Yep, that’s the betting for the ‘05 lit Nobel (ha, ha, Bruce Elder) Prize, according to The Independent, as the world revels in celebration of the great artist. Go Bobby!
27 Responses to “It’s Dylan vs Atwood”
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Ann Althouse asks, are great artists inherently right wing?
To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
… the great artist needs to separate himself from politics and certainly to get it out of his art. I’m saying there’s something right wing about doing that. My comment arose in a discussion of the Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan, which shows how he did not fit in with the left wing folksingers who tried very hard to keep him in their fold and felt betrayed when he alienated himself from them. My observation is that he was, at heart, a great artist, and it was not possible to do what was needed to be a good lefty, which would require a strong focus on group goals and communal values. He certainly wasn’t switching to right wing politics. He was getting out of politics.
I’m calling that right wing. It’s certainly antithetical to left wing politics, which requires you to remain engaged and would require the artist to include politics in his art. The great artist sees that those requirements will drag him down. That’s what I’m theorizing.
As for the Nobel Prize, it’s jumped the shark. Nowadays it’s just a scout badge for political correctness.
To reduce the world, and art and artists and His Bobness in particular, to politics, and especially to reduce it to superficial relativist short-hand political labels such as ‘left and ‘right’, is inherently sad. Life without politics is less than full. Life that only comprises politics is completely empty.
EPs source means individualist - rejecting of orthodoxies. More anarchistic than conservative. Which probably has some merit.
But RW? No. Certainly not the neoliberal mantra-baying, economic fundos of the current era; nor their uptight, bible-bashing culture warrior neo-con allies. Not much creative energy there.
Expect great novels like “Love in a time of Competition” etc
You can set your watch by the annual Dylan-for-a-Nobel malarky. Wake me when its over.
Go Marge!
Oh, and EP: No.
Jumped the shark
V.S. Naipaul who deservedly got the award just two-three years ago ‘aint no leftie, and Gao Xingjian (2001) plays in sort of Solzenitsyn-like role for Chinese literature - his “One Man’s Bible” is a savage indictment of Maoist cult of personality if I’ve ever seen one.
Next you’ll be suggesting Ann Coulter be awarded the prize. Personally, I think there is heaps of talent deserving the big mill from Stockholm but I must admit I would favour the awarding it to a non-English speaking writer that warrants the exposure. But of the names I’d like to see, they would include Atwood, John Banville, Juan Goytisolo, Mario Vargas Llosa, Antonio Lobo Antunes, Ismail Kadare, Cees Nooteboom, and maybe even Orhan Pamuk or Tahar Ben Jelloun.
According to CNN
“Bookmaker Ladbrokes made [Syrian poet] Adonis the 2-to-1 favorite for the October 6 prize, but some better-known writers, such as U.S. novelist Joyce Carol Oates and Czech Milan Kundera, are among the top eight.”
Don’t know about Kundera his work has gone downhill rapidly IMHO. Also, if you want updated odds go to: http://bettingchoice.co.uk/Nobel-Prize-Odds.php (interesting to see the delightfully playful Tabucchi amongst the favourites)
You can set your watch by the annual Dylan-for-a-Nobel malarky.
For years, word on the street has been that the Nobel people have been all ready to give it to the great bard, except in that they have been fearful of being immortalised in reply. He has been inordinately well behaved of late …
Oops it should read Xingjian plays a sort of Solzenitysn role in Chinese lit.
From the Independent, I like this from the great man’s Nobel nomination:
In words and music Dr Dylan has created an almost unlimited universe of art which has permeated the globe and, in fact, changed the history of the world.
As the same article also notes: ‘Type “Bob Dylan” into the Amazon book section and a list 12,682 titles will be offered to you’. Who can possibly compete, really, I mean to say? The more I think about it, the more I think the Nobel crowd (this is another betting shop) have more to gain in this than Bob.
