Well deserved and long overdue. Congratulations, Bob.
What a genius and a great American. I would venture a guess he personally could give a ratās butt about getting awards at this point but itās gratifying to me as someone who has memorized, performed, and cherished many of his songs. Bringing it all back home, Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited: all masterpieces, of their time and also transcending it.
Just what Bob needs - 930,000 more thousand dollars.
With all of the incredibly brilliant and important literature out there Iām disappointed as hell in the committee.
I love Bob Dylan, but if I was going to give the Nobel to a songwriter Iād give it to Leonard Cohen.
No, I canāt handle this. Elena Ferrante should have gotten the Nobel for Literature before they ever did this.
And really, I do love Bob - he changed my entire life when I was about 13 and heard Like a Rolling Stone the first time. I own everything he ever recorded.
But no.
World to US: Cut it with the āmake it great againā crap and give us back the cool America we love.
There is a nice piece in this monthās New Yorker about Leonard Cohen. Bob Dylan and he are mutual admirers of one another, and thereās an extended admiration by Dylan of Cohen in the piece. And thereās this anecdote by Cohen of Dylan:
"Dylan went on driving. After a while, he told Cohen that a famous songwriter of the day had told him, āO.K., Bob, youāre Number 1, but Iām Number 2.ā
Cohen smiled. āThen Dylan says to me, āAs far as Iām concerned, Leonard, youāre Number 1. Iām Number Zero.ā Meaning, as I understood it at the timeāand I was not ready to dispute itāthat his work was beyond measure and my work was pretty good.ā "
Cohen is great, and I donāt want to make any invidious comparisons. But I agree with Rushdie on this one.
I havenāt seen what Rushdie said. I am a fan of his writing.
To me Cohen is a more literary writer - all his songs are little books. Bob wrote a strange kind of Bob poetry that is deeply compelling.
But honestly I wouldnāt give the damn Nobel for Literature to either one.
Not with the books out there Iāve read in the last few years that were culminations of important bodies of work.
From the AP:
British author Salman Rushdie, whose name is often mentioned in the Nobel literature speculation, called Dylan āthe brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. Great choice.ā
But Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh snarled: āIām a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.ā
I suspect the reaction is going to be just like those two: either love it or hate it.
I love literature with my entire being. I was born with books in both hands and I was reading by 3. I was also a hippie with real hippie bona fides and like I said, Bob Dylan changed my life.
But I donāt consider his body of work to be Literature.
Iām 70 years old. This morning, my husband woke me up before my alarm went off.
āBob Dylan just won a Nobel Prize.ā
āFor what?ā
āLiterature.ā
āOkay. That means itās not a joke. He deserves it.ā
āYeah. Go ahead and go back to sleep. I just knew youād want to hear about that.ā
I couldnāt go back to sleep. But that was just the beginning of an otherwise outstanding news day. Things are going to be all right.
I knew my position on this would be as popular as my opinion of the book that won the Pulitzer, The Goldfinch, which I simply couldnāt read because it was so bad and everyone I knew was reading it and raving about it.
So I guess I will let yāall celebrate in full accord and peace out.
Yes, but Iāll never forgive him for writing Trumpās theme song, Mr. Tangerine Man. Well, I suppose that after Nov. 8, Trump aināt gonna work on anybodyās farm no more.
(I know, I know. I need to step away from the Reply button now.)
One of the few times I disagree with you. I, too, read at age 3 and have spent my entire life with, as my mother disparaging said all the time, my ānose in another goddamned book.ā So we started at a similar place.
Where we differ is that the first time I heard Bob Dylan, while sitting on the floor at a friendās house in 1964, I said, āI wish that guy would get somebody else to sing his stuff, because thatās not singing. He sounds awful. But those words ā thatās just profoundly good poetry.ā
As so many do when we are young, I thought I sounded clever and intelligent in trying to convey my genuine admiration for the words this man had strung together that allowed us to hear them in spite of his seriously irritating voice. And in fact, he was so good at writing that poetry, I became one of many who over time forgot that āhe sounded awfulā because his lyrics took over all the senses and made what he was saying great.
I like the article in WaPo, where the people who awarded the prize explained why they regard his work as fitting for the Literature award.
Itās a lovely comment and like I said, Iām sure reactions will be either / or.
He certainly touched me I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard him. I was younger than 13, probably 12, and I was talking on the phone and listening to the radio in my room and that song came on and I dropped the phone to listen.
I felt like he was talking directly to me in a language only a few could understand and I was one.
I love the manās songs. Itās just a matter of how you want to view Literature.
I think probably a whole bunch of us are basically on the same page as far as regarding the work of people like Dylan and Cohen as great wordsmiths, but some of us are okay with that being classified as āliteratureā and some of us arenāt. Iām good with that.
Itās absolutely delightful to me that there is one discussion today, among people I respect, where we actually have a disagreement and none of us wants to have the others killed or imprisoned or otherwise wiped off the earth. Itās been awhile since thereās been a topic where real differences of opinion are interesting and welcome and not signalling the End of the Earth.
Well, I donāt think that everything Dylan wrote is a masterpiece - listen to Tight Connection to My Heart if you doubt it - but I love his stuff. I was lucky in that I didnāt āgetā him in the 60s - just a tad too young - and rediscovered him in the 80s, listening to Blood on the Tracks, and then filling in from there. I think heās a worthy choice.
But you know, itās a big world, and we can like different things. Like Democratic candidates for President, for example 
I thought the line, āJewels and binoculars hang from the head of the muleā was about Trump?
āI felt like he was talking directly to me in a language only a few could understand and I was one.ā
Sounds like small-L literature to me.