Bob Dylan wins Nobel Literature Prize

[doversoul1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37643621

Host: I don’t think it is but if this is (you never know) seen to be political, please remove the thread.

[vinteuil]

.

... time to dust down those old copies of Mellers -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darker-Shade-Pale-Backdrop-Dylan/dp/1849551014

.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v06/n24/michael-neve/queen-mary

[subcontrabass]

Literature ????

[Lat-Literal]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37643621

Host: I don’t think it is but if this is (you never know) seen to be political, please remove the thread.

Wonderful news - and very much deserved.

Clinton Heylin:

Bob Dylan - Behind The Shades/Behind the Shades Revisited
Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan 1957-1973 (Songs of Bob Dylan Vol 1)
Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2 1974-2008

[DracoM]

Love his music - sung it semi-pro for years
BUT
Nobel Prize for Literature.............??

'Fraid not.

[gurnemanz]

Wonderful news - and very much deserved.

Agreed. Deserved for a lifetime's achievement. His words have accompanied my life since I was a teenager in the 60s.

[Richard Tarleton]

Wonderful news - and very much deserved.

I echo that - thanks for posting, dover.

Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Dylan had been chosen because he was "a great poet in the English speaking tradition".

Quite. Thanks Vinteuil for those links. I've just lifted down my signed copy of
in honour of the occasion. Attended a lecture by Gray a while back.

[vinteuil]

... when you look at the list of previous recipients - you can't but notice that they've missed out on some quite significant writers (wot no Proust?) - and included several who are now completely forgotten, even to the most assiduous trivial pursuit / pub quiz bore...

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/

[Lat-Literal]

Love his music - sung it semi-pro for years
BUT
Nobel Prize for Literature.............??

'Fraid not.

... when you look at the list of previous recipients - you can't but notice that they've missed out on some quite significant writers (wot no Proust?) - and included several who are now completely forgotten, even to the most assiduous trivial pursuit / pub quiz bore...

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_pri...ure/laureates/

Several things here. I don't think it should set a precedent. It would completely be devalued if a lorry load of Stings and Bonos followed it and frankly that would be ridiculous. At most, I could cope with one or two 20th Century lyricists prior to Dylan being give the award posthumously in the next 50 years and even then it is very debatable. Secondly, as any Paul Morley will tell you, pop and rock music are "over" other than in terms of being a commodity. There are perhaps up to ten (certainly no more than twenty) artists from the heyday of whom in historical terms more is required than simply "they were the best in that field". That "more" is about what they have signified or symbolized beyond it. It has been decided that Bowie was also "art" - some might think that borderline but on balance it is probably right - and the Beatles are/were a social emblem as was punk. I would like Van Morrison eventually to be formally recognised in some sort of hymnal context but I'm not sure that he would! Dylan, though, is clearly happy with the award he has been given.

[Alain Maréchal]

... when you look at the list of previous recipients - you can't but notice that they've missed out on some quite significant writers (wot no Proust?) - and included several who are now completely forgotten, even to the most assiduous trivial pursuit / pub quiz bore...

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_pri...ure/laureates/

The prizes are not awarded posthumously, and Proust may have been honoured if he had not died at 51. One of the recent "most deserving also-rans" was W.G.Sebald, whose accidental death almost certainly robbed him of the prize, and the world of even greater works.

On the matter of Dylan's desert, I have no opinion, but consider the list of winners of the Peace Prize.

[Lat-Literal]

The prizes are not awarded posthumously, and Proust may have been honoured if he had not died at 51. One of the recent "most deserving also-rans" was W.G.Sebald, whose accidental death almost certainly robbed him of the prize, and the world of even greater works.

I didn't realise that but it appears it has only been the rule since 1974.

Erik Axel Karlfeldt was posthumously awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1931.

These things tend to chop and change.

In another area, I note that we will all be back to 1972-1973 in 2019.

[Mary Chambers]

Just about the only non-classical singer I have ever taken much notice of, but the Nobel Prize for Literature is a step or two too far.

[Alain Maréchal]

I didn't realise that but it appears it has only been the rule since 1974.

I did not know that. Thank you for the correction.

[Lat-Literal]

I did not know that. Thank you for the correction.

I didn't know it either and wrongly assumed that posthumous awards had always been possible so you were more right than me.

[Tevot]

Just about the only non-classical singer I have ever taken much notice of, but the Nobel Prize for Literature is a step or two too far.

Indeed Mary. Consider these footsteps... W B Yeats, G B Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney... Bob Dylan....

Spot the odd one out.

Best Wishes,

Tevot