“John Banville, Juan Goytisolo, Mario Vargas Llosa, Antonio Lobo Antunes, Ismail Kadare, Cees Nooteboom, and maybe even Orhan Pamuk or Tahar Ben Jelloun”
Look I know I’m a peasant here relatively speaking but I have never heard of these people. I’m not a complete redneck but I have still never heard of them. Never. If the Nobel people give one of these people the prize over Dylan then it is another piece of evidence for my case.
Atwood I left out deliberately and no, I do not propose they give it to Tom Clancy or Barbara Taylor-Bradford but Cees Nooteboom? You made that one up. I’m off to google these guys; I think I’ve stepped into an ignorant righty trap.
Cees Nooteboom? You made that one up.
Heh. Apparently he’s some Dutch trier, James. There’s a discussion of the Bobster’s propects here. I thought this is a neat comment on “Idiot Wind”:
Christopher Ricks, who has also penned books about T. S. Eliot and John Keats, argues that Dylan’s lyrics not only qualify as poetry, but that Dylan is among the finest poets of all time, on the same level as Milton, Keats, and Tennyson. He points to Dylan’s mastery of rhymes that are often startling and perfectly judged. For example, this pairing from “Idiot Wind,” released in 1975:
Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
The metaphorical relation between the head and the head of state, both of them two big domes, and the “idiot wind” blowing out of Washington, D.C., from the mouths of politicians, made this particular lyric the “great disillusioned national rhyme,” according to Allen Ginsberg.
The Independent bit is really good. Anyone who name checks Tweeter and the Monkey Man alongside Idiot Wind, Boots of Spanish Leather and Hard Rain is OK by me. And that bit of Tambourine Man, that whole verse, is my favourite bit of any song in all creation. A hymn indeed.
The “Dr Dylan” thing is a bit cringe making though. Ricks is a bore. And I sort of hope he doesn’t win the Nobel Prize.
It’ll be worth it Amanda, just to shut Elder up finally and forever.
But no, don’t you see. It will play right into his hands!
I can write the article already. Indeed, Elder has already written the article already, about a million and one times already. It will mentions Keats et al and someone edgy and hip like James Baldwin, ‘cos Bruce is a book reviewer too you see and he’s smart, and will be all about how Dylan Isn’t A Real Poet. It will quote Wiggle Wiggle. It will go on about his sad bastard fans — who are all aging hippies desperately clinging to the last thread of their youth — who haven’t ever even heard of Joyce but think Bobby spews forth King Lear every time he has a dodgy curry.
Oh yeah, and you know what? He stole songs is what.
Times this by about 1 million from the international press and I will go mad.
Mad, I tell you.
OK, you’re right (except I recall that Elder is such a proud wanker he thinks Joyce can’t write either!). Now I only want Bob to win if he himself wants to win, ‘cos Lord knows he damn deserves it.
I’ve always found the notion of a global multi-lingual prize for literature a bit odd. How do the judges decide? Do they rely on the vagueries of translations or are they all multi-lingual to a high degree? I seriously have no idea how you are meant to sort between a writer Dutch, Chinese, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Icelandic or whatever else.
If Dylan was Dutch, I’d have heard him and of him. I’ve heard Radar Love by Golden Earing - they were Dutch and nobody is offering them a Nobey. The more I think about it the more I think about this Cees Nooteboom, the less I like him.
I can’t imagine John Howard saying “I liked Cees Nooteboom, but I haven’t read him lately”
Relatedly
Woot.
Hmmm. In my mind, I included this link:
http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_1553674.html
Keith’s probably read Cees Nooteboom.
Having grown up with The Goon Show, I cannot with a straight face, even attempt to talk about, let alone read the works of someone called “Cees Nooteboom”.
“Make a note Bluebottle -give Nooteboom a rocket.”
“I thin he allready dided it, my cap’ntain”
And why the shitty cunty fucking prick twat felch pants are my comments always “awaiting moderation”?
You’ll notice this one got through allright despite the intemperate language above.
Are there some kinda guideines you could post here Mark?
Settle cat.
Amanda, in some ways I will be even more interested in the later Bob. This. Must. Happen.
2005 The Year of The Bobsta.
I will be even more interested in the later Bob.
Me too. I listen to his output of every decade since the 60s more than that supposed golden age.