THE INFAMOUS SNOBS of the Swedish Academy, brooding in the land of military cowardice, interminable winter, and one of the highest suicide rates in the world, have returned to their habit of awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to an unknown, undistinguished, leftist fanatic: The 2004 prize has gone to Elfriede Jelinek, of Austria. This time they got a two-fer shot at destroying literary standards, since Jelinek’s writings mainly verge on gross pornography.

Ms. Jelinek’s main recent work is a play, Bambiland, described as “a strident attack” on the U.S. intervention in Iraq. Published in Austria in 2003, it has been translated into English and will doubtless soon appear on the Anglo-American stage. Swedish Academy representative Horace Engdahl, laboring under the belief that the whole world can be fooled forever, disingenuously announced that the award should not be considered a political one. “When that play came out, this decision was–if not already made–then well under way,” he said.