Writing

Decoding Nobel Prize Literature: My Perspective

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Thoughts on Art

Barbara Lipkin

May 09, 2026

As a life-long reader and writer, I jumped at the chance to join a book club formed to read and discuss Nobel Prize winning literature. After giving it two tries, I’ve decided that this just isn’t for me. Maybe I’m naive or unsophisticated but it’s always been my opinion that writing is supposed to be lucid, constructed in such a way as to be able to convey ideas clearly and in an organized manner. But my experience reading some of these books and poems has shown me that for some reason, people who write prose or poetry that is convoluted, obtuse, obscure, pretentious and impenetrable seem to garner the most applause.

One of the members opined that artists are simply trying to express their own thoughts, without regard for an eventual reader. But as a painter and writer myself, I know that if my only aim was to express my thoughts and feelings, I’d just keep a diary. The fact that I put my work “out there” for the public indicates that I expect and hope that what I have to say will be experienced and appreciated by others. To that end, I try to make my writing clear. Not simple, necessarily. I, too, am fond of imagery and metaphor, but when I use those devices, I try to make sure they are truly enhancing the writing, not just trying to impress and/or obscure. With my painting, too, although I often create abstract works, I try to use color and pattern to express mood and feelings, not simply smear paint on a canvas at random, paying no attention to use of color or design. So if art and writing are meant to express the creator’s ideas, they must be presented in a coherent enough way to be able to do so. A novel, essay or poem shouldn’t be so obscure that the only way one could attempt to make sense of it is to analyze it word by word. Where is the joy in that? Where is the meaning, emotion, recognition and discovery?

So I guess Nobel Prize winners will just have to get along without my patronage. If others enjoy reading their work, more power to them. I have other things to do.

A Death in Our Family

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Tradition. It’s how we celebrate the happy times. It’s how we get through the hard times.

Gustav Mahler told us—” Tradition is not the worship of ashes. It is the preservation of fire.”

Bella Sarver counts herself lucky to be surrounded and supported by all three components of tradition: Family. Friends. Community. What else really matters? Even so, life can still be less than perfect and family secrets can roil a community, especially when the end result is murder. So when a respected lawyer, a member of the local synagogue, is killed, his murder sends out ripples throughout Bella’s world – the local art league, the synagogue and overlapping families. Always families. Ancient tales take on new life in every generation, don’t they? Isn’t that why we still tell them? From generation to generation. Tradition.

Chanukah Joy (collage, 7 x 5)

Sometimes we tell our ancient stories through art, as Bella understands very well. It’s how she makes connections and figures out the truth.

The latest of my Bella Sarver series, A Death in Our Family, is nearly ready to be released. I’ve been playing around with it for more than two years now, after having a provocative email landed in my in-box, and it’s finally evolved into a coherent novel. As an artist, I love to experiment with different mediums, and I find collage particularly interesting. With bits and pieces of various types of papers and fiber and found objects, a collage artist, like a painter, can create meaningful and expressive works, and have a lot of fun doing it. Sort of like playing.

In a way, A Death in Our Family is like a collage, in that it takes pieces of Old Testament stories, and Jewish traditions, and community events and combines them all into a whole, a sort of patchwork. I enjoyed researching it and pulling the whole thing together, and I hope my readers enjoy diving into it.

Yahrzeit Candles

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Tuesday was my mother’s yahrzeit. She’s been gone twenty-six years already, though it seems like yesterday in many ways. I still miss her, every day. I lit the yahrzeit candle in her memory, as I do every year on the anniversary of her passing. Its flame gives me comfort. It’s almost as if she were still with me, just for the twenty-four hours or so while the flame flickers and burns and the wax melts in the little glass. I think about her, and wonder if she’s safe, if she’s at peace, if she and my Dad are together up there in Heaven. If they’re together with our grandson Dillon, who left us way too soon, at the age of 28. Are they watching out for him? Are they letting him know he’s still very much loved? And missed? And will never be forgotten? I hope so. I think so.

While the candle burns, I take comfort in my mother’s presence. I talk to her. I wrap my hands around the glass, feeling the warmth of the flame. I’m grateful to have the chance to be with her again, if only just for a little while. But then the wax is completely melted and the flame dies. And Mom is gone. All over again.

We say ‘may her memory be for a blessing.’ Yes, her memory is a blessing. Also a loss. A loss that doesn’t really get better as the years pass. May she rest in peace and love. She deserves the best.

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Just Released!

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This ‘n’ That – An anthology of short stories and drawings’

I’m very excited to announce that my collection of short stories, poems and whimsical drawings is now available on Amazon, in a paperback edition. Some of the stories will make you laugh, some will make you cry. I hope all of them will make you feel … feel something lovely. I certainly enjoyed throwing myself into writing them. I’d love to hear what you think, so please–don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon after you’ve read the book.

Winter

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Winter is not my favorite season. The cold, the early dark–make me want to pull the covers over my head and stay in bed until Spring. But that way lies madness–right? So get up and paint, I tell myself. Remember the warmth and color of the sun. It’s still out there, even though it’s doing its best to hide from us right now. So I reminded myself of the Caribbean–the lush islands, the beach, the sea. And I got out my paints, squeezed out a pile of yellow, grabbed a brush, and started smearing paint on a couple of canvases. And guess what? Today, after a couple of weeks of intense cold, the sun did come out and the earth warmed up a bit. So I guess my ploy worked, for today, at least.

First, I did a little vignette.

Sand and Sea, acrylic, 12 x 12

Next, encouraged, I branched out into something a bit more substantial, focusing on the light, the sun filling the sky. So that’s how this landscape came by its name.

