Nobel Prize in Literature 2016

[Liam]

Thanks very much, A.L.R.&V.,

A bit of news: now The New York Times is weighing in on the controversy (also here); also interesting is the sheer range of responses from fellow writers and poets on PEN America's website. Some positive, some negative, some cautiously optimistic about Dylan's win. And some are downright bitter; from Amy King: "Great literature is not easily consumed like pop songs that rhyme." Ouch.

Danniel Schoonebeck: "Imagine in 1957 if instead of giving Camus the Nobel Prize for Literature they just gave it to Frank Sinatra." Ouch again. But I do agree with his comments on DeLillo; he nailed it perfectly for me when he said that DeLillo articulates "American dread and paranoia" like no other writer does, and I'm not even a great fan of DeLillo!

To date, there have only been two people who rejected the Nobel Prize in Literature: Pasternak (1958) and Sartre (1964). Bob Dylan may very well be the first person to do neither; perhaps he WILL just sit there, and not talk, and do nothing. I wonder what the SA will do if that happens, and what (if anything) this will do to their prestige in the future.

 

[Stiffelio]

The SA is also facing (non trivial) administrative matters related to Dylan's silent snub: where will they deposit the circa 1 million dollar prize money?

 

[JCamilo]

I think we were past this. Those claims were made before here and easily refuted (eve because no argument was made to sustain those claims). Now they just sound kind embarassing. Amy King for example, seems to ignore that Shakespeare is the best selling author of all time, not to mention the one hollywood adapted more often, so good literature can be widely popular, but she is just repeating the falacious strategy to reduce Dylan talent to any pop music. Either she cannt tell the diference from Dylan to Bon Jovi or she never have listen to him.

As Schoonebeck, he is just going for the equally false notion that songwriting cannot be a literary genre, completely forgetting Churchill Nobel, wondering if Frank Sinatra was a songwriter, but making the wrong question. He should have asked "Imagine in 1957 if instead of giving Camus the Nobel Prize for Literature they just gave to this nice white haired fellow? So what?

[video=youtube;eHgU4ERc7Nc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHgU4ERc7Nc[/video]

 

[Vazquez]

Maybe the media is making a big deal of insignificant things (as usual).

About Dylan removing the Nobel mention from his site - in fact, since the beginning there was no mention if you clicked directly on the book from the main page. But if you accessed "books", and then clicked on the same book, you would get a different page - and in that page there was the mention. Probably the second page was replaced by the original one.

Anyway, on facebook and twitter the mentions about the Nobel are still there.

And if you check the new cover of Chronicles...

http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/book-rev.jpg

 

[JCamilo]

Previously, there was an article about Dylan perception on countries that do not speak english (a silly article, because he just pointed one of the great problems of translation), here is an article about Dylan and literature in Brazil.

http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/...as-a-rolling-stone-bob-dylan-in-brazil?src=fb

 

[Liam]

Tim Parks is a professor and a well-established translator, and he raises several issues in his article, the problems of translation being only one of them. He asks about the legitimacy of the Nobel Prize, and can a small group of Swedes really determine the best of the best, and can they really claim to have read everything that is being produced in the world (obviously not, so how can they determine who deserves the award?), but one of the problems of translation that he does talk about is the constant "translation" going on between music and the printed word, between radio culture and print culture, things like that.

He's actually absolutely correct in claiming that most people, not just abroad but also in the U.S. will have encountered Dylan's work through hearing him on the radio rather than reading his words in print. And that is something that interests Parks immensely--what does that do to our idea of literature when we're told that a person we largely consider a musician has won a prize largely associated with the written word? I don't think Parks knows the answer; at least he doesn't provide a satisfactory one at the end of his article, but then again, it's not his job. I, for one, enjoyed reading his input into this year's Nobel "controversy."

(I'd say, every year the award is turned into a controversy by the journalists one way or another ).

 

[Vazquez]

Danniel Schoonebeck: "Imagine in 1957 if instead of giving Camus the Nobel Prize for Literature they just gave it to Frank Sinatra." Ouch again.

Ouch for the lack of intelligence from mr. Schoonebeck, as Sinatra wrote a couple of songs, only. He basically played what other people wrote. A correct phrase would be:

"Imagine in 1957 if instead of giving Camus the Nobel Prize for Literature they just gave it to Ira Gershwin."

