December 2004 Atlantic Monthly

Nobel Prize Claim Form

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1. I deserve a Nobel Prize in: Lit___ Math___ Physics___ Medicine___ Peace___ Other___

2. BASIS OF MY CLAIM
Before you begin: Applicants must be smart enough to know that writing in Swedish and/or familiarity with the history of dynamite will not necessarily increase their chances for a favorable ruling. Put a check next to the claim basis that most closely resembles yours.

A. Deserving winner, but anti-me fix was in.
B. Temp secretary sent nomination form to Pulitzer Committee.
C. Forgot to include return postage on nomination form.
D. Not told 12-midnight nomination deadline was Swedish Standard Time.
E. Other.*

* "Other" may not include: King of Sweden holds grudge against me/Tux rental store out of my size/Won prize but left it in taxi outside Club Ecstasy afterward, and driver took off after waiting 8 hours.

3. MY MERIT VERIFICATION
The following statement as to why you deserve your Nobel Prize must be written by someone other than yourself who is not your pastor/high school principal/parent/parole officer/warden.

He/She deserves his/her Nobel because:______________________________.

Reminder: "He/She even knows who the Democratic vice-presidential candidate was in 1952" is not sufficient grounds for being awarded a Nobel Prize.

4. BRAIN TWISTERS Nobel Aptitude Requirements: To eliminate impostors, you must answer at least 1 of these 3 questions:

A. Without using pencil and paper, calculate the circumference of Kirstie Alley.
B. The desert island that a rabbi, a Scotsman, and a nymphomaniac are stranded on lies ___ leagues (rounded to the nearest team) from the Galápagos Islands.
C. In what novel besides The Mill on the Floss does the phrase "Call me Ishmael" not appear?

Answers: A. Wrong B. Wrong C. Wrong. A legitimate Nobel Prize candidate would have recognized these as trick questions and countered with 3 authentic Brain Twisters. New Rule: Imposters must return this claim form, torn in half, with a check or money order in the amount of $1.

5. DO I THINK LIKE A NOBEL LAUREATE?
Imagine yourself in the following situations and describe what you would do if:

A. The Queen of Sweden "came on" to me as I sat waiting to make my acceptance speech.
B. Greenpeace picketed the awards ceremony, condemning me as a guppy-murderer.
C. Visa declined my card when I tried buying the Awards Committee a round of drinks.

This has been a test of your sangfroid. These situations and the proper responses are listed in "So You've Won a Nobel," the pamphlet included with the welcoming fruit basket in your Stockholm hotel room. (Do NOT accept pamphlets tendered by masked gypsies riding in the same hotel elevator.)

6. WELL, DO I GET MY NOBEL PRIZE?
Be advised that of the 432 applications accepted from the more than one million claimants just like you who applied for a Nobel Prize in 2003, 4 were approved:

Recipient	Claim
Name Withheld, Ottawa, Canada	Ex-spouse melted down my original Nobel Prize.
"Madame X," Paris, France	Was promised Nobel Prize by a relative of a Scandinavian crowned head.
H. K., Toms River, NJ, U.S.A.	Proud grandparent of high school honor student.
King Fleagle, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.	Had perfect poker hand.*

* Nobel Prize later withdrawn on finding that there is no Nobel Prize for poker.

Delivery of your Nobel Prize, if awarded, will be 6-8 weeks after the decision. Shipping charges of $50 U.S. will be deducted from your award check. Sorry, no returns.

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Winning the Nobel Prize

By Naboth Hedin

Why did Tolstoy never win a Nobel Prize? Why were Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hardy turned down? This year, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Nobel Prizes, a memorial volume will be published in Stockholm telling for the first time of the jurors' deliberations over the awards and of how and why they were finally made. The book will be published in English, and the portions of it dealing with Alfred Nobel's life and the awards in the field of Medicine and Literature have been translated by Naboth Hedin, a son of Sweden and a Harvard graduate who became an American citizen in 1910.

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How Nobel Prizewinners Get That Way

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You are barely past thirty and have just received from Stockholm the telegram that says you have won a Nobel Prize for Science. How do you feel? "My God!" cried the Chinese-born scientist T. D. Lee. "What happens now to the rest of my life?" A former physicist tells of Nobel laureates he has known.

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Sinclair Lewis and the Nobel Prize

By Mark Schorer

Novelist, critic, and teacher, one of the moving spirits at the University of California, Mark Schorer has been at work for more than a decade on his big biography of Sinclair Lewis, the October choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club, from which this chapter is taken.

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