Stupid nobels -- Nobel for lit given to Bob Dylan :)

Kyriakos

Kyriakos

Creator
Joined
Oct 15, 2003
Messages
74,788
Location
The Dream
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/arts/music/bob-dylan-nobel-prize-literature.html?_r=0

Well, Irvine Welsh said it ok, i think:

the article said:
“I’m a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies,” the Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh wrote on Twitter.
Click to expand...

I think this is a downright stupid move by the Swedish academy. A lot worse than awarding the Peace prize to Obama and later on the EU. Remember that this is the prize (nobel for literature) never given to giants such as Borges and (the late) Umberto Eco. Moreover the usual "explanation" of why Eco never got the award was that his writing was just... detective stories and not serious lit :) Well, brains are a'changing, and turning to mud in the Nobel committee :)

-Do you think Bob Dylan was a good choice to get the nobel for literature?
 
No. Cause Bob Dylan is borderline insufferable. Covers of Bob Dylan > Bob Dylan.
 
Dylan is most certainly a poet (far more so than a singer, for sure), and poetry has been part of the Lit. Nobel since the start. There's no issue, as far as I'm concerned, on that front.

Are there people who deserve it who haven't gotten it? Yes, and there will always be. One nobel a year, so it's a given that some people will die before they get theirs. But as amazing as some of the great writers may be, a poet who captured the essence of a generation and put it into words that became emblematic of that generation is certainly deserving.

(And Nobel lit prizes are almost by definition nostalgic - it's a career award, so it's about what a creator did in the past as much as in the present).
 
Yes!!! Some poets change the world, most don't. This one did.
 
Dunno'. Was it a stupid choice? Is it a new Pearl Buck? (Come one, there have been some VERY silly selections for the literature prize before.)

It's proving itself attention grabbing, for the sheer debatable quality of the choice (and enough going for the laurate not to make the outcome a foregone conclusion) for certain.

Funnily enough, Dylan continues to keep his mouth firmly shut about the whole thing.
 
Should have given it to Springsteen
 
Dylan is a good poet, but definitely there are bigger literary figures out there who should have gotten it instead. But as already said, the Literature Nobel is probably the silliest and most political of all Nobels. The OP mentioned Borges. Everybody in the Nobel committee recognized that Borges was hugely deserving of the award, but they didn't give it to him because his right-wing politics offended the left-wing intelligentsia of the time. That's also why García-Márquez got the award decades before Vargas-Llosa.

Arwon said:
Should have given it to Springsteen
Click to expand...
God no.
 
It was very stupid to not give the nobel for lit to Borges, moreso for political reason, given Borges was not really someone whose politics you would care about nor were they any noticeable part of his short stories. A very towering figure in the literature of the 30s-60s, and overall a classic 20th century writer.
Instead of that, the award is given to Dylan. Ok. It is as if this is a deliberate Sweden Yes trolling :D
 
Or give it to David Byrne really
 
How many songs must a man write down,
Before they call him a man?
How many seas must the lyrics soar,
Before its etched in the sand?
How many times must the radio waves fly,
Before they're forever banned?
The awnser, my friend,
Is blowing in the wind...
The awnser is blowing in the wind.

How many years can a prize exist,
Before it is thrown in the sea?
How many years can a poet sing,
Before he's forever set free?
How many times can a man turn his head,
And pretend he just doesn't see?
The awnser, my friend,
Is blowing in the wind...
The awnser is blowing in the wind.

How many times must a man look up,
Before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear the bard cry?
How many lauretes will it take until he knows,
That too many awards have died?
The awnser, my friend,
Is blowing in the wind...
The awnser is blowing in the wind.

The awnser, my friend,
Is blowing in the wind...
The awnser is blowing in the wind.
 
I don't see the problem. Song is poetry set to music, and as far as it goes, Dylan is a towering figure more revered and influential than anyone else that's still alive, and although I find the Nobel prizes in general a travesty (isn't it supposed to be awarded for the most outstanding contribution to a given field in a given year instead of, as Oda mentioned, a career award? Then again, the Peace Prize is the only one who follows that criteria and it leads to such travesty as Obama winning it for his electoral campaign) the controversy is even moreso. Filmmakers and screenwriters should also be considered in the future, as cinema is clearly but the modern iteration of theatre, and TV shows of more purely narrative forms like the novel.

Finally, shut up about Borges. He should have received it just like so many others, so stop talking about it like he should have got it this year, since he's dead and dead people don't qualify for the Nobel.
 
Where is the problem with great writers not getting the Nobel price? Did anyone ever ask Borges whether or not he actually wanted it? What if he doesn't care in the slightest?

Personally I think there are better musician-poets than Dylan.. Leonard Cohen, Tim Buckley..

Spoiler :
Captain Beefheart, Saul Williams, Nick Cave?


I'm happy my favorite writers have yet to get a nobel price, that way I can bask in their obscurity and feel surrounded by the air of superiority ;)

Besides, I think Pynchon and Calvino have other things occupying their mind..
 
A well deserved award.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom