Dylan’s Nobel

Half the fun of awards comes from their inherent subjectivity and arguments over whether they were deserved. The Nobel Committee threw a googly at the world when it awards its literature prize to Bob Dylan for creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Since no award can make everyone happy, the reaction to the reality of ‘Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate’ was quick and disproportionate. There were those who argued a mere musician could never be considered a literary figure. Others claimed, sure, music can be literature but there are better lyricists than Dylan. There were lots of complaints about a bunch of middle-aged white men handing over yet another award to a middle-aged white man. The complaints have varying degrees of validity but here’s a better option: let’s minimise the importance of the flawed Nobel concept and the nobility it supposedly bestows those who are anointed by a committee of Scandinavians and celebrate Bob Dylan instead. Even if one is suffocated by the ubiquity of US pop culture, Dylan is a unique figure. His lyrics, like his persona, were bewildering and enchanting.

In a career of over 50 years Bob Dylan has constantly reinvented himself and revolutionised folk by embracing the electric guitar and then reminded rock music how much it owed to folk and blues. He has as much to say about the accumulated experiences of humankind as any literary figure. He fits snugly with any US artist, be it Mark Twain or Woody Guthrie. His rough-hewn, homespun lyrics are a part of Americana but have universal appeal. Dylan is best known for the political phase of his career when classics like ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ and ‘Masters of War’ excoriated the US state and made him the voice of a generation. Dylan backed away from that label and replaced politics with spirituality and sublimity expressed in a vivid, haunting but still fun way. There has long been a tiresome debate over whether Dylan or Keats is the better poet but that misses the essence of Dylan. The lyrics cannot be separated from the music or the unique voice. It all comes together to create one unique blend. Through it all he remained an enigmatic figure who didn’t take himself nearly as seriously as anyone else. It is hardly surprising that the only person yet to weigh in on Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize is Bob Dylan himself.