Bob Dylan is one of the most influential songwriters and lyricists of the last 50+ years. The idea that "literature" is solely contained in novels and poetry compilations was abandoned decades ago. Dylan is a poet, and he's made countless contributions to literature in his lifetime.
If you're going to criticize the Nobel Prize in Literature, there are sufficient grounds to do so, given the current scandal within the Swedish Academy. But you can't claim that awarding Dylan somehow brought disrepute to the award itself.
>"But reflect that neither Vladimir Nabokov nor James Joyce, the best writers in English since Shakespeare, were considered worthy enough for the literature prize, and any illusion that quality is of overwhelming importance to the committee evaporates"
So let me get this straight, you think think Dylan's lyrics are gibberish but you understand Joyce just fine? This is patently absurd. Are you just trolling?
Finnegan's Wake is perhaps the most famous piece of gibberish ever published. It's widely thought to be incomprehensible even by scholars. Lets take a typical passage from Finnegan's Wake:
"Otherways wesways like that provost scoffing bedoueen the jebel and the jpysian sea. Cropherb the crunch-bracken shall decide. Then we’ll know if the feast is a flyday. She has a gift of seek on site and she allcasually ansars helpers, the dreamydeary. Heed! Heed ! It may half been a missfired brick, as some say, or it mought have been due to a collupsus of his back promises, as others looked at it."
How's that not gibberish? You can't have any idea what any of that means. The book was so inscrutable it came with its own glossary. You "get" that passage but you can't understand the lyrics to "Blowing in the Wind" or "Mr Tambourine Man"? Right. That's laughable.
And honestly who care's what Kurt Vonnegut said about Dylan in an interview in Hustler magazine. It's hard to think of a more disreputable source of meaningful discussion than a Larry Flynt publication.
You offered up a link to a personal blog post in order to support your assertion that Dylan has brought "disrepute" to the Nobel Prize for Literature and how his lyrics could be considered gibberish.
In the same blog post you use James Joyce for contrast - as a literary figure who is worthy of the Nobel.
>"But you may be aware that Joyce wrote some other stuff."
Of course he did. We could talk about Ulysses as well. This book is only slightly more approachable than Finnegans Wake. Ulysses is considered one of the most difficult books to read and few people seem to finish it.
The overwhelming majority of Bob Dylan's lyrics could be read, pronounced and interpreted by anyone with a 7th grade reading comprehension.
I have simply pointed out the absurdity of your statements and the flimsiness of your arguments. It's fine if you don't like Dylan you are entitled to that but if you are going claim that his lyrics are "gibberish" or that he has brought "disrepute" to the Nobel Prize you should be able to convincing arguments and you have not. Not even close.
“your assertion that Dylan has brought "disrepute" to the Nobel Prize”
That would be a strange assertion. It wasn’t Dylan’s fault that he won, and he seemed completely uninterested in the fact, to the point that the Prize committee became offended. Which was amusing to watch.
“[Ulysses] is only slightly more approachable than Finnegans Wake.”
Not even close to the same league in regard to opaqueness. I’ve read it a few times with great pleasure, and so have thousands of others.
“The overwhelming majority of Bob Dylan's lyrics could be read, pronounced and interpreted by anyone with a 7th grade reading comprehension.”
I suppose that’s true. Are you saying that is the relevant criterion?
I also love Vonnegut, but I wouldn't automatically trust his judgement on verse. Plus a lot of literature buffs claim Vonnegut is nonsense, so he isn't particularly good backup in that field.
Literature is nonsense really, as a definition. I feel it is just a word for people who feel they are above admitting that they love to be entertained by stories.
...
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
...
Have you ever heard it with the lines reversed though?
...
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
...
Now you have to admit, that is not the work of someone who doesn't know what they are doing with language, irrespective of whether or not you personally like it.
The peace prize was corrupt from the start. I am, for an atheist, a great believer in redemption, but I do not believe it comes from sticking your own name on a big cash prize for the good works of other people, hence the (unpopular it seems, I must have missed the 'No Stairway' sign) Led Zeppelin reference I made elsewhere in this thread.
I am not sure about the Dylan thing, literature is a tricky thing to judge at the best of times and I am admittedly biased, as the second verse of Subterranean Homesick Blues is one of my favourite sentences;
Maggie comes fleet-foot, face full of black soot, talking that the heat put plants in the bed, but the phones tapped anyway, Maggie said that many say they must bust in early May, orders from the D.A.
Yup. She has said that she did not deserve the Prize because she was only a student. I don't understand her position, given the circumstances. But I wouldn't want to argue with her about it. Her name seems secure in the history of the subject.
Poetry is most certainly a form of a literature.[1]
And Bob Dylan is widely considered to be a poet. Ginsberg considered him a poet. The lyrics for "Mr. Tambourine Man” are in the 10th edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. The lyrics to "Desolation Row” are in 2006 Oxford Book of American Poetry. Dartmouth teaches a class that analyzes the poetry of Dylan.[2]
It was also not the first time the Nobel for Literature was awarded to a poet. Poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt was awarded the Nobel for Literature in 1931.[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_literature
[2] https://www.dartmouth.edu/~dartlife/archives/16-4/renza.html
[3] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1931/karlfeldt/...
How do you figure? Is it unreasonable for a man to look at the damage his work has done on the world and wish to atone for it?
IMHO, smokeless powder is, compared to dynamite, _the_ military invention of the time.
I've heard of astrophysicists describing the physics award as the "No Bell" prize after Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
The peace prize was really a joke from the start though, considering the origin of the money.