Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature!

[North Star]

Another poet who should get the award is Adonis. Not that I'm saying Dylan didn't deserve it, but he is 11 years younger than Adonis, and could have waited another year

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/adonis#poet

[Brian]

Woolf, Frost, Proust, or Geoffrey Hill didn't make it, either. Lets see if Yevtushenko (1933-) gets it before he receives the prize.

Then again, should the award celebrate a universally loved artist, or draw people's attention to a neglected one? Dylan was already more famous than the award, in any case.

They seem to balance the famous and the not-famous. They also try to balance geography; a Kenyan essayist was a much talked-about finalist, according to rumor.

[North Star]

They seem to balance the famous and the not-famous. They also try to balance geography; a Kenyan essayist was a much talked-about finalist, according to rumor.

Yes indeed. And it certainly should put the odds in Adonis's favor next time - there's exactly one previous Arab winner of the Nobel prize for literature. Then again, maybe he will be dismissed as 'too obvious' because of the civil war in Syria. 

[Ken B]

Yeah, get over it Florestan. That Borges guy, what a fraud. And don't even get me started on that Tolstoy.

[Ken B]

They seem to balance the famous and the not-famous. They also try to balance geography; a Kenyan essayist was a much talked-about finalist, according to rumor.

A nice summary of the case against. If they next balance brown eyes against blue, grey, or green ...

[Brian]

A nice summary of the case against. If they next balance brown eyes against blue, grey, or green ...

Well, the essential issue is language. The judges obviously can't reward only people publishing in Swedish; but they also can't reward only people publishing in English. The publishing world is not yet meritocratic enough that the world's best writers all benefit from English translations. The Nobel Prize is often our only way of finding out about, say, a great Kenyan writer.

[Ken B]

Well, the essential issue is language. The judges obviously can't reward only people publishing in Swedish; but they also can't reward only people publishing in English. The publishing world is not yet meritocratic enough that the world's best writers all benefit from English translations. The Nobel Prize is often our only way of finding out about, say, a great Kenyan writer.

No, i meant more the fact that literary merit isn't the top, or possibly even a top, consideration.
I quite agree with your last statement, and would be much happier if they went just for such writers. Accomplishment deserving of much greater recognition, as it were.

[San Antone]

Why Bob Dylan Deserves His Nobel Prize
According to the Swedish Academy, Dylan won "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

[Parsifal]

The point is, Tolstoy died in 1910, Ibsen in 1906. Dylan is still alive and producing poetry. They may very well have been deserving of a Nobel in 1916, but this is 2016. WTF? 

And either you are using rhetorical excess to make your point, or you really know nothing about Dylan. In this case, I'm not sure which is true. If you had been alive and sentient in the 1960's, you would have a far greater respect for him, I can assure you. You might still not like him, but you would know what he was about.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
By the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D.A.
Look out kid
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your tiptoes
Don't try "No-Doz"
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows

I adore Bob Dylan and consider him one of the true geniuses that the U.S. has produced. But somehow I don't fee quite comfortable considering his oeuvre "literature." In any case, why quibble.  I won't think twice, it's alright.

[Gurn Blanston]

I adore Bob Dylan and consider him one of the true geniuses that the U.S. has produced. But somehow I don't fee quite comfortable considering his oeuvre "literature." In any case, why quibble.  I won't think twice, it's alright.

I know what you mean, although I certainly, back in the oh-so-liberal late '60's, studied 'songs as poetry', and bought into the concept. Even in Classical music, virtually all Lieder are poems set to music. The fact that not so many modern poets are the caliber of Goethe, or musicians at the level of Schubert doesn't change that basic fact. As it happens, Dylan is exceptional, but we knew that.

Just Like A Woman

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.

[Parsifal]

Just Like A Woman

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.

Reading it, it doesn't do anything for me. I have to imagine him singing it for it to come together. That's why "literature" doesn't quite ring true to me.

In any case, I can't imagine a world without Dylan, just as I can't imaging a world in which there is no Beethoven's Fifth. Great art doesn't always respect boundaries.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Never heard anything by Bob Dylan. I must have lived in a hole for 40 yrs.

[Gurn Blanston]

Reading it, it doesn't do anything for me. I have to imagine him singing it for it to come together. That's why "literature" doesn't quite ring true to me.

In any case, I can't imagine a world without Dylan, just as I can't imaging a world in which there is no Beethoven's Fifth. Great art doesn't always respect boundaries.

I don't have to imagine it: I can't NOT imagine it.

Never heard anything by Bob Dylan. I must have lived in a hole for 40 yrs.

I must say, that is absolutely incredible. I first heard Dylan in 1963. Then, when The Times They are a 'Changin' came out in 1964, the rest was history for me. I listened to that album again as recently as last week!  (nice to have Amazon Prime streaming!)  I knew Dylan before I knew the Beatles, and that's going back a way! 

