Bob Dylan, Really?
As a young boy, I was sitting in the livingroom of one of my parents’ friends. It was some kind of party. The man of the house and master of the stereo dropped the needle on something that wasn’t the Beatles, which itself was enough to take notice.
Me after a minute: “Is this a parody of Bob Dylan?”
He set me straight. “No, that’s actually Bob Dylan.”
I must have looked surprised. His followup might have been kindness, or a sincere expression of his own bemusement:
“I think sometimes he parodies himself. It can be hard to tell.”
I never “got” Bob Dylan. To this day his worshipful popularity is one of those bizarre mysteries of social psychology, like the continuing existence of an audience for Adam Sandler movies. His performance practice seems aggressively inept. His lyrics are clumsy and childish, the sentiments behind them thoroughly banal. I’m well aware that the shortcoming may be mine. Anyway, I would be the last to begrudge you any artistic pleasure you get from contemplating his output, if it works for you.
Today Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Nobody expects the literature prize, any more than the peace prize, to have much to do with intrinsic worth; everyone accepts, by now, that these prizes are the expressions of fashionable political caprice. But they sometimes are bestowed on the worthy; so we cringe at Arafat, roll our eyes at Obama, and are glad for Aung San Suu Kyi. But reflect that neither Vladimir Nabokov nor James Joyce, the best writers in English since Shakespeare, were considered worthy enough for the literature prize, and any illusion that quality is of overwhelming importance to the committee evaporates. Nevertheless, the literature prize is useful when it shines a light upon an interesting writer, who might be working in an obscure country in an obscure language. The works will be translated into one of the world’s hegemonic tongues, and we will all be enriched.
The Dylan prize serves no such purpose. He writes in English, and is already absurdly famous. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need the cash. What, really, is the point?
Update: Kurt Vonnegut agrees with me.
