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

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

＼(^_^ )

^^ his hotel desk clerk memoires are a joy to behold, too. xp

Well fuck me if I let a fine ilxor be insulted this way.

yes, dylann's travelogues are intriguing.

but has he written enough?

Aimless, thanks for actually giving an explanation. And I do like it. His chameleonic qualities were also what Todd Haynes focused on in I'm Not There, one of my more liked Dylan-related artworks. It makes him into almost a postmodern writer, creating his poetry through a mishmash of different voices. Which might place him in an actual American literary tradition - as opposed to 'the great American song tradition' mentioned by the committee which is a pretty bad expression imo - a middle step in the encyclopedic style placed between the classically infused epics of Elliott and Pound, and the pop-ephemeral libraries of Pynchon and Wallace.

But there's the same-old same-old problem. I just don't think he's THAT good as a chameleonic writer as well. His influences such as Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Whitman, Ginsberg, are too iconoclastic, too heroic, too boring for me. My problem isn't that people are reading other things than Rimbaud and Whitman, it's that Dylan has helped them becoming reduced to biographic clichés. And while I like that he absorbs and steals, I think the work he ends up producing with them is too narrow and insipid. Once he turned away from the folksong into the beat poetry of his electric period, his work became an encyclopedia mostly of himself. Which might align him with Whitman, but Whitman saw himself as America, and America as himself. Dylan's interest in this period mostly stretched out to 'the room' where 'something is happening' that Mr Jones couldn't understand.

Le Bateau Ivre, did you also fp jim for calling me an 'insufferable dingus'? And if not, why not?

"this choice sounds bizarre and, to me, it does appear that the swedish academy is severely out of touch"

in a way it almost makes sense for him to win the peace prize. just cuz he's alive and was such a huge figure in the protest world.

"literature" is no longer a category, but a superlative that is synonymous with "great."

fine so they've made it some bullshit award for the massively famous, a total departure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Literature

as i say, i don't expect samuel beckett to win a grammy, or halldor laxness, even though their prose is rhythmic. it's reductive crap.

xp to Fred: I did not. Insufferable you were, going on and on about the size of one's oeuvre even mattering one bit while also contradicting yourself about this very same thing. A dingus, you were too in this thread. We are all that person at times, it's ok. But calling Jim an idiot is just silly, even if it was a reference to the Spectator-article - which on careful consideration I judged it not to be. It was a half-assed insult at best.

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

songs are not written word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMzcwlmhfws

Imo the only good thing about Nobel Prize is that normal ppl get to read one or two articles per year about chemists, physicists etc. with successful research programs, successful or notable activists, and writers perhaps famous in their own countries but perhaps unknown or even largely un-translated. every decade or so you have to give it to intellectuals who broke through into popular consciousness like Einstein or Friedman or Marquez thereby spoiling the value of the prize, but that's the exception and, while it would be efficient not to award it to them, it would be too great a blow to the integrity of the prize. so giving it to Dylan, who p much everyone in the world already knows, and isn't even really, like, I mean the songs are good imo don't get me wrong, but no one would be rioting in the streets of Stockholm if he never got one, just totally upends everything I like about the ritual

The word “idiot” here alludes to Shakespeare’s famous “Tomorrow” soliloquy in Act V, Scene V of Macbeth: Life “is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing”

The song “Idiot Wind” is indeed filled with “sound and fury” and concerned with language losing meaning.
The word “Idiot” is an insult and also refers to a person who is mentally disabled or mentally ill. An idiot is unable hide their suffering using social conventions or polite language. The word “babe” however is a term of affection usually reserved for a lover. This twists the meaning of the word “idiot”. Perhaps it is not an insult, for the idiot, being outside the confines of social conventions and nicities, is able to speak the truth. This truth-telling idiot may be similar to Myshkin in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot.

flopson that's the closest expression of my own objection

flopson otm.

