Who will be the next American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

lol are you for real

do you want a word count or something

agree this prize should go to the writer with the biggest oeuvre

How many lyrics has Dylan actually written? 36 albums, some instrumental songs, in periods he didn't write the lyrics himself. It's not even that big of an oeuvre. And how many of them are actually good and not 'Wiggle Wiggle'?

― Frederik B, Friday, October 14, 2016

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Straitjacket-rear.jpg

srsly Fredrik you sound like a Benghazi conspiracist.

Last time I checked, I liked the way Elizabeth Hand wrote about music or used musical subcultures, although I am worried one of her latest two books may change that. As far as I know no other ilx0r has read anything by her so I guess I am safe to say anything I want. I also don't mind discussion of musical matters when it appears in anything by M. John Harrison.

that reminds me that Moorcock is p good writing about music (the Hawkwind book is bad for other reasons - but he's always fun when writing about SONIC ATTACKS or whatever)

Scott or except also avoid all Dylan and also everyone is cringeworthy who writes about music

Or=otm

"Wiggle Wiggle" is obv Dylan's upping his word-count through repetition in attempt to win prolific Nobel

How many lyrics has Dylan actually written? 36 albums, some instrumental songs, in periods he didn't write the lyrics himself. It's not even that big of an oeuvre. And how many of them are actually good and not 'Wiggle Wiggle'?

- Frederik B

Pulapaka Susheela Mohan was robbed

even greil's thing on dylan in the NYT yesterday wasn't great and i have definitely heard him be great on dylan.

trying to sell me on that old roman kings song so i go listen to it and read the lyrics and oof....no thanks.

I'm completely serious, and I did not imply that the prize should go to the one with the biggest oeuvre, that's just straw man bullshit discussing. He has definitely written more than Inger Christensen, for instance, who was a frontrunner for several years, and who should have won the nobel prize for the single sonnet corona Butterfly Valley. But my problem is that so few people are actually taking his writings seriously as writings, and defending the nobel on the basis of what he has written. So I ask, how much has he written anyway? And what of that is the basis for the nobel? How big is the book of Dylan's lyrics? Because 36 albums sound like a lot, but with ca 10 lyrics per album, it's really not that much.

Citing Dylan's sillier lyrics such as 'Wiggle Wiggle' in this context is about as pointless as making fun of T.S. Eliot's Nobel prize by citing his book of light verse about cats.

"I'm completely serious"

Sadly you indeed seem to be.

How big is the book of Dylan's lyrics? Because 36 albums sound like a lot, but with ca 10 lyrics per album

lol don't worry this is exactly the insane quantitative argument we all assumed you were making

Has this been posted here? Best takedown I've read yet: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/nobel-prize-literature-long-last-awarded-complete-idiot/

No it's not, wins. I'm saying it's tough to get a handle on what Dylan has done, not that quantity trumps quality. The Nobel committee was vague just citing new 'poetic expressions'. What earned Dylan the nobel?

I think Dylan's total lyrical and literary output is somewhat comparable in size to that of Q. Horatius Flaccus (aka 'Horace'), who is generally considered to be a noteworthy writer.

I don't give a shit about this debate but that is not a good takedown.

What earned Dylan the nobel?

being a good writer

If you want an argument that's based on quantitative analysis, how about this one: Dylan's worldwide impact on several generations of not just songwriters, but literary artists of all types, dwarfs that most people who could have the prize yesterday.

SEVERAL generations. ALL types. Someone get the paddy wagon!!!

And there are quite a few good writers who don't have a nobel...

Are there really? I don't see any evidence for that

Good Christ, Frederik, is this your elaborate scheme to try and get us against Dylan winning this defending him anyway?

It's quite undeniable he had a major influence with his lyrics in the 60s, perhaps for a whole generation. What he has done for me lately is mostly annoying, and handing baby boomers a get out of jail card to ramble on about how today's music sucks and doesn't care because DYLAN. And *still* I will acknowledge his lyrics had a profound effect on loads of people. Kudos to him.

They just shouldn't have handed him the Nobel for lit. Not because of the size of his oeuvre, but because he's a song writer, not a book writer.

Best takedown I've read yet

The opening, which addresses the natural unity of poetry and music, is quite good, but as soon as it addresses Bob Dylan's work directly it devolves into the worst sort of challopy nonsense.

Hey Fred, Dylan also wrote a couple of books so you can add the pages of those into the total

Aimless, I agree, didn't say it's great but he touches on what vexes me about this. Shame he goes off the rails in the end.

What earned Dylan the nobel?

well I'm not the guy to explain that, I'm not really familiar with his stuff. Anyone else know what's worth checking out?

being a good writer

he isn't a writer. not of literature. it's easy to say "awards mean nothing" and this decision is obviously symptomatic of most of the traits that prompt that view, but the truth is the nobel prize for literature tends to award lesser known writers. even in its own world it doesn't pander. that's why this is so pathetic. along with the fact it justifies the opinions of a bunch of people whose view of both music and literature is pathetically narrow.

I'm pretty sure if we include his books the quality goes way down. The committee explicitly said he got it for his songwriting, so I'm asking how many song lyrics he has written.

And I dislike the influence argument, which also is quantitative. Yeah, he influenced a lot of people, so has a lot of writers. How many across the arab world find influence in Adonis? The nobel has gone to ONE black African (and four white Africans, shamefully), how many generations of influence has been neglected? Dylan inspired a lot because he wrote in English and was a key part of boomer culture. If it was always based on the breadth of influence the prize would be even more western-centric than it already is.

