Translated material
It's all rock and roll
Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize: the view of literary critic Konstantin Milchin
Musician Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize was awarded to him for "creating a new poetic expression within the great American song tradition." “Gorky” finds out what this means from the point of view of literature and music - the first commentary, literary, was given to us by Konstantin Milchin.Alex Sheppard of the New Republic wrote year after year that Bob Dylan would never win the Nobel Prize. In 2015, he even promised to eat his Blood on the Tracks record if Dylan did win. And today he tweeted a photo of a Dylan CD with a knife and fork on it. We are keeping an eye on our colleague and worrying about his digestion.
Every year, the Nobel Prize is awaited with pursed lips. A giant frustration-writing machine is waiting to start gleefully blaspheming Swedish academics. And so, the prize is awarded, and ill-wishers joyfully get to work. The award went to the wrong person and for the wrong reason. The Nobel Academy is criticized for the exceptional politicization of its decisions. Because they give prizes not for literature, but for market conditions. The bookmakers had the Syrian poet Adonis in the lead until the last moment. One can easily imagine what kind of storm would arise. “Well, everything is clear,” the detractors would write, “he received the award only for the fact that he is Syrian, and, in addition, for the fact that he is against Assad.” Another perennial candidate and bookmakers' favorite is Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong'o. They would write about him that he was awarded the prize exclusively for his leftist views and for the quota of refugees from disadvantaged countries.
And so, the prize goes to Bob Dylan, an American singer who, during his long career, changed so many musical styles that just listing them would take a couple of paragraphs. What seems like a shock is actually quite in line with the logic of the Nobel Committee. Dylan has been mentioned as a possible contender for five years now. The bookmakers, by the way, guessed something. Dylan was not among the top five, but came close to it; a week ago bets were accepted on him with a rating of 50 to 1, today it is already 16 to 1. In fact, such a sharp increase most often means some kind of leak from Swedish academics, he may may or may not be true. Last year, Svetlana Alexievich’s odds dropped sharply right before the award ceremony. But they also fell in 2013, when the prize was eventually won by Alice Munro. Dylan's weak point was that he was an American; Americans rarely win the Nobel Prize. The entire conspiracy theory of the world is built on the dominance of Americans, but the Nobel is awarded to leftists who do not really like the United States. The last time American Toni Morrison received the award was in 1993.
— Alex Shephard (@alex_shephard) October 13, 2016
Everyone is sharply cursing about Dylan: well, is this literature, what kind of pop entertainer is he? We have to repeat once again the generally obvious things. The Nobel Prize is, by definition, biased and opportunistic, and this is precisely where its highest objectivity and greatness lie. Because in the case of good writers, there is no way to accurately evaluate them. The unfortunate Adonis, