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?
>"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.