2016 Nobel prize in literature goes to..............

[Lean'n'mean]

Mr. Bob Dylan. The times they are a changin' ...'bout time I say.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Somewhere Woody Guthrie is saying "hey, what about me?"

 

[Edward]

I think Bob would be the first to acknowledge his debt to Woddy Guthrie, such as it is. Well-deserved, and not before time! In the week in which Rod Stewart was knighted by the Queen for "services to music", it's nice to see a credible award being given to someone who has actually contributed something of worth to the musical and literary worlds.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Somewhere Woody Guthrie is saying "hey, what about me?"

I doubt it but maybe there's a woman somewhere saying "Hey, what about Woody Guthrie.?"

 

[Harp]

Good. Dylan Thomas, Cavafy, Osip Mandelstam, others deserving.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

First it's SIR Mick Jagger, now this. The world turned upside down.

 

[tonyb]

If nothing else, it tweaks the noses of the snobs in the English departments. And that's good for laughs.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Human nature I guess, whoever it was awarded to there will always be those who claim it should have gone to someone else.....................just a reminder folks, we are in fact in 2016 & not 1916...

 

[Frunobulax]

I think it's a recognition well deserved. At least during my lifetime, he has been considered one of the leading poets/songwriters of this era. I think his contributions are clouded by the cultural fog that surrounds rock music, "the 60s," and all the rest. Plus, unfortunately, he has become a cliche. Not his fault, of course, but when you're in the public eye for so long and have a distinct persona, that is almost inevitable.

He's a thoughtful songwriter and composer, and speaks to the minds and hearts of many. Congratulations to him.

 

[vitanola]

Yet Steinbeck, Updike, Nabokov, Joyce, Proust and Tolstoy were ignored.

 

[vitanola]

Human nature I guess, whoever it was awarded to there will always be those who claim it should have gone to someone else.....................just a reminder folks, we are in fact in 2016 & not 1916...

Speak for yourself, Kiddo.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Without debating specific merits, I suspect there might be a bit of "better recognize him before he's gone" involved here. There was a wave of "lifetime achievement awards" for various personalities of the 1930s and 1940s in the eighties and nineties, when they were still alive to accept them, and as the Boomers, in turn, near their final inescapable fate over the next twenty years or so, I imagine there'll be a lot more of this sort of thing.

Hopefully he won't do that mumbly thing he does when he gives his acceptance speech.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yet Steinbeck, Updike, Nabokov, Joyce, Proust and Tolstoy were ignored.

I'm still miffed that they blew off Stephen Vincent Benet and Carl Sandburg.

 

[Harp]

Human nature I guess, whoever it was awarded to there will always be those who claim it should have gone to someone else.....................just a reminder folks, we are in fact in 2016 & not 1916...

Pity simple sense so eludes you and sarcastic comment is your stock in trade.

 

[Fading Fast]

If the drive was to show a "broad-mindedness" and pick a poet from the Rock World, at least they chose well within those parameters.

Maybe Lizzie's identified the real reason, but I'm thinking it's more about showing that the committee can step outside the traditional scope of literature / poets.

Last first impression - - the celebrity / rock & roll culture is attractive - maybe the Nobel committee caught the bug and simply wanted some of the glow. They had to know this would bring a lot more attention to the pick than normally.

Edit add: My guess, a "normal" pick means this thread doesn't exist here and maybe a much-less-active thread starts in the much-less-trafficked "The Reading Room" part of FL. Rock and Roll / celebrity culture is an attention grabber.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

It's always a disorienting moment when people who establish their reputations as rebels against the establishment are honored by the establishment. As one of the old rockers who hit it big said, "It's hard to stay a rebel when you're pulling in seven figures."

 

[MisterCairo]

Human nature I guess, whoever it was awarded to there will always be those who claim it should have gone to someone else.....................just a reminder folks, we are in fact in 2016 & not 1916...

And what exactly has Robert Zimmerman done in 2016 to deserve a Nobel Prize? In LITERATURE?

Or is this "noble" prize now a "lifetime achievement award"? For music? The last thing he did I listened to was the second Travelling Wilburys album.

Even the committee went to lengths to pre-empt criticism, with tortured justifications that his lyrics can also be read as poetry. I'll criticize this decision when I stop laughing...

Blech...

 

[Lean'n'mean]

And what exactly has Robert Zimmerman done in 2016 to deserve a Nobel Prize? In LITERATURE?

Or is this "noble" prize now a "lifetime achievement award"? For music? The last thing he did I listened to was the second Travelling Wilburys album.

Even the committee went to lengths to pre-empt criticism, with tortured justifications that his lyrics can also be read as poetry. I'll criticize this decision when I stop laughing...

Blech...

Many people consider Dylan's lyrics to be poetry & that he also made poetry accessible to the masses....others don't think so, that's fine but I suspect political leanings have a bit to play either way. Yes, this was a veiled 'lifetime achievement award' before the ol' boy croaks, just as Ennio Morricone's Oscar for best original score for 'The Hateful 8' was earlier this year. It's not new, many authors have recieved the prize for the ensemble of their works such as Rudyard Kipling in 1907.
Unfortunately, there is only one award per category a year & the judging committee have to choose a laureate on which they can all agree, or at least not to be in strong opposition to. Of course we can all name someone who we prefer & protest that they are more meritorious of such an award but the choice isn't ours. It's also pointless digging up the dead 'cause as far as I know, Nobel prizes aren't given posthumously.( re: the 2016 reference)
So, this year the prize was awarded to a songwriter, a first & a Yank, very rare... those are two reasons to celebrate & at least the general public actually knows who the dude is this year. Such awards don't imply that everything else is crap, merely that a group of people sat around a table had to come to a decision....as John Lydgate put it; " You can please some of the people all the time, you can please all the people some of the time but you can't please all the people all the time."

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Yet Steinbeck, Updike, Nabokov, Joyce, Proust and Tolstoy were ignored.

John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel prize in literature in 1962.

 

[Edward]

I think it's a recognition well deserved. At least during my lifetime, he has been considered one of the leading poets/songwriters of this era. I think his contributions are clouded by the cultural fog that surrounds rock music, "the 60s," and all the rest. Plus, unfortunately, he has become a cliche. Not his fault, of course, but when you're in the public eye for so long and have a distinct persona, that is almost inevitable.

He's a thoughtful songwriter and composer, and speaks to the minds and hearts of many. Congratulations to him.

I enjoy how he plays with the cliche, reinventing his big 60s hits to stop them becoming mindless singalong fare. Of course, what sets him apart from many of his contemporaries is the consistent quality of his work - even now, he is writing material as good as anything he produced in his heyday.

Without debating specific merits, I suspect there might be a bit of "better recognize him before he's gone" involved here. There was a wave of "lifetime achievement awards" for various personalities of the 1930s and 1940s in the eighties and nineties, when they were still alive to accept them, and as the Boomers, in turn, near their final inescapable fate over the next twenty years or so, I imagine there'll be a lot more of this sort of thing.

Hopefully he won't do that mumbly thing he does when he gives his acceptance speech.

I'd love it if he did, it'd be a hoot. Of course, it's all put on to a degree - he was clear enough in those wonderful interviews he did with Marty Scorsese back when.

It's always a disorienting moment when people who establish their reputations as rebels against the establishment are honored by the establishment. As one of the old rockers who hit it big said, "It's hard to stay a rebel when you're pulling in seven figures."

I'm not sure how 'establishment' I'd say the Nobels are. They're certainly in a very different category from the stale and discredited state honours system in the UK.