Bob Dylan Awarded Nobel Prize For Literature 2016

[Scepticalscribe]

Wow. Just wow.

This morning, the Nobel committee announced that they are awarding the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

Wonderful news (though, if I am completely honest, my preferences lie with Leonard Cohen over Bob Dylan).

Never mind. He is a fantastic artist, and representative of a very specific - and extraordinarily rich and varied - art form, the 'American song tradition'.

Great to see this art form - one that is accessible to all, and has allowed the poor as well as the rich to express themselves - and one that has been used to explore in extraordinary depth the human condition, and describe and explore life as it is often lived in those poorer, darker, meaner places, internally, geographically and socially - recognised and saluted by the Nobel Committee.

And great to see a true artist - one who has influenced his art form every bit as much as he has influenced his society - also receive this recognition.

Bravo, Bob Dylan (and the Nobel Committee). Well done and congratulations.

 

[rdowns]

Pretty ****ing awesome.

Now all we need is Keith Richards to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry.

 

[aaronvan]

Why not Woody Allen or Tracey Emin?

Somewhere, Hemingway and Steinbeck are doubled over laughing.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Why not Woody Allen or Tracey Emin?

Somewhere, Hemingway and Steinbeck are doubled over laughing.

Because neither are giants, artistically.

Artistically, Woody Allen ceased to be of relevance decades ago, and, while he was clever (and yes, funny), I would argue that his work lacks an epic - or empathetic - quality.

Candidly, I very much doubt that either Hemingway - or Steinbeck - had much by way of a sense of humour (and yes, I have read their entire body of works).

 

[JamesMike]

Good job committee.

 

[phrehdd]

I would agree with you that Leonard Cohen would be my preference for the award but of course not in "American song traditon" being that he was Canadian. I guess I am a bit jaded in that I find that Dylan's influences were greater than the sum of Dylan's works which were strong only because of the particular era they were published. I'll simply salute him and say congratz.

 

[aaronvan]

The best that can be said about this is at least Bob Dylan isn’t a lying fabulist like Rigoberta Menchú and he is actually “read” outside of Modern Language Association conventions and English Department faculty wine & cheese parties. On the other hand, “Don't Follow Leaders, Watch Your Parking Meters” isn’t exactly timeless prose.

The Nobel Prize for Literature has been an unserious political award for decades and I supposed this is the Nobel Committee’s way to expiate their lingering embarrassment for giving Obama the Peace Prize. Until Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth both receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, the award remains a political statement.

I agree with @Scepticalscribe that Woody Allen is no longer relevant. However, he was relevant until at least Annie Hall (1977) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) was a powerful study of human guilt, greed, and repentance. On the other hand, Bob Dylan hasn’t been relevant since 1966.

 

[copykris]

kudos, Nobel Prize Committee (also: long overdue)

 

[thewitt]

The Nobel Prize committed are completely nuts, and thus seals the deal. They have been awarding complete nonsense for the last two decades, and have now lost all credibility as an organization. Very sad.

 

[aaronvan]

The Nobel Prize committed are completely nuts, and thus seals the deal. They have been awarding complete nonsense for the last two decades, and have now lost all credibility as an organization. Very sad.

The Nobel Committee trying to stay relevant by appealing to an American audience. They can't keep awarding the prize to writers that nobody has ever heard of, much less read.

 

[IronWaffle]

I would agree with you that Leonard Cohen would be my preference for the award but of course not in "American song traditon" being that he was Canadian. I guess I am a bit jaded in that I find that Dylan's influences were greater than the sum of Dylan's works which were strong only because of the particular era they were published. I'll simply salute him and say congratz.

I'm a big fan of both Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen (not to mention John Prine, whom I consider to on almost the same plane) and could argue which, if either, "deserves" this canonization. For his part, Mr. Cohen said this of Dylan's new honorific in a recent interview promoting his own forthcoming album, You Want It Darker:

“To me,” he said, “[the award] is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.”

[...]