That would make a little more sense, but not very much, anyway.

 

[JCamilo]

Amazing, the article introduction mentions his other problems with the nobel, but it is obviously not about it. He mentions it and does not explain - in fact, he gives that as granted as if it was something he usually defends, so his readers already know about his position. It is merely an introduction.

Then he goes specifically about how people outside english world have no idea of what Dylan is saying to judge the quality of his lyrics. It is not about people having heard him first (or only), it is about having heard him and being unable to understand him:

[FONT=&quot]Because while Dylan’s greatness seems evident in English-speaking countries, even to those scandalized that he has been given the Nobel, this is simply not the case in all those places where Dylan’s music is regularly heard, but his language only partially understood. Which is to say, in most of the world.

Outside the English-speaking world people are entirely used to hearing popular songs in English and having only the vaguest notions of what they might be about.

Dylan sings the words clearly enough. But for the foreign listener this is hard work. He doesn’t see them written down.

When we hear poetry sung, and sung intensely as Dylan sings, drivingly, with a snarl and a drawl, which is also a sophisticated form of irony, how can we, if we are not native speakers, be expected to appreciate it?

We should hardly be surprised then if outside the English-speaking world the controversy over this Nobel is even fiercer than within it.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]It is somehow a weird notion that Dylan meaning is lost in translation and that is worst because he is popular. As if, people can read Daria Fo books and know what happens in the play... Wait, which Dario Fo Books? As I said when someone posted this, TS.Eliot said once that he only understood the metric of Yeats poems when he listed to Yeats reading the poem. That gave him the "eureka" and he could "make out" with the poems and we are talking about two individuals using the same language. The worries of Parks are not about mass culture, it is more about how music can affect the understandment of a lyric. Somehow he is defending something impossible, a nobel winner that can be understood everywhere. Wait, aesthetics theorics will tell you that music is the most universal of all languages...

[FONT=&quot][/FONT]He is neither questioning the idea of literature because of the nobel. He outright calls out the reacting against dylan based on literary definitions: "[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Second, in provoking the backlash of the purists who demand that the Nobel go to a novelist or poet, and the diehard fans who feel their literary hero has been short changed, they have revealed the pettiness, and boundary drawing that infests literary discourse. Why can’t these people understand? Art is simply not about a solemn attachment to this or that form. The judge’s decision to celebrate a greatness that [/FONT]also[FONT=&quot] involves writing is a welcome invitation to move away from wearisome rivalries and simply take pleasure in contemplating one man’s awesome achievement."

[FONT=&quot][/FONT]He is basically calling by fool anyone who went on the "you are awarding a musician", "the nobel was a literary prize" etc. But ,sadly, he does not argue about it. He claims it so he can deal with the topic in hand, which is the translation problem.

[FONT=&quot][/FONT]And that part is silly. And the response from the brazilians in the article is one against it. Maybe, Dylan can be well understood because Brazilians are quite used to look for deeper meanings in lyrics. It is part of our culture and relation with the word. That is keeping our head out of the box.

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[Liam]

I thought Alex Dimitrov's riposte was by far the bitterest and impolite. But at least he was being honest.

I just read this pre-Nobel article: wrong on EVERY count ("Bob Dylan is 100% not going to win. Stop saying Bob Dylan should win the Nobel Prize"), but hilarious!! I laughed quite a bit.

Also this curious little thing from Reuters. Apparently Dylan HAS to deliver the lecture in order to claim the prize money. Not that he needs it. But even more curious: "The Nobel Foundation does not accept any rejections of the prize--Dylan's name will be listed as the winner in 2016 whatever he says." Nothing we didn't know already, but that's just creepy! Basically once the Committee alights on you, there's no force (heavenly or otherwise) that will remove your name from the list.

 

[Daniel del Real]

So if he doesn't show for the lecture or sends a text or something like that, he doesn't get the money? And what happens with that money, it accumulates for next year's laureate like in a TV show?

 

[Sisyphus]

I see this thread is as dead as Dylan's phone when the SA try to contact him.

When are they revealing who was in the shortlist in 1966?

