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

[Cassiebsg]

Okay, let me get this strait, cause it might be a bit confusing... if he wrote and sang his own songs, without others singing them better, then it wasn't okay, but since others are singing his songs better than himself, it's okay?
Does it really matter who sang them? What matters is who wrote them. That's what he's been awarded a nobel for, not because "well, he can't sing them that good anyway, so he's just a writer..."

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Okay, let me get this strait, cause it might be a bit confusing... if he wrote and sang his own songs, without others singing them better, then it wasn't okay, but since others are singing his songs better than himself, it's okay?
Does it really matter who sang them? What matters is who wrote them. That's what he's been awarded a nobel for, not because "well, he can't sing them that good anyway, so he's just a writer..."

OK fine! It's not the best logic, it just goes to show that his primary talent was writing. None the less good songs can be considered poetry.

[Blondbraid]

When I first heard Bob Dylan would get the Nobel prize, I thought it was a joke. I can understand why many people would want to award him, but the Nobel prize in literature?
It would be like giving an Oscar to a video game developer...

And as someone told me, Dylan have already received the Polar music prize, while the Nobel prize in literature is the probably and most greatest award a writer can get, and if they start handing it out to songwriters and any other artists whose works have words in them, they take the prize away from writers and authors.

[KyriakosCH]

^Which is why the decision erodes the importance of this nobel, like similarly bad decisions did with the peace nobel.

I'd have zero problem with [a songwriter] winning the award for a book he wrote, meant to be read as a book, not lyrics for a song, and deemed to be of high quality.
Imagine someone getting a math prize for writing code in a computer game; yes, it is fine as long as the prize isn't reserved for something you present in a math journal/academic setting. Using this parallel to highlight that this nobel lit decision was bad in way of opening the award to other artists using words as well, in addition to the (obviously more subjective) bad opinion re Dylan as a 'writer'. He is average at best.

[Snarky]

It clearly comes down to the question "Are song lyrics a form of literature?"

This is a question that doesn't have a set answer: it depends entirely on your definition. If songwriting is a literary form, then you're not "taking it away" from "real" writers by awarding it to someone who is eligible. An argument for considering song lyrics to be literature is that it has a lot in common with poetry (and you can't really draw a sharp distinction between the two), and poetry has always been accepted as literature. The Nobel committee has also recognized speeches as a form of literature in the past (Churchill got the Nobel Prize in literature in part for his "oratory"), so there's precedent for an expansive interpretation of the scope.

I also think that the mere fact that we can discuss whether Dylan is a good or a bad writer tends to prove that he is in any case a writer.

I strongly suspect that underlying the objections is a feeling that good songwriting is not as great an accomplishment as good prose or poetry, that it's not "worthy" to qualify for the same award. If that's actually the rub, I think the critics should come out and say so directly.

Imagine someone getting a math prize for writing code in a computer game; yes, it is fine as long as the prize isn't reserved for something you present in a math journal/academic setting.

It's not a very good analogy, since math prizes are given almost exclusively for proofs, not for impressive calculations. In principle you could certainly imagine that a games programmer could make significant contributions to various mathematical fields â€" compare Claude Shannon, who worked for the Bell Telephone Co. when he made his seminal contributions to information and communications theory â€" but the closest thing I'm aware of is the Fast Inverse Square Root estimation algorithm implemented in (though not originally invented for) Quake III Arena, which doesn't come close to something you might win a Fields Medal or Abel Prize for (though they have been awarded to people working in physics and computer science).

[KyriakosCH]

^There is another angle to how problematic giving a songwriter a lit nobel is: it is really not ever going to expand (in a way which would make it at least equally reasonable as the Dylan one -- already not reasonable arguably) to people writing songlyrics in other languages and not english. At least books can realistically get translated to other languages if deemed significant, and that is part of the book business. Lyrics, on the other hand, rarely get official translation in any manner not very closely tied to the music franchise.

[Radiant]

I strongly suspect that underlying the objections is a feeling that good songwriting is not as great an accomplishment as good prose or poetry, that it's not "worthy" to qualify for the same award.

Nah, I think that the underlying reason is a general dislike of Bob Dylan, and people trying to come up with a stronger reason that he shouldn't have been enNobeled than that

[Snarky]

^There is another angle to how problematic giving a songwriter a lit nobel is: it is really not ever going to expand (in a way which would make it at least equally reasonable as the Dylan one -- already not reasonable arguably) to people writing songlyrics in other languages and not english. At least books can realistically get translated to other languages if deemed significant, and that is part of the book business. Lyrics, on the other hand, rarely get official translation in any manner not very closely tied to the music franchise.

Seriously, man? Come on! There's a looong tradition of translating songs from one language to another. Plenty of Dylan-songs have been translated into Swedish (which happens to be the Nobel Committee's native language, not English), for example. It may not be quite as common as it used to be, but that's more of a cultural/industry issue than some eternal truth about the genres.

Besdies, I'm pretty sure the committee has competence in other languages too, at least some of the major ones.

[KyriakosCH]

^There is another angle to how problematic giving a songwriter a lit nobel is: it is really not ever going to expand (in a way which would make it at least equally reasonable as the Dylan one -- already not reasonable arguably) to people writing songlyrics in other languages and not english. At least books can realistically get translated to other languages if deemed significant, and that is part of the book business. Lyrics, on the other hand, rarely get official translation in any manner not very closely tied to the music franchise.

