Dylan Nobel?

[ishtat]

A controversial choice, perhaps based on the questions, 'But is it Literature,' and was he the most deserving? Personally, I'd have just as happily given it to Dolly Parton

It did however cause me to revisit TS Eliot's essay written as a preface to Kiplings Verse (Faber & Faber 1941) A lot of Eliots comments might at least partially apply to Dylan, particularly his analysis of what was poetry as opposed to ballad verse and hymns.

Leaving that aside, what do you think, and were more worthy recipients ignored?

 

[MichaelinChina]

I heard an interview today. One person said that after reading his book of memoirs, that the way he wrote about the thought process involved in writing his songs, and how he sustained his 'voice' in that book made it highly original.

But that, by itself, would not make him a contender for a Nobel.

However, as far as being an outstanding lyricist (arguably a subsection of 'Literature') I think he deserved it. The judges certainly thought 'outside the box' this time, and in the process widened the criteria for judging Literature.

It's also nice that a singer gets in the news without having to die to do it.

Congratulations Bob!

 

[Angeline]

I liked what Tom Waits said, something to the effect that before there were epic stories or poems, literature was carried on the wind of the human voice. So there's that aspect.

Also the Nobel Committee said something about Dylan creating a new art form in American song. I suppose one could argue that others did it before him, but no one else did it with such far-reaching cultural influence (and not just in America, obviously). I think his music exposed people to American musical traditions they likely would not otherwise have come to know and love, like folk, blues, gospel, protest...I could go on!

You can always argue for other deserving choices, but I'm happy with this one.

 

[ishtat]

I liked what Tom Waits said, something to the effect that before there were epic stories or poems, literature was carried on the wind of the human voice. So there's that aspect.

And you only realize with Dylan, how important his voice is when you hear other very accomplished people singing his songs. His strange - weird - peculiar voice somehow makes you listen a little harder. And I think it's reasonable to accept that the reading/sound is an essential part of his literature.

 

[Angeline]

Here's one of my favorite Dylan songs (sorry for a slightly rocky start while he tunes up, but I prefer this acoustic version). Anyway, Exhibit A.

Visions of Johanna

 

[Setanta84]

My only qualm with the choice is that the entire point of the financial aspect of the award is to enable the recipient to produce new work. When you give a Nobel to a celebrity or elite politician, you're giving them a financial award they don't need and passing over someone who could use it in the process.

Outside of that, I think it's a good choice. It shows the committee doesn't have a narrow view of literary merit, Dylan's work has been hugely influential to all sorts of literature from poetry to legal scholarship, etc.

 

[Tzara]

The various arguments against Dylan receiving the award seem to be that (1) songwriting is music, not literature, (2) that Dylan's work is popular art and, by extension, not "serious" enough to merit the reward, and (3) there were other and better choices (typical examples cited from just American writers include Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Pynchon). My own take is that I was surprised and slightly put off about it because of a mixture of (1) and (2) above, but after thinking about it for a while, I think Bob's actually a pretty good choice.

The award has, in the past, been given to philosophers (Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, though he refused the award and is arguably as well or better known for his novels and plays as for Being and Nothingness), statesmen (Winston Churchill, though he did write a multivolume history of WWII), essayists, historians, etc. It does seem to stretch the idea of what "literature" is, but no more than, say, Creative Evolution and nowhere near as much as Principia Mathematica. And in any case it is the Nobel Committee's prerogative to decide what it considers "literature" to mean. So the first object seems (to me, anyway) uncompelling.

The popular art is not "serious" argument can be disposed of by simply noting that Dylan's subjects are often extremely serious and that "popular" art can certainly be Art in any case (Dickens, H. G.. Wells, the Brontës--even Hemingway or Hesse, who both won the Nobel).

The "other, better" argument is, fundamentally, a judgment call. One might disagree with the committee's choice, but it is their choice to make. I'm personally hoping that Tom Stoppard is awarded the Nobel some time, but that's a personal preference.

It will be interesting to see if the committee broadens the presumptive scope of eligible work to include things like graphic novels, screenplays, or literary/cultural criticism in the future. Art Spiegelman or Alison Bechdel, David Lynch, Hélène Cixous or Julia Kristeva for the Nobel?

 

[Tzara]

My only qualm with the choice is that the entire point of the financial aspect of the award is to enable the recipient to produce new work. When you give a Nobel to a celebrity or elite politician, you're giving them a financial award they don't need and passing over someone who could use it in the process.

The problem with this argument is that the Nobel--at least in recent years--is typically awarded to a writer late in his or her career. For example, although Toni Morrison was given the Nobel twenty years ago, she was 65 at the time and a well-established novelist.

