces has emitted himself into a mental hospital. He tells him Pisces becomes a different person each day based on one of the characters from his books. The two speculate that it is probably dementia. Before going their separate ways they talk about the fact that a writer puts himself into his books as one of the characters or at least identities with one. He decides to download as many books by Pisces that he doesn't already own, including some written under a pseudo name. One of the books mentions that Pisces had died ten years ago. He reads so that he will be able to identify which character Pisces will be impersonating.

He begins visiting Pisces each day and observes that he does in fact become different characters. He decides this would make for an excellent book and because of this endeavor becomes infatuated with Pisces. He meets with a nurse, Eva from the hospital to try and get information about Pisces. All she tells him is that he is diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenic Personality.

He becomes concerned that if Pisces should become Claudio, he will commit suicide. He tries to prevent this from happening and tries to convince the hospital to put him on suicide watch.

The story reminds me loosely of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. Anyone who likes Kafka would probably enjoy this book. The idea for the story was interesting, but grammatical errors and the use of wrong words (ex: they instead of there) took away from the story for me. It also seemed at times to meander down paths unrelated to the thread of the story. Because of this I gave it a 2 out of 4.

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The Nobel Prize
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