Cohen returned to the subject of Dylan when talking about the way he writes songs. “I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don’t write the songs anyhow,” he said. “So if you’re lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you’re lucky, your own intentions have very little to do with this. You can keep the body as well-oiled and receptive as possible, but whether you’re actually going to be able to go for the long haul is really not your own choice.”

His own songs come slowly, he says: “It comes kind of by dribbles and drops. Some people are graced with a flow; some people are graced with something less than a flow. I’m one of those.” He added: “The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence.”

Thank you, @Scepticalscribe for starting this thread. Not sure how it escaped my attention so long.

 

[thewitt]

How about Steven King, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, John Updike, Truman Capote, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Miller just to name a few.

Bob Dylan? Nobel Prize for Literature? They must have taken his lyrics to heart, and "everybody must get stoned," before voting...

 

[mobilehaathi]

Everyone's reactions don't surprise me in the slightest. However, this strikes me as a perfectly reasonable, if unprecedented, choice.

 

[phrehdd]

I'm a big fan of both Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen (not to mention John Prine, whom I consider to on almost the same plane) and could argue which, if either, "deserves" this canonization. For his part, Mr. Cohen said this of Dylan's new honorific in a recent interview promoting his own forthcoming album, You Want It Darker:


Thank you, @Scepticalscribe for starting this thread. Not sure how it escaped my attention so long.

Cohen appears to be gracious but the speed at which one writes a song or a novel or creates an image (art) etc. is not really a measure of anything other than speed. I'll just say Dylan's stardom is very much tied to his influences and being in the right place at the right time. The other creative minds listed in other posts here seem to be (for me) a better choice. Again, I'll just say congratz as its a done deal and better to be positive.

 

[IronWaffle]

In the spirit of the thread I'm going to simply pass along a few responses from artists who've cited Dylan as a major influence.

Here's Tom Waits:

Tom Waits paid tribute to Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize in Literature honor in the most Tom Wait-sian way possible on Thursday night (Oct. 13). In a rare tweet, the often inscrutable songwriter (and his musical and life collaborator wife Kathleen) congratulated the 75-year-old rock icon with a sweet, typically cryptic missive.

"It's a great day for Literature and for Bob when a Master of its original form is celebrated," Waits wrote. "Before epic tales and poems were ever written down, they migrated on the winds of the human voice and no voice is greater than Dylan's."

And a timely post from Bruce Springsteen (and a relevant passage from his new own autobiography):

Just hours after Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize win, longtime friend Bruce Springsteen congratulated the singer on his website.

Springsteen shared a passage from his recently released autobiography Born to Run to honor his friend’s win. In the passage, Springsteen calls Dylan the “father of my country.”

“Bob pointed true north and served as a beacon to assist you in making your way through the new wilderness America had become,” Springsteen wrote. “He planted a flag, wrote the songs, sang the words that were essential to the times, to the emotional and spiritual survival of so many young Americans at that moment.”

Also, here's a thoughtful examination (from Paste magazine article dated last month) as to whether or not Dylan might reasonably qualify for the prize. Enough pro and con to satisfy zealots on both sides.

 

[copykris]

How about Steven King, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, John Updike, Truman Capote, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Miller just to name a few.

Bob Dylan? Nobel Prize for Literature? They must have taken his lyrics to heart, and "everybody must get stoned," before voting...

stopped reading at Stephen King (whose name you can't even spell correctly, but okay)

thanks for the chuckle

 

[MarkusL]

How about Steven King, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, John Updike, Truman Capote, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Miller just to name a few.

Bob Dylan? Nobel Prize for Literature? They must have taken his lyrics to heart, and "everybody must get stoned," before voting...

Hemingway, Faulkner and Steinbeck already won it. Is the Academy supposed to award it to them again? Did they write any new great books last year?
[doublepost=1476702092][/doublepost]

The Nobel Prize for Literature has been an unserious political award for decades and I supposed this is the Nobel Committee’s way to expiate their lingering embarrassment for giving Obama the Peace Prize.