It's not clear that it was Alfred Nobel's intent, but the Literature prize is a "career" award, honoring a writer's accomplishments over a multi-decade period.

 

[legerdemer]

The Nobel committee not infrequently has political points to make, and I wonder whether some of the reason Dylan was chosen was because of the antiwar and political protest aspects of his 60s and 70s. In a sense, it is a sort of subdued way for the committee to point fingers at the wars going on all around us without evidence of much rational thought or resolution in sight.

I was surprised but not dismayed by the award. I don't think the popular aspect of Dylan's work makes him any less deserving.

Interestingly, Graham Greene had been thought of as a possible recipient (as has, I believe, John le Carré), but had been poo-poo'ed as too popular and too closely tied to genre fiction rather than "real" literature. Graham Greene certainly deserved it.

In science, having done an experiment or made a discovery that has widespread impact is definitely a criterion - Dylan's work certainly fits that.

 

[Equinoxe]

It's a surprising choice and rather bold one. I don't really have any strong feelings about it one way or the other. Other than, I admit, a slight bit of joy that it annoys certain people.

Their justification of the choice was also novel and interesting, and quite true. Ancient Greek poetry was indeed meant to be sung: "... Socrates, when condemned to death and thrown into prison, asked some one who was playing a song of the Greek poet Stesichorus with great skill, to teach him also to do that, while it was still in his power; and when the musician asked him of what use this skill could be to him, as he was to die the next day, he answered, 'that I may know something more before I die.'"

Dylan doesn't need the exposure obviously; and yet he has gotten far more of it than a Nobel winner normally would, precisely because of the 'dubious' nature of his being chosen. But neither, really, do other Nobel winners. Most people who pay attention to such things—under normal circumstances—are likely already as familiar as they care to be. I doubt he much needs the prize money either; and on that count, things might not be quite so similar. Tant pis.

But it seems to me the Nobel committee can't ever win. If they choose someone controversial, naturally there will be a backlash; if they choose someone safe, there will be a backlash against that. If they go with a populist choice, others will decry it as beneath them. If they go with well and truly 'serious' literature, the populists will say that they're pretentious, arbitrary, and out of touch and the middlebrow sorts will object to the writer's taste. If they go with a middlebrow choice, the populists will still object that they're pretentious, arbitrary, and out of touch—since they tend not to distinguish between middle- and highbrow anyway—and the truly serious literary sorts will still object that it's beneath them. The best they can hope for is an apathetic, "I guess."

I'm mostly inclined to agree with Sartre about awards, personally.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I understand why awards exist and am OK with the reasons, but honestly I'm more interested in art and the epoch in which the artist created the art than I am about celebrity. I like most of Dylan's music, but there are some others during his time who in my view had comparable effect. I think the same can be said for poetry.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

So how does this affect those that say form poetry (for that's what lyrics are) is old hat and has no place in the modern day, if it does at all?

 

[colddiesel]

Old men

The Nobel Committee is made up of old men. They pick old men like themselves for the prizes. Surprising? Maybe not.

Very very occasionally they pick a woman - but invariably an old woman.

 

[Tzara]

The Nobel Committee is made up of old men. They pick old men like themselves for the prizes. Surprising? Maybe not.

Very very occasionally they pick a woman - but invariably an old woman.

Per the official Nobel Prize website: "The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by the Swedish Academy, Stockholm, Sweden."

The current composition of the Swedish Academy is this, which includes six women in the eighteen total positions, with members having a mean age of 69. (median 68).

So, old? Yes, in the majority. Men? Mostly, but of the younger members, almost half are female (and, yeah, I know that is like drinking weak tea).

My point, I guess, is that it is not all "old men" nor do they routinely pick "old men" (four of the last ten laureates were women).

I'll grant that the laureates were generally "old," but as I said earlier, it is generally a career prize, so older laureates would be what one would expect.

 

[ouchfeelsgood]

Sara Danius, a literary scholar and the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the nobel prize, stated, "The times they are a-changing, perhaps". NY Times -- 10/14

 

[colddiesel]

Per the official Nobel Prize website: "The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by the Swedish Academy, Stockholm, Sweden."

The current composition of the Swedish Academy is this, which includes six women in the eighteen total positions, with members having a mean age of 69. (median 68).

So, old? Yes, in the majority. Men? Mostly, but of the younger members, almost half are female (and, yeah, I know that is like drinking weak tea).

My point, I guess, is that it is not all "old men" nor do they routinely pick "old men" (four of the last ten laureates were women).