Seriously, man? Come on! There's a looong tradition of translating songs from one language to another. Plenty of Dylan-songs have been translated into Swedish (which happens to be the Nobel Committee's native language, not English), for example. It may not be quite as common as it used to be, but that's more of a cultural/industry issue than some eternal truth about the genres.

Besdies, I'm pretty sure the committee has competence in other languages too, at least some of the major ones.

Maybe they'll give the nobel to Conchita Wurst or how he/she was called

[Andail]

How was that a response to Snarky's comment?

I don't quite get how so many people cam be instinctively against Dylan getting the Nobel prize without even discussing, let alone having read, his works.

We've had plenty of culture panels and TV programs discussing this prize in Sweden, and oftentimes it turns out that a majority haven't even read much of his lyrics. It's apparently enough to have a strong feeling about the general concept of Dylan. A number of Swedish female debaters are opposed to the idea because they don't like "Dylan men" which is a subset of "culture men", and while I can sympathise with some of the resentment held against such despicable beings, I hardly think that should reflect on Dylan himself.

It would be quite remarkable if, say, last year, a panel of cultural commentators discussed Svetlana Aleksijevitj without ever having read her texts, but resented the notion of awarding her because they were annoyed with female reportage writers or whatever.

Having said that, I'm a bit divided myself. I happen to be both a Dylan fan and a rather pretentious snob when it comes to literature. While Dylan's lyrics are diverse, immensely influential and uniquely evocative, I can't help but feel that other laureates' literary accomplishments have a vastly different scope. I love much of his lyrics, but when I read e.g. "The feast of the goat", "Waiting for the barbarians" or "The slaves", each one a novel by different Nobel prize winners, the literary experience was something quite different in terms of sheer magnitude, of world building. Then again, I can listen to "Changing of the guards" over and over again and always be swept away by the dreamlike figures, so that experience is more direct and bears repeating, and his folk/protest songs are poignant and powerful, and his stream of consciousness songs superbly suggestive, and his love songs intimate yet universal, so yeah I probably lost my train of thought here but the point is he kind of mastered it all.

[KyriakosCH]

Sometimes one not focusing on the guest in the house being an elephant in a human costume... is particular by itself

Anyway, it isn't like the nobel lit means that much by now. Ultimately it is never going to reflect the best living writer in the first place, but it did leave a very bad taste that Dylan got the nobel a few months after Eco died, one who famously was deliberately not given the nobel for dubious reasons

[Andail]

Sometimes one not focusing on the guest in the house being an elephant in a human costume... is particular by itself

Anyway, it isn't like the nobel lit means that much by now. Ultimately it is never going to reflect the best living writer in the first place, but it did leave a very bad taste that Dylan got the nobel a few months after Eco died, one who famously was deliberately not given the nobel for dubious reasons

I have no idea what half of that means.

The prize means neither less or more because you have a personal opinion of it. The prize is what it is; the committee votes and then awards it. It has been given to various types of writers for various reasons, popular and accessible, aloof and opaque, novelists and poets, playwrights and reportage writers. journalists and even speakers. In retrospect, some of them don't seem particularly worthy, but it's subjective so what are you gonna do?

I think you need to be less rigid about what constitutes literature, and also less hung up on specific cases of perceived unfairness. A prize awarded once a year cannot reasonably cover all the most prominent writers, and especially not the exact ones you favour.

I love Foucault's Pendulum, but I'm not gonna be forever grumpy about Eco not getting the prize. I don't know what you mean that he "famously deliberately" didn't get it. The committee doesn't publicly motivate why they don't nominate someone; that's proably something they imagine people will just accept.

There are tons of good writers who never got the prize. Proust, Joyce and Virginia Woolf have probably all survived better than a majority of the laureates, but then again, this isn't long jump, you can't objectively be right about it.

[KyriakosCH]

Well, i think it should go without saying that most of those who won the lit nobel have faired far worse than many who didn't get it. I mean, Borges was likely the last of the really great authors of the (mostly) first half of the 20th century (he wrote far past that, but arguably none of his best works were written after that point). It is a bit farcical that he never got the nobel for lit if we suppose this award reflects merit.
Eco is somewhat similar (i don't view him as being as good as Borges). Moreover Eco was likely the most influencial/important living european writer. Many were annoyed he never got the nobel. Compare with how many (zero? literally) would be annoyed if Dylan did not get the nobel. No one would.

When discussing with people online, it helps to not imagine that the more platitude-like arguments are something your fellow person discussing things happened to miss. Remember that none of us here would write a full treatise just so as to post in a thread

[Radiant]

Moreover Eco was likely the most influencial/important living european writer. Many were annoyed he never got the nobel. Compare with how many (zero? literally) would be annoyed if Dylan did not get the nobel. No one would.

[citation needed]

[Snarky]

Like Andail says: There will inevitably be omissions. You could extend his list almost indefinitely: Conrad, Chekov, Strindberg, Ford, Bulgakov, Forster, Dos Passos, Burroughs, Nabokov, Lindgren, Heller... Borges was probably passed over (wrongly) for his association with the Argentine junta. Others were missed for various other reasons - some would probably have got it if they had lived longer.

This is not because the committee is bad at its job (though certainly there have been some bad decisions), but because there's no objective way to pick the greatest, and not enough prizes to go around. The only way to ensure that everyone who might deserve the prize actually got it would be to hand out so many that their value would be entirely devalued. It's hopeless.

Also like Andail, I liked Foucault's Pendulum, but fifty years from now, will people be saying it's a disgrace that Eco didn't win a Nobel? I doubt it.