It's not the same committee. The money comes from the same place but each prize is awarded by a separate committee. The peace prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, and the other prizes are awarded by various scientific and cultural organizations in Sweden.

 

[IronWaffle]

Suzanne Vega, Vashti Bunyan and several other female artists chime in with their thoughts. Again, just sharing.

For me, this is the kind of ancillary benefit to such awards that I like best: artists I'm unfamiliar with are brought to my attention through a shared interest. Often they are very different and it widens my own taste and takes me in seemingly unrelated directions.

In some cases, this attention has also gotten me to either re-evaluate an artist that I didn't care for (and didn't necessarily think they were award-worthy) or made me pay attention to an artist I've neglected.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

stopped reading at Stephen King (whose name you can't even spell correctly, but okay)

thanks for the chuckle

Fantastic response to a historically illiterate - and an actually borderline - illiterate - post. You saved me the trouble of composing a response. My grateful thanks.

Hemingway, Faulkner and Steinbeck already won it. Is the Academy supposed to award it to them again? Did they write any new great books last year?
[doublepost=1476702092][/doublepost]

It's not the same committee. The money comes from the same place but each prize is awarded by a separate committee. The peace prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, and the other prizes are awarded by various scientific and cultural organizations in Sweden.

And, my grateful thanks to you, as well, for explaining the difference between two countries, Norway and Sweden, and - more pertinently - for taking the time and trouble to explain the differences between how the respective bodies both in Norway (where the parliament appoints a committee that awards the Peace Prize) and in Sweden - where various bodies, scientific and cultural bodies - academy of sciences and so on - decide who should be awarded with the other Nobel Prizes.

 

[mobilehaathi]

It's not the same committee. The money comes from the same place but each prize is awarded by a separate committee. The peace prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, and the other prizes are awarded by various scientific and cultural

Aww shucks, it was really fun there for a bit, wallowing in ignorance. And you had to take that away.

 

[vkd]

Look out kid because it's something that you did, kid.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Look out kid because it's something that you did, kid.

This post is incomprehensible, but, that, I suppose, is the point.

Back on topic, while I applaud the decision to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan, I must say that I do think his (lack of) response thus far to have been rather lacking in grace.

 

[rdowns]

How about Steven King, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, John Updike, Truman Capote, Sinclair Lewis, Arthur Miller just to name a few.

Bob Dylan? Nobel Prize for Literature? They must have taken his lyrics to heart, and "everybody must get stoned," before voting...

Based on his latest tweet, I'd give King the prize.

@StephenKing - My newest horror story: Once upon a time there was a man named Donald Trump, and he ran for president. Some people wanted him to win.

 

[JamesMike]

This post is incomprehensible, but, that, I suppose, is the point.

Back on topic, while I applaud the decision to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan, I must say that I do think his (lack of) response thus far to have been rather lacking in grace.

I agree if he does not want the award he at least should say so.

 

[MarkusL]

Back on topic, while I applaud the decision to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan, I must say that I do think his (lack of) response thus far to have been rather lacking in grace.

Still, the Swedish Academy gave him the prize for his poetic genius, not for his ability to react gracefully to awards. I'm sure the members of the Academy checked his Wikipedia article before making their decision.

By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements.[62] Accepting the "Tom Paine Award" from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an intoxicated Dylan questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself and of every man in Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.[63]

Today, it must be expected that an old protest singer may need some time to decide how to react to being invited to a banquet with the King. Apart from the public disappointment of one member, the Academy is staying calm. In the words of the Academy, but my translation:

A writer who has been named a Nobel laureate chooses freely how he or she shall approach the ceremonies related to the presentation of the prize. The Swedish Academy has never had an opinion about any laureate's decision with respect to this and will not this time either, regardless of what the decision may be. One member of the Academy, Per Wästberg, has expressed his disappointment due to that Bob Dylan has not yet responded. That shall be seen as his personal view and is not an official statement from the Swedish Academy.