And don't overlook the prize money. Dylan doesn't need it, these other recipients do.

Yep. xp

also this win gives me the same vibe as when during ILX polls people stretch the definition of the poll to something ridiculous just so they can bang on about the same thing they bang on about in a hundred other threads

otoh stunt awarding is funny and literary prizes are unimportant, no offense to those round here who have won them obv <3

also this win gives me the same vibe as when during ILX polls people stretch the definition of the poll to something ridiculous just so they can bang on about the same thing they bang on about in a hundred other threads

exactly. and if this award was a "say something interesting about bob dylan" then god it failed. the least interesting thing about dylan is the cult of his lyrics.

Has anyone read Tarantula? Dylan might not want this baby reissued:

https://twitter.com/tmbg/status/786761172955467776

if you think about it tho maybe Bob Dylan really is the best action movie of the 1980s

I'm looking forward to reading it #goodLiterature xp

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

songs are not written word.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Friday, October 14, 2016 12:47 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dylan wrote lyrics and they were published

https://www.amazon.com/Lyrics-1961-2012-Bob-Dylan/dp/1476797706

Has Christopher Ricks made a comment yet? He has been quiet which suggests he is in a bunker somewhere screaming "what have I done?!"

he didn't win the award for that published collection xpost

Jumping into a thread you aren't participating in to personally insult a poster is trolling behaviour, plan and simple. No matter if it's correct, it's turning an argument into a pileup. Everybody, including me, understood that people disagreed with me, jim gave nothing new to this discussion except a personal insult. Fuck him, and fuck you for trying to get me banned for responding, LBI.

you're nitpicking

he was awarded the prize based on his "work," which include lyrics he wrote and were published in some way or another

xp

Fuck him, and fuck you for trying to get me banned for responding

If an angel like Morbz can get banned for sorting out some libs every now and then I think we should all be watching our backs.

Be safe everybody x

it's not nitpicking to criticise the nobel literature prize going to a guy who had a book published as a byproduct of his work "in some way or other".

"just so they can bang on about the same thing they bang on about in a hundred other threads"

new board description...

A dingus, you were too in this thread.

shout out to the yoda-like form of this sentence + bonus lol at dingus hyperlinked

it's funny when you're not really caught up with a thread and have no idea ppl were beefing in it, come in, make some post, and then get xp'd by, like, "Fuck me, Fuck Him, Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in" lmao

it's not nitpicking to criticise the nobel literature prize going to a guy who had a book published as a byproduct of his work "in some way or other".

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Friday, October 14, 2016 1:24 PM (twenty-seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay, fair enough. i suggested this type of criticism was contentious in my original post

i sympathize with both sides though

Lol flopson

"Jumping into a thread you aren't participating in to personally insult a poster is trolling behaviour, plan and simple. No matter if it's correct, it's turning an argument into a pileup. Everybody, including me, understood that people disagreed with me, jim gave nothing new to this discussion except a personal insult. Fuck him, and fuck you for trying to get me banned for responding, LBI.

― Frederik B

Relax, dude.. "Fp'd you for that" doesn't actually mean one actually fp'd you. Most here prefer fp'ing in silence, as it's supposed to be. Your bell isn't even close to tolling, trust me. Keep it up with the "fuck you'd" tho tbf

i really liked dylan's autobio. he's really smart. i don't usually read bios/autobios.

I fpd Fred for that and for being unable to ilx

LBI normally I would take it easy, but just yesterday a prominent poster got thread banned, so I don't think it's funny today. I think it's threatening. Sorry for being a relatively new poster, but I was shocked at Morbs just all of a sudden being thrown off the board without anyone knowing why, and I think your 'joke' was in poor taste today.

no, I'm Spartacus

mores was banned for accumulation of fps. he regularly, albeit with no criminal intent, wishes death or physical violence on other posters, and, being really charitable here, occasionally comes off as misogynistic and anti-semitic.