"and who should have won the nobel prize for the single sonnet corona Butterfly Valley"

http://img.mota.ru/upload/wallpapers/source/2013/06/18/16/00/36301/JJmKgdok0S.jpg

and what should have won the nobel prize

The collected poems of Tomas Tranströmer runs 295 pages, and though I've only read one of his collection, I'm fully supportive of his nobel, though it's probably quantitatively less than Dylan's lyrics. Qualitatively I got way more out of the collection I read than I've ever gotten out of any Dylan lyric.

https://m.popkey.co/395efa/WxRaK.gif

I remember one of my English tutors very pointedly had a book of Dylan lyrics sitting on his shelf in a prominent place
Even at the age of 18 I could tell he was trying too hard.

not of literature

this is what it really all comes down to. And apparently I and the Nobel committee have a broader definition of literature than you do.

The Nobel committee was vague just citing new 'poetic expressions'. What earned Dylan the nobel? What earned Dylan the nobel?

Bob Dylan's lyrics irritate a lot of people (leaving aside his voice which is a whole different source of profound irritation to many). He often appears to be very lazy, lets his rhymes do his writing for him, and it can be difficult to tell when he's trying to be silly or not. I have often enjoyed making fun of his flaws and excesses. But he was a genius at quickly absorbing the essence of a style or a genre, then entering it, playing with it, creating with it, and recreating it as his own.

He did this repeatedly, whether his influence was Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, or Mallarme and Rimbaud, or Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. He didn't necessarily improve on the originals, but he remade them in a new guise that connected with millions of people who would never have read or listened to the originals. A fact which also irritates some of his critics, who say he's overrated because his fanboys don't know who Mallarme or Rimbaud are and don't appreciate how much Dylan borrowed. But that's beside the point really, because the saying about "great artists steal" applies here. Dylan didn't slavishly mimic his sources; he absorbed them and used them to create his own work.

What makes this prize less than perfect in my eyes is that much of Dylan's effectiveness as an artist is grounded in his music, including his singing (which is a different matter from his voice) and his collaboration with other musicians. Omit these and his work is greatly diminished. But you really have to take his work as a package deal and listen to it, not just read it.

The collected poems of Tomas Tranströmer runs 295 pages, and though I've only read one of his collection, I'm fully supportive of his nobel, though it's probably quantitatively less than Dylan's lyrics. Qualitatively I got way more out of the collection I read than I've ever gotten out of any Dylan lyric.

― Frederik B, Friday, October 14, 2016 11:45 AM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so why have you been going on about the quantity of dylan's lyrics, you insufferable dingus?

I've explained that several times already...

Apparently not

Or perhaps jim is an idiot?

i mean, repeating several times "I'm not saying it matters how many words he's written, i'm just saying how many words has he written?" doesn't feel very explicatory but maybe it is a Dylanesque koan

how many words must a nobel prize winner write, before they call him a nobel prize winner?

Fred B posts run to several dozen pages but are qualitatively of zero worth tbf

the parameters for what literature is as set by the swedish academy are not real parameters, but rather a dissolution of all parameters, which confuses those unfamiliar with bob dylan. i don't think it was done intentionally, but "literature" is no longer a category, but a superlative that is synonymous with "great." obviously this is increasingly difficult because now any written word can be literature, in a sea of competing aesthetics. medium seemingly does not matter and neither does reputation

i remember in some first year university class we discussed what prose was and what poetry was. it was a useless exercise and what i got out of it is that it was about reputation. that is, such-and-such had a reputation for writing poems, or short stories, or essays, etc. reputation was based mostly on where the writer was publishing. of course there were some experimental writers who would deny the author's intention and tried to create this contextless work of postmodernism, and they reveled in environments that caused confusion and uncertainty

i don't know whether bob dylan revels in breaking the confines of literature, because it's difficult to assume dylan considered his work as pushing the boundaries of literature. maybe this is the modernist in me, but the context he was working in was simply not literature -- it was music

sure, any written word can have qualities of literature or of prose or of poetry. and some of dylan's songs certainly have some of these qualities. but what is so glaringly obvious to me, as someone who loves a few of his albums, is that his lyrics were more prosaic. his singing style backs this up. there is no real flow. he is, to quote him, a rambling man. and this is something he probably took from his folk beginnings

in my mind, i still strongly associate his music with folk aesthetics, which do not jibe with literary, high-brow, academic texts that most past nobel prize winners in literature were so preoccupied with. there is no strong or constant literary conceit in the songs of dylan. this inconsistency from the swedish academy and their lack to publish more details (as far as i looked) about their rationale confuse me

i'm not trying to write a takedown or even a good argument against his winning. frankly, i couldn't care less. there are other writer-musicians that come to mind, but bob dylan was never one of them. this choice sounds bizarre and, to me, it does appear that the swedish academy is severely out of touch

but dudes here are probably way more versed in literature and dylan than i so there you go

Or perhaps jim is an idiot?

― Frederik B, vrijdag 14 oktober 2016 21:00 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fp'd you for this tbrh

id support a nobel for dylannn instead - my serialized travel book about china

Or perhaps jim is an idiot?

― Frederik B, vrijdag 14 oktober 2016 21:00 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fp'd you for this tbrh

― the tightening is plateauing (Le Bateau Ivre), Friday, October 14, 2016 12:18 PM (forty-seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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