NOBEL WATCH. . . JAPAN'S GLOOM & DOOM NOVELIST TAKES THE PRIZE

Kenzaburo Oe, a novelist who captured the alienation and moral malaise of Japan's "Westernized" postwar generation, became his country's second recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Japan's other winner was Yasunari Kawabata, in 1968.) Today's award triggered an outpouring of national pride -- newscasts led with the story and the Prime Minister issued congrats. The warm fuzzies all around contrast with the 59-year-old Oe's dark vision, steeped in the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.