I'll grant that the laureates were generally "old," but as I said earlier, it is generally a career prize, so older laureates would be what one would expect.

For the sake of accuracy women make up 12.6% of Literature laureates, 14/111.
12.6% of Peace Laureates, 16/127.
1.0% of Physics Laureates 2/203.
2.3% of Chemistry Laureates, 4/175.
5.7% of Medicine Laureates, 12/211.
1.3% of Economics Laureates, 1/76.

The most interesting trend perhaps is that the average age of recipients has increased consistently from 54 in 1951 to 1960, to 66 in the current decade.

The fact that 2/3 of the selection committee are still men past retirement age seems to dictate a glacial approach to the acceptance of women across all fields - but literature it seems is doing the best.

 

[georgie57]

I liked Leonard Cohen's take on it. "Like giving a medal to Mount Everest for being the tallest mountain in the world"

Now LC, there is a poet."it's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender". Maybe his turn next year.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

The Nobel committee not infrequently has political points to make, and I wonder whether some of the reason Dylan was chosen was because of the antiwar and political protest aspects of his 60s and 70s. In a sense, it is a sort of subdued way for the committee to point fingers at the wars going on all around us without evidence of much rational thought or resolution in sight.

I was surprised but not dismayed by the award. I don't think the popular aspect of Dylan's work makes him any less deserving.

Interestingly, Graham Greene had been thought of as a possible recipient (as has, I believe, John le Carré), but had been poo-poo'ed as too popular and too closely tied to genre fiction rather than "real" literature. Graham Greene certainly deserved it.

In science, having done an experiment or made a discovery that has widespread impact is definitely a criterion - Dylan's work certainly fits that.

The Nobel committee may feel some justified embarrassment about some recent Peace Prizes they have awarded. "Pointing fingers at the wars" as an afterthought is rather sad. Or it may just be nostalgia, not so much for Dylan's music per se as for the bygone times when people actually objected, vocally and in public, to war crimes.

On the other hand, if Greene and le Carré are "too popular," what does that make Bob Dylan?

 

[pelegrino]

When the Greek poet Odysseus Elytis was awarded the Nobel for literature in 1979 a shrewder Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos said that this choice does not do so much honour to Elytis but to the Nobel price itself. I think it is the same with Bob Dylan, it does give some street credit to the awarding committee but not to the artist so much. In any case, when you think of some people (H. Kissinger for instance) been awarded the Nobel price for peace you can re-assess how discredited a Nobel price can be sometimes. The situation is laughable approaching the grotesque to me that we can still be bothered with such things.

 

[Tzara]

This year's award seems to have generated a lot of controversy.

I guess my question is whether, say, J. M. G. LeClezio or Patrick Modiano (among other laureates) are so much superior to Dylan.

And why do we not have recent laureates from, say, India or Pakistan or Indonesia? Are there no writers of note in those countries?

 

[ishtat]

This year's award seems to have generated a lot of controversy.

I guess my question is whether, say, J. M. G. LeClezio or Patrick Modiano (among other laureates) are so much superior to Dylan.

And why do we not have recent laureates from, say, India or Pakistan or Indonesia? Are there no writers of note in those countries?

Good point about the third world countries but in Literature if one considers where most books are published, the USA too is surprisingly poorly represented.

However, I think the writer Leah Kaminsky has put the situation best. Observing that no woman in any of the six categories was awarded a Nobel this year - either individually or jointly, she sighed, "The times they ain't a changin."

 

[Piscator]

I've been off on a backcountry canoe trio and only found out about this yesterday but must say YEA.

The CBC's Elanor Watchtel had an interesting episode of Writer and Company on Sunday - Christopher Ricks on why Bob Dylan is "the greatest living user of the English language" which is worth a listen.

 

[legerdemer]

I've been off on a backcountry canoe trio and only found out about this yesterday but must say YEA.

The CBC's Elanor Watchtel had an interesting episode of Writer and Company on Sunday - Christopher Ricks on why Bob Dylan is "the greatest living user of the English language" which is worth a listen.

Thank you, Piscator - very enjoyable!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Does anyone care to speculate about why Dylan is refusing to acknowledge the award?

 

[AlwaysHungry]

The CBC's Elanor Watchtel had an interesting episode of Writer and Company on Sunday - Christopher Ricks on why Bob Dylan is "the greatest living user of the English language" which is worth a listen.

I certainly find Dylan more interesting than other pop songwriters ( save for Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan), but mentioning him in the same breath as Keats is just incompetent. There is a difference between "pop art" and high art. I don't expect the Nobel Committee to get that, but I hope someone does. I found Mr. Ricks' comments to be vapid. YMMV.