 

[Daniel del Real]

Well, apparently he just accepted it. What a shame.

http://www.nobelprize.org/press/#/p...030006bb32/552bd85dccc8e20c00e7f979?&sh=false

 

[Liam]

Can't play hard-to-get forever, I guess. Fuckin' tease,

 

[Ater Lividus Ruber & V]

What? The award left him speechless? What has he been doing on stage for the past month? Validating his critics that he growls his lyrics into the microphone instead of singing them?

 

[Marba]

When are they revealing who was in the shortlist in 1966?

Probably on the 2nd of January. I'm also looking forward to it!

 

[Vazquez]

What? The award left him speechless? What has he been doing on stage for the past month? Validating his critics that he growls his lyrics into the microphone instead of singing them?

First, people (like Llosa) says he is a great singer, but a bad writer. Then that he is a bad singer. Or that he doesn´t publish proper books. Or that he is white (I read that). Or that he takes too long to respond. Or that he accepted. Or this... or that...

About his voice being terrible nowadays - fans wouldn´t deny it. Of course his voice is terrible now, he is 76 years old, not everybody is a McCartney. We would be the last to deny that. But the fact is, there is a reason he is doing this never ending tour, another different matter...

Whatever. I´m happy he accepted.

 

[Ladril]

So if he doesn't show for the lecture or sends a text or something like that, he doesn't get the money? And what happens with that money, it accumulates for next year's laureate like in a TV show?

It's a moot point now, but in those rare cases where they have kept the prize money, they most likely reinvest it towards next year's award.

There is also a rumour that Sartre tried to access the prize money at some point after 1964 and was turned down, but it's not confirmed.

 

[Ater Lividus Ruber & V]

I read that was one of his family members after he died.

 

[Vazquez]

http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/tackade-nej-till-nobelpriset-ville-ha-pengarna-i-smyg/

(Very vague.)

 

[JCamilo]

One of the side discussions in this threads: if they liked to be snobbed by Dylan and developed a masochist streak, Alan Moore is the best target:

Questioner #24: Should we nominate Alan Moore for the Nobel Prize for Literature?
AM: You may be overestimating my general appeal a touch there, Q #24, but while it’s a very flattering assessment I’m afraid the answer is still in the negative: simply put, I don’t like prizes. It seems to me that they are mostly of benefit to the chosen artist’s publishers, or to some retailers, or generally to those persons with an interest in presenting the artist’s work to the public in a commercial form. The benefits to the recipients themselves seem largely to be in terms of shoring up the fragile self-esteem that many creators seem to suffer from, and while there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that for people who are in need of it, it seems to me that the positive benefit to a tiny handful of individuals is vastly outweighed by the adverse effects on the much higher number of people who don’t win awards. I have never personally felt that creation and achievement were competitor sports, and I feel that viewing creativity in this way is limiting and potentially injurious. I’ve known wonderfully talented individuals who’ve become fixated on winning some minor and probably transient comic industry award to the point where failing to acquire it – for the usual perfectly arbitrary reasons – has cast a shadow over their assessment of their own work and over their subsequent career. And this, of course, is only to speak of the most dramatically-affected individuals where I’ve learned through a personal connection about the pain and the problems caused. I imagine that there is a much larger section of the creative community who carry smaller bruises and disappointments in silence, and who are not enjoying their careers or their talents as much as they might have done; as much as they deserved to do. And if this is the price – or even a fraction of the price – that must be paid in order for one individual to have a self-aggrandizing statuette on his or her mantelpiece, then I have to say I don’t think it’s worth the candle. As for Nobel prizes, or major literary prizes of any nature, I really don’t see any reason other than snobbery and pretension to differentiate between them and the swimming certificates which used to represent the Eagle awards. If anything, the major awards seem more toxic to the subsequent careers of those receiving them, if indeed subsequent careers there be. There are numerous cases of those who have been effectively paralysed by their prizes, perhaps frozen by the awareness that it’s all downhill from here and that future work will be judged in comparison with their spurious award-winning ‘masterpiece’. As a result, they may never again create any significant work that is not saddled by a crippling self-consciousness. No, I’m afraid that as you might expect from someone who’s apparently opposed on principle to anything that normal people might take pleasure from, I feel that the bigger the award, the bigger the damage. Literally, in the case of my mother goring herself on my discarded Hugo, after which she saw the wisdom of my position and slung it out herself.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/alan-moores-secret-qa-cult-exposed-part-iv-at-last-the-truth-can-be-told/