|
NEW YORK, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- "It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall," Patti Smith sang emotionally in a black suit, a quite unusual attire for the American punk rock star, on the stage of Stockholm Concert Hall to cover Bob Dylan, this year's Nobel Prize for Literature winner.
A full orchestra was behind Smith instead of Dylan's usual, crude gear of guitar and harmonica. Smith, who is no stranger for big stages, faltered during the performance because she was "nervous." And absent, which is also not that common for Nobel Prize acceptance ceremony, is the laureate himself.
In an earlier announcement, Dylan said he couldn't attend the ceremony due to "pre-existing commitments," a move that created another stir after the singer-songwriter's controversial winning of the prize in October.
A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL
It's been 23 years since an American was laureated as a Nobel Literature Prize winner. During the two decades in between, a cluster of U.S. writers have made it to the list but nobody won.
And the award this year went to a songwriter. In the explanation provided by the Swedish Academy, the prize is awarded to Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
Some writers feel offended. Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh who wrote the novel Trainspotting, reacted angrily on Twitter, calling it "an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies."
And there are sarcasms. Many influential persons have suggested nominating writers for Grammy, singers for Tony, and so on.
While others applaud.
"If you look back, far back, you discover Homer and Sappho, and they wrote poetic texts that were meant to be listened to. They were meant to be performed. It's the same way with Bob Dylan," the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, justified their choice after the announcement.
DESOLATION ROW
"I think Bob Dylan definitely deserve this award," said Phil Galdston, a music associate professor at New York University who himself is a prolific songwriter and a Dylan expert. "As songwriting blends a number of different activities, a number of media in one art and craft combination."
Dylan's epic song Desolation Row, for instance, is regarded by some as among his most Nobel-qualified compositions. It has been noted for its length, which lasts over 11 minutes, and surreal lyrics which Dylan has weaved history, fiction, the Bible altogether into a rhymed stream of consciousness.
The song implied many events happened at that time, and has been included in the 2006 Oxford Book of American Poetry for its very high level of poetic lyricism.
Like the song "The Times They Are a-Changin" conveys, this is not an age when people talk Shakespeare-style or quote William Blake. It is not even an age when people read literature a lot. The neighborhood of literature itself has somewhat grown into a "Desolation Row."
At least in the United States, the percentage of adults who read literature fell to at least a three-decade low last year, according to a report from the National Endowment for the Arts published earlier this year.
Internet data also speaks a lot. On Google Trend, internet users interest over literature related topics is declining year by year. Since the beginning of 2004, we have seen a 75 percent decrease of popularity in poetry and a 50 percent decrease in literature.
BLOWIN' IN THE WIND
Undeniable, on the other hand, is the literature value of Dylan's lyrics, which are not quite like those on the top charts with rhythmic beats or romantic lines.
Some of his lyrics read like gibberish, but if we read between the lines, they are speaking about the sentiment of the time, and in some cases, the songwriter has therein injected profound political metaphor.
"He gave back to the language of poetry its elevated style," said Professor Horace Engdahl, Member of the Nobel Committee for Literature. "Not to sing of eternities, but to speak of what was happening around us."
"I think Dylan songs are very powerful in their languages, and in the marriage of their music and their lyrics, in communicating messages that were floating around in the culture, floating around in the society, floating around in movements," said Galdston.
"Once they become popular, they did more in these respects than any speech given could at that time," he added.
Nobel Prize committee's choice seems daring, and there are voices suggesting this is the committee's desperate move to appeal to present readers.
In their argument, the committee said, "Bob Dylan has changed our idea of what poetry can be and how it can work." They regard the choice as "obvious," and "embodies the tradition of literature."
The controversy may go on for a while. It is possible that even after many years, people still hold the question as to whether Dylan truly deserves the halo in an area he is not meant to be.
But the answer may be blowing in the wind.
