No Nobel in Literature This Year

[fjtorres]

Well, Bob Dylan is still fairly popular.
Maybe that's why he got it?

The problem with looking at past cultural award winners, Nobels, Oscars, Man Booker, etc is that the awards are a product of the moment and there is no way to know how the book/movie/whatever will hold up over time. (If that is even a consideration.) One decade's "daring trendsetter" might be the next's unreadable/unwatchable bore. Or an author deemed trivial might prove enduring and historically important.

The times, they keep on a-changing.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Well, Bob Dylan is still fairly popular.
Maybe that's why he got it?

Who?

Yes I recognized the name but I personally never thought his singing or songs were more than average.

I take your points which reinforce my question "Does the Nobel prize for Literature matter to anyone but the prizewinner?"

I will add another question how many people read prizewinners novels and or short stories?

[doubleshuffle]

Well, I'm a huge Dylan fan, but I still think Irvine Welsh's tweet on the occasion hits the nail on the head:

Originally Posted by Irvine Welsh

I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.

https://twitter.com/IrvineWelsh/stat...39790560878592

Talking about Nobel winners: Thasaidon, could you please fix the Yeats quote in your signature? The way you kill the rhythm with that "and" really hurts. And it's "loosed", not "loose".

Originally Posted by W. B. Yeats

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

Does the Nobel prize for Literature matter to anyone but the prizewinner?

Seeing this thread made me look at past prizewinners. Most I had never heard of. The prizes given to poets I can understand why I have not heard of them as I read very little poetry.

But even most of the names of prizewinners who were labelled novelists and/or short story writers were unknown to me.

I like to think I am a well read literate bookworm and so I would have thought I would have known most of the prizewinners' names.

Alternatively is the prize usually awarded for political reasons or by an elite to writers who belong to the literary elite.

In any event how widely read are most prizewinners, do you think?

That was my point as well, just how relevant IS the Nobel prize for literature?

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Wel

Talking about Nobel winners: Thasaidon, could you please fix the Yeats quote in your signature? The way you kill the rhythm with that "and" really hurts. And it's "loosed", not "loose".

Sorry about that. I understand your pain but I did say I did not read much poetry.

I was about to change my signature anyway.

[doubleshuffle]

^ Thank you.