"Bob Dylan announced as Nobel Laureate for Literature " Topic

Wonderful news that the poet of his – and every subsequent – generation has been announced as the 2016 Nobel Laureate for Literature

link

A deserving candidate!

Wow, that´s great. Better late than never!

Not for his singing, I hope.

He sings fine.

But – it's the writing they gave him ~$1Million and a big gold medal for.

The head of Warner Brothers explained why he signed Bob Dylan and produced his records. 'He's not a great guitarist and he's not a great singer. He's a great songwriter and if we wanted his songs we had to let him record them first.'

"Wow, that´s great. Better late than never!"

My vote would have been for never.

You know that somethings happening…but you don't know what it is.

Do you, Mr Jones ?

Pretty awesome, although it does seem he should have been recognized a couple decades ago.

Who next year? The Monkees?

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start a new
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

Who next year? The Monkees?

Well, as you know (!), The Monkees didn't write many of their better known songs.

So it would be have to be a collective of people like Harry Nilsson, Jimmy Webb, Boyce & Hart, Carol King, John Stewart, Neil Diamond etc etc

"Who next year? The Monkees?"

My vote if for Bananarama!!!

"You know that somethings happening…but you don't know what it is.

Do you, Mr Jones ?"

Well played sir!

Can't stand his voice but the man can write a song!

It was Tweeter and the Monkeyman that put him over the top with the voters.

So what new work did he put out in 2016 that won him this award?

Or is my premise false? Does it not need to be work published in the same year, but can be based on whatever they want to base it on -- like the Nobel Peace Prize that was issued out 8 years ago for actually accomplishing NOTHING.

More deserved than some of the nobel laureates for peace I think, and because of that I have felt the Nobel laureate thing has had its day, but they did get this one right at least even if it is a bit of a popularist decision.

So it is a "we like him" lifetime achievement award, then.

Not sure that is what the founders of the award had in mind.

Nothing against him or his music, don't hate it, don't love it, and I know many do love it, I don't really have a dog in the fight, but still strikes me as just another watering down of founding tradition.

"the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" is their mandate from Nobel's will, with 'work' meaning body of work. Not much to water down. More generally, all the prizes are for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind".

A Nobel Prize is more of a Lifetime Acheivemdnt Award.
Whether or not he put out anything new this year or last is irrelevant.

So,how many Literature winners can you name? How many have you read? Sigrid Unset,anyone?

"At dawn,my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams.
With no attempts to shovel a glimpse into the ditch of what each one means".

Metaphysical poetry.

BTW--the REAL Monkees:

youtu.be/9JMkKKX3IsY

In all honesty, Dylan aside, the only previous winner that I have a fairly broad knowledge of their work is Kipling. Oh, and Bernard Shaw.

A little Faulkner, and Hemingway. Eliott of course as far as "Cats" (). Otherwise…not so much.

I know – what a philistine eh ?

Here's a list, you Philistine, you!
link

Nope. I haven't heard of most of them either.

Don't forget that it's a Lifetime Acheivement Award, but the recipient has to be still alive. That's a high bar.
So even if the Committee thought it was Robert Heinlein's turn (unlikely), he's out of luck being dead.
That's why most winners are in their 70s but frail. Still kicking!

"the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"

That is INCOMPLETE.

A Nobel Prize is more of a Lifetime Acheivemdnt Award.
Whether or not he put out anything new this year or last is irrelevant.

Maybe so, but not meant to be according to the actual will:

"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

(the bold is my own.)

So, as I stated, "we like him" lifetime achievement and a watering down of his wishes.

Heirs ignore wills.
Look at the Margaret Mitchell estate, the heirs of the Gone with the Wind fortune.
Her wishes were for no sequels.

I get it.

So here is a question, would you want YOUR wishes followed via YOUR written and legal will?

If you do – you have no leg to stand on cheering this selection, it is hypocrisy.

Not the end of the world, just check your personal bias against your internal principles.

Knut Hamsun (1920) later became a Nazi.

Jorge Luis Bores was robbed.

I'm not sure what Dylan hasn't done this year that would disbar him particularly.

The same holds true pretty much for all the prizes. Peter Higgs got the Physics prize in 2013 – he (and others) predicted the Higgs Boson forty odd years earlier. But it's pretty difficult to actually radically change physics (or chemistry or medicine) in just 12 months. One could have an idea – but would then have to write a paper, conjecture an experiment, apply for research funding, negotiate for time on e.g. the large hadron collider, undertake the experiment, do the data analysis, write another paper, get it published, get people to mull it over and agree it was really significant, then get the Nobel committee to be persuaded that it was THAT good it deserved the prize.

In the real world – not going to happen very often. Which leaves the committee the option of rarely ever making an award.

But there's a problem there because Nobel's will said :

"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

(the bold is my own.)

So – if they make NO award (which, incidentally they have done – mostly in the early 1940s !) then they are also going against the wording of the will.

Which brings us to a point where they make a pragmatic agreement to, as closely as possible, fulfil Nobel's wishes.

Hmm. I seem to have left the "g" out of "Borges". My bad.

And no, I didn't mean Niels Bohr,who wasn't robbed(1922,Physics).