Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature

I agree with @jesusa0 and others. Look, I appreciate what Dylan has done for culture, for zeitgeist, for capturing and creating and extending through his lyrics what culture could only embody as an inchoate creation without him.

But really? Dylan over Borges, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Oates, Murakami?

Without the stage and the studio as his media, his lyrics would never have had the impact they had. He had tools at his disposal these other far more deserving writers never had.

I vote next year the Nobel Committee consider Springsteen, Ice Cube, and Neil Peart among their shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

What a joke.

@bdp24 That's a logical fallacy. My saying that Dylan is less deserving than other authors is not the same as my saying my judgment is superior to the Nobel committee's. Besides, there is no committee or cabal anywhere that's impervious to second guessing or to flawed reasoning.

One one level, I'm disagreeing with the Nobel committee for its choosing of an author who used the medium of music as a channel for his poetry - something no other Nobel authors have done.

On another level, as a literature professor, I feel safe in saying that the literary merit of the authors I mentioned, as well as their influence on literature throughout their career, far surpasses what Dylan has done.

@onhwy61 That many of the writers you mentioned, particularly Nabokov, did not win a Nobel, but Dylan has, is testament to the myopia of the Committee.

It's as if, in a desperate bid to appeal to the masses, they chose a good lyricist. Kind of like an inverted analog of when Jethro Tull won the Grammy for best metal album in 1989.

again, I'm not faulting Dylan himself, nor am I diminishing the import of his work in contemporary pop culture (and counter-culture), but I'm skeptical his Nobel worthiness.

And Harvard professor notwithstanding, @dgarretson , I doubt Dante would want Dylan to accompany him down to Hell in lieu of Virgil, just as I doubt Dylan will still be read and listened to in 2000 years.