I didn't realize it had been so long since an American had won.

That might be more justified than Obama winning it. Actually, though--this is not something I know much about, but I'm hearing a lot of leftish people say that Hillary is a big-time warmonger.

You may not like her or her politics, but she's not a friggin lunatic.

If poetry is "memorable words in cadence" (as another Dylan put it) then I think there's a fairly strong case to be made.

I wasn't imagining him with the Noble Prize when I wrote this, but this was a poem I wrote about Dylan and his words:

Dylan the Welder

Bob Dylan is a welder
Taking words
That have been scattered
Abused
And misused
And putting them through the fires
Of humanity’s forge.

It takes a hot pen
To bind mythic thoughts to modern ways;
And a fiery riff
To weld common chords to forsaken phrases,
Fashioning a memorable song of love or theft or ruin.

It takes a spark that was lit by subterranean fires
To ignite the passions
Of a restless generation
Until they gather on the streets
Or courthouse lawns
Or the National Mall
To sing of how many roads.

It takes the fire of human consciousness
Erupting without summons or awareness
To fashion songs that can
Shake a tambourine
Survey a watchtower
Foretell a hard rain
Or catch a slow train.

It takes old embers
To join hands with
Woody
Blind Willie
Hattie Carroll
And the sad-eyed lady.

It takes new fire
To speak to the hopes of a young woman
In world that is spinning
Or the dreams of an old man
When shadows are falling.

Bob Dylan is a welder
Fashioning new gates
From worn-out words,
Burning old hopes
Onto new frames.

It takes ancient fire
To fashion timeless tales
Of joy and struggle,
And a luminous eye
To forge a song that is true.

~ Charles Kinnaird
http://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2013/11/dylan-welder.html

Wendell Berry would be suitable obscure. I had never heard of him until reading this blog. I've been in the camp of rooting for Philip Roth for many years.

Now I have to run to Roth's defense! It's sort of like early Woody Allen was slapstick and juvenile, and late (or maybe mid) Woody became more thoughtful and grown up? Portnoy is very slapstick, sexual, and silly. Almost all of his other books are way less so; not that they steer completely away from sexuality, but it does become more adult.

Woody Allen is to Philip Roth, as Frank Zappa is to Kurt Vonnegut, as Tom Waits is to Charles Bukowski.

Or something like that...

That's genuinely surprising. I mean not that you don't find them interesting, we all have our individual tastes, but that you had never heard of them. Especially O'Connor, who I think is regarded by critics as one of the very best short story writers.

I might like Zappa better than Vonnegut, and I'm pretty sure I like Waits better than Bukowski, based on slight acquaintance with Bukowski. So maybe I would like Allen better than Roth.

I was fortunate to be in college before Portnoy and instead was introduced to Roth by his Goodbye, Columbus book. Don't remember a lot about it, except that it was very funny, and with a comparatively buttoned-down approach to sex. Never read Portnoy, just the reviews of it, but they were enough to keep me away from the rest of his books.

Bob Dylan has not responded to the Nobel Committee

Maybe he has his own view

I wish I'd know this conversation had gotten a bit off-track. ;-)

I read Portnoy when I was about 18, and it was eye-opening in a really terrible way. I'm not sure which passage you are referring to, but there are two really gross passages that I wish that I could expunge from my mind forever. I know there were more, but I remember these two very well.

It is odd to have not heard of O'Connor because A Good Man is Hard to Find is pretty routinely in Am. Lit textbooks.

AMDG

I don't remember reading any Southern Literature at all until Absalom, Absalom! in college (which is one of my favorite books). I grew up in Miami, which is below the South, and perhaps they ignore the South down there? But then went to college in Missouri (above the South) but finished my degree back in Miami which is where I read the Faulkner book.

Well, he is, but that doesn't make him bad! :)

It was a long excerpt, several chapters at least. Enough to give a very good sense of the book.

By no means do I think Faulkner is bad. Just not quite the giant he's considered.

Dylan is like the anti-Trump. Just in personality, nothing to do with his politics which I am not even aware of and he probably hasn't shared. Part of what makes him an anti- Some people respond to everything, and others to nothing.

Yeah, it's hilarious. From "Changing of the Guard, on the Street Legal album:

"Gentlemen," he said, "I don't need your organization."

As for Trump and his "responding," he seems to be unable to resist lashing out a any attack on his wealth and business skill. Very easily baited. Must be fun for the Dems/media.

Im glad he did that. A troubadour cannot have the Nobel prize for literature. it would mess with his inspiration

Yeah I noticed that the i is actually a numeral 1, but couldn't figure out whether it was a joke site or not. Anyway I'm sorry it's not true. Assuming it really isn't.

Maybe so.

That is a very weird site. Looks like just a junk clickbait thing but it's also a bit funny. From the About Us page:

"You are on this website because we believe you have the eyes to see the number one in our name.... By reading from this website you accept that the world was created by the U.S. President Barack Obama."

Hope it isn't doing something bad to my computer.

iPhone? I sorta have the impression that they're less vulnerable to that kind of thing that Androids, or Windows PCs (what I looked at that site with).

I dont consider Dylan unworthy to win but it seems to spoil pop music if it becomes official piublic art

Three out of five. And one of the others is Dylan's age.

http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_intro/members/

On the other hand, if you've already got it...

Oh yeah, I see now that the page I was looking at is specific to the Peace Prize. Yep, 1962 is pretty close.

I think there's a fallacy in that Homer/Sappho comparison. I mean, if the point is that their work was sung, that's not really relevant, because it hasn't been heard that way for a couple of thousand years or more, and it's survived because it's great as written words alone. I just don't think Dylan's would, if his recordings were lost. It would be interesting to check back 200 years from now and see how he's regarded. Or if he's remembered at all. My suspicion is that most of his appeal will not greatly outlast its time. But who knows?

The "early masturbation section" is apparently what was printed in that magazine. Just seemed kind of gross, like Ignatius in Confederacy of Dunces (a book I did think was hilarious, mostly). I remember a couple of bits that were certainly "overtly sexual" to say the least, although they didn't go into a lot of detail, so maybe that's what you mean?

It wasn't "offensive" exactly. I mean I had no moral objection at all to it. Just ...well, like I said, kind of gross.