Bob Dylan wins Nobel Literature Prize

[arthroceph]

I align with French Frank on this one, they'd been choosing low profile writers for a few years now without seeing their profile getting raised too much, leading to what I suspect was a perceived lack of relevance .... a grave accusation nowadays.

I think the guy has already been too successful, there ... I'm just an old sour grapes.

[johncorrigan]

I think he could have got the nod for 'Blood on the Tracks' on its own - lyrical poetry of the highest quality I always think.
Tangled up in Blue (outtake ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8v8QIHZJkI

Last verse:
'So now I'm goin' back again
I got to get to her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenters' wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't know what they're doin' with their lives
But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point
Of view
Tangled up in blue'

[ahinton]

Incidentally - is there any reason why there isn't a Nobel Prize for Music?

Oh, don't get me started!

Actually, no, don't worry, you won't get me started! - but one might suppose nevertheless that there be some reason, peut-être. Maybe some might say "wel,l why would you want any such subversive thing when there are already Pulitzer ones for that purpose?" (opined he, with as much cynicism as he can manage to muster right now)...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

there are already Pulitzer ones for that purpose?

As, indeed, there are for literature. (In fact, my initial reaction to hearing the news was "Well, he's more worthy than Robert Frost" - mistakenly believing that Frost was a Nobel laureate. He wasn't, of course - his was a Pulitzer et al. Still a lesser wordsmith for me than the former Mr Zimmerman.)

[Richard Barrett]

Incidentally - is there any reason why there isn't a Nobel Prize for Music?

Alfred Nobel's will allowed only for five prizes: chemistry, physics, peace, medicine and literature. Economics was added later and endowed by a Swedish bank so it isn't a Nobel Prize in the strictest sense. The literature prize was originally stipulated to be awarded to work in an "idealistic direction", so was intended to be consistent with the others in promoting creativity towards a better world. I guess Nobel didn't think music, or biology, or mathematics, or the visual arts, came under this heading. The categories in any case (apart from economics) were his personal choices and probably therefore reflected his interests and of course his profession as chemist and inventor.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I guess Nobel didn't think music, or biology, or mathematics, or the visual arts, came under this heading.

I wouldn't be surprised.

The categories in any case (apart from economics) were his personal choices and probably therefore reflected his interests and of course his profession as chemist and inventor.

And (in the "Peace" area at least) an uneasy conscience at having invented dynamite, perhaps? (Mebbe all those explosions meant he couldn't actually hear any Music?)

[Serial_Apologist]

Plenty of people might agree about the voice, but the vast number of covers of his songs must say something about his ability as a musician ?

The influence of his singing delivery is irrefutable, like it or not, I would say. Hear the portimenti in the Stones "Street Fighting Man", combined so easily with nasal-exaggerated Scouse in John Lennon, post-Dylan's advent on the scene. I've even heard it in some female jazz singers, minus the throaty buzztone.

[french frank]

"More recent" than which "reinvention", though? I've rather lost track since his "born-again Christian" declaration:

I didn't mean there were several reinventions, I meant that the reinvention which made the fans of his heyday feel that he had moved away from his 'authentic self', his original persona.

If there is a "cult" then the "collective" that is "obsessed" with him is miniscule - and hardly sufficient, I would have thought, to have assaulted the fortifications of the Nobel committee?

The cult (as I see it!) is now historic, the award retrospective for what had been achieved, not the result of some sort of pressure by contemporary cultists.

Isn't this just part of the cultural (r)evolution which has seen popular culture move into the areas once the preserve of a perceived high culture? I agree with Richard Barrett that these prizes are largely random. They are neither deserved nor undeserved. They are awarded to whoever the committee/jury decides to give them to.

[muzzer]

Hmmm. I love Dylan's work. And I think there's a case to be made for him as a poet, well beyond the usual debate about lyricists of his generation, with the exception of Leonard Cohen, who is superb. But there are others more deserving of the Nobel. Novelists. Roth. DeLillo. To name but two. . Imho. E&OE etc.

[Alain Maréchal]

The Lyrics of Bob Dylan and Tomas Transtromer; compare and contrast.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But there are others more deserving of the Nobel. Novelists. Roth. DeLillo. To name but two. . Imho. E&OE etc.

I agree (and certainly about DeLilo) - and I think that the passing over of RS Thomas some years ago brought far greater discredit to the Prize than Dylan's award - but, as Richard Barrett and frenchie have pointed out; the Prize isn't (and never has been) awarded or not entirely on "merit".

[johncorrigan]

I agree (and certainly about DeLilo) - and I think that the passing over of RS Thomas some years ago brought far greater discredit to the Prize than Dylan's award - but, as Richard Barrett and frenchie have pointed out; the Prize isn't (and never has been) awarded or not entirely on "merit".

RST should have been a definite, ferney.
Anyway here's a bit more about the most recent lit laureate - a secret stash.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/arts/music/bob-dylans-secret-archive.html?ad-keywords=APPLEMOBILE&_r=1

[Richard Barrett]

And (in the "Peace" area at least) an uneasy conscience at having invented dynamite, perhaps?

No doubt. And while some might find awarding a literature prize to a folk singer-songwriter questionable, it surely pales into total insignificance next to awarding a peace prize on more than one occasion to a mass murderer.

[cloughie]

I wouldn't be surprised.


And (in the "Peace" area at least) an uneasy conscience at having invented dynamite, perhaps? (Mebbe all those explosions meant he couldn't actually hear any Music?)

...and dynamite is not only used for war as Blaster Bates explosive exploits show.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Lyrics of Bob Dylan and Tomas Transtromer; compare and contrast.

Well - that's certainly one way of looking at it. But on the same lines, "Rudyard Kipling and Tomas Transtromer; compare and contrast" (or "John Galsworthy and Alexander Solzhenitsyn; compare and contrast"). In 1938, Pearl S Buck was regarded as a more worthy recipient than James Joyce - gauging the quality of one recipient's work by comparing it with another's might be tremendous fun, but it won't really help us determine/decide/comment upon whether Dylan "deserves" this award (and, for my money, I'd rather read a book of his lyrics than one of Kipling's verse).