Light, acrylic, 16 x 20

Continuing Riva’s Journey from Antwerp

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The Red Star Line Museum resides in an old red brick building at the docks in Antwerp. It was in this building that millions of emigrants spent their last days in Europe before setting sail on one of the Red Star Line ships for America. My grandmother, father and uncle were three of those people, about whose journey I wrote in Riva’s Journey: a Memoir (Amazon.com, paperback and Kindle editions). Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to visit the museum for myself.

It was incredible for me to stand inside the same building where my family stood over 100 years ago, ready to leave behind everything they’d ever known to try to build a future in a new land. The museum itself has exhibits detailing the stories of many of the emigrants who passed through there, and is fascinating to visit. Directly across from it are the docks that are still busy and active today, where my husband and I walked past cranes poised to load new ships on new journeys.

The museum is set up to allow visitors to search their databases for ship’s manifests, etc., but there are no records available from 1920, as many were destroyed during World War II. I tried anyway, but no luck. Oh, well–fortunately Ellis Island has many of the same records in their data bases, which is how I know my family sailed on the SS Lapland. So amazing to have been able to visit this site!

Painting in the Narrative Tradition

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From earliest times, people have used pictures to tell a story. Following in this narrative tradition, I have created, over a period of years,  a body of work that tells the stories of some of my earliest memories. Many of these paintings are hanging in our family room at this moment. Looking at them recently, I realized that I need to take the exhibit a step further.

Pictures are great, but to really tell a complete story, you need words. At least, I do. So I decided to add a ‘narrative’ to my ‘history paintings,’ so that subsequent generations will understand what I had in mind when I painted them.

I grew up in Chicago in the 1950’s and 60’s. My family was close, both in physical proximity and emotionally. My aunt and uncle, and my grandparents were always in each other’s apartments, celebrating holidays and family events, as well as taking many outings together within the city. They’re all gone now, but my memories of them are still vivid and alive.

Times change, and the lifestyle we enjoyed then is no longer possible, with families spread out all over the world. We don’t live in each other’s pockets anymore. So stories will have to take the place of experiences, and maybe my paintings can make my stories more vivid and real.

For example, Passover on 19th Street, shows a family at a Passover Seder. My father, grandfather, and uncle are reading from the Hagaddah, while my Grandma and aunt are working in the kitchen. My mom is next to my dad, putting a bowl of chicken soup with matzo balls on the table. The table is set with the traditional seder plate, wine and matzo, and the children are all at the table with the family. On the left side of the painting, a goat, (a kid-from the traditional song in the Hagaddah Chad Gadya – about one kid that father sold for two zuzim) peeks over the front door, and on the right side, there are the apartment houses that we lived in on Chicago’s West Side. There are a few extra guests at the Seder, which would have been normal. And the dining room isn’t what my grandma’s dining room looked like. But none of that is the point. What I hope viewers get from this painting is the sense of closeness and family celebrating a beloved holiday in a traditional way. I loved painting it.

A Note on Self-Publishing

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There’s a reason traditional publishers earn the big bucks! I’ve just spent an exhausting several days attempting to update my website to include the latest novel in my Bella Sarver Mystery series: The Butterfly Carpet Murders. Having only the very foggiest knowledge of how to do all this, what would probably have taken a pro an hour or two took me forever, with lots and lots of trial and error. But finally, I think I’ve managed it. So check it out and see what you think. I’d love to hear comments and suggestions.

Hope you enjoy reading the book. I had a great time writing it!

Featured

A Word About Genre

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What do you think of when you hear the words “Science Fiction?” I tend to think of things like space ships, little green men, and robots. Yet my new novel, A Wonderful Good Morning, contains none of those things. So why is it classified as “Science Fiction?”

The problem is that every book needs to fit into a genre, a known category, in order to be marketable. But how do you classify a novel that doesn’t really fit into any of the standard genres? I wish I had the answer to that question.

A Wonderful Good Morning is about climate change. It’s also a mystery story involving  travel and art and even a little romance. So why call it “Science Fiction?” Well, because in writing about climate change, I took what’s known about some aspects of our warming planet and created a story that’s grounded in reality but then takes off into a world of my own imagination. I suppose I could have called it “Fantasy,” but that word brings complications, also. It conjures up images of shape-shifting creatures and witches and demons, which doesn’t describe my book any better than the words “Science Fiction” do.

So if you think of a more apt genre with which to classify A Wonderful Good Morning, I’d love to hear your suggestion.

The title is available as a paperback and as an e-book on Amazon.com. Click here to purchase a copy.  

A Wonderful Good Morning

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I’m excited to announce that my new Science Fiction novel is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and print versions. Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered the Kindle version, which you should have received yesterday. I hope you enjoy it, and will take a minute to write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

I have to say, I never saw myself as a Science Fiction writer before. But like creating mysteries, writing sci-fi is a matter of asking yourself “what if?” In A Wonderful Good Morning, the what if? is–what if our world is changing even more than we realize? What happens to an ordinary person then?

A Wonderful Good Morning by [Barbara Lipkin]

Sometimes every day seems just like the one before. Sometimes, it really is the day before.


Strange things have been happening to Tim for a while now. Lately, his friends have learned to treat him very gently until he comes out of one of his spells. His girlfriend, Natalie, decides a Rhine River cruise will be just what the two of them need to get things back to normal, but at the last minute, Tim is left to sail on his own. That’s when things get really weird. While he stares, yet again, at the very same clumps of algae in the very same stretch of the Rhine he’s been looking at for days, something finally clicks. Now the only problem is – how to fix it.


Meanwhile, Natalie and her artist friends back in Chicago wonder why Tim hasn’t returned from his vacation and why he doesn’t answer his phone. It’s not like him to just disappear; he’s normally super responsible. They have no choice but to set off for Europe to find out what’s going on.

Click here to order A Wonderful Good Morning