[PerfectWagnerite]

I must say, that is absolutely incredible. I first heard Dylan in 1963. Then, when The Times They are a 'Changin' came out in 1964, the rest was history for me. I listened to that album again as recently as last week!  (nice to have Amazon Prime streaming!)  I knew Dylan before I knew the Beatles, and that's going back a way! 

I grew up and spent the better part of my life in the South Bronx where Yankee baseball was a hit and where Bob Dylan was pretty much not known I guess.

[SimonNZ]

I'm a huge Dylan fan, know all of his albums backwards and have read a bookcase full of critical writings, and could make the argument that his work has been analysised with more seriousness than most poets of any time, and certainly with far more seriousness than standard music journalism of bands like the Beatles, and still without exhausting their riches...but think he's a bad fit for the Nobel Literature award, for some of the reasons listed above - and particularly agreeing that if it was between him and an obscure Kenyan essayist it should go to the latter.

I'd also point out that a great many of his songs are only as successful as their best take - the lyrics alone often wont survive a bad production or interpretation or change in time signature, but require specific musical rhythms and musical emphasis - as alternate versions in the Bootleg series have made clear.

I think he's one of the very great artists of the last hundred years, but they would have been better institutring a new award for multi-facet lifetime achievement in this case.

[Gurn Blanston]

I grew up and spent the better part of my life in the South Bronx where Yankee baseball was a hit and where Bob Dylan was pretty much not known I guess.

Oh, I don't doubt in any way what you are saying, I just can't relate to it. I grew up not far away, a few hundred miles in Vermont, but I had a radio in my ear 24/7, even at 10 years old! 



PS - There was no bigger Yankees Fan than me.  

[Gurn Blanston]

I'm a huge Dylan fan, know all of his albums backwards and have read a bookcase full of critical writings, and could make the argument that his work has been analysised with more seriousness than most poets of any time, and certainly with far more seriousness than standard music journalism of bands like the Beatles, and still without exhausting their riches...but think he's a bad fit for the Nobel Literature award, for some of the reasons listed above - and particularly agreeing that if it was between him and an obscure Kenyan essayist it should go to the latter.

I'd also point out that a great many of his songs are only as successful as their best take - the lyrics alone often wont survive a bad production or interpretation or change in time signature, but require specific musical rhythms and musical emphasis - as alternate versions in the Bootleg series have made clear.

I think he's one of the very great artists of the last hundred years, but they would have been better instutring a new award for multi-facet lifetime achievement in this case.

There will be another award next year, and some whole new person will win, and this argument will happen all over again. Only the Kenyan will have won and Tolstoy will still have been snubbed, along with the Next Great Writer, and Bob's your uncle. This year, Dylan won and I am going to relish every moment of it.




Lay, Lady, Lay
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colors you have in your mind
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile

His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile

Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he's standing in front of you

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead
I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night

Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead

[SimonNZ]

There will be another award next year, and some whole new person will win, and this argument will happen all over again. Only the Kenyan will have won and Tolstoy will still have been snubbed, along with the Next Great Writer, and Bob's your uncle. This year, Dylan won and I am going to relish every moment of it.




Lay, Lady, Lay
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colors you have in your mind
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile

His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile

Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he's standing in front of you

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead
I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night

Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead

Wouldn't want to try and stop you - as I said I'm a huge Dylan fan. But I think a big part of the success and impact of Lay Lady Lay there is in the Nashville production, and the lyrics on their own wouldn't have had the same impact as literature if you'd stumbled on them in some anonymous anthology.

(also: I was wondering who this obscure Kenyan is, and found out its Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, who is not at all obscure - actually pretty well read and widely published over many decades, so I might have to disqualify him as well, not that he doesn't also deserve whatever praise and prizemoney for lifetime achievement comes his way - and I'd feel if he did that it was a more logical choice than Dylan)

[Gurn Blanston]

Wouldn't want to try and stop you - as I said I'm a huge Dylan fan. But I think a big part of the success and impact of Lay Lady Lay there is in the Nashville production, and the lyrics on their own wouldn't have had the same impact as literature if you'd stumbled on them in some anonymous anthology.

I know a lot of things seem that way retrospectively, you read or hear something like that and you think 'no big deal, what's the fuss?'. 

But the first time, the first or second day after it was released, sitting in the quiet of my room and doing my homework, thinking about this girl I was crazy about as only hormone-saturated teens can be, I heard it on the radio and this voice who could be no one else came on and just hit on everything I was thinking about in a way that no one else had heard before, it was a magic thing for me. True, we've heard it a thousand times since then and it can never be the same, but in that time and place, Dylan was a genius and I was hearing it, just me, on my AM radio.  Those moments cannot be recaptured in your life, they are one and done. But it wasn't the production, it was the words, the rhythm, the viscerality of the already-getting-burnt voice.

I would have given him 2 awards, just for the hell of it. 

[springrite]

This is also a great tribute to the generation of ballad singers / song writers / poets. I just used a Jackson Browne song (For A Dancer) from the same era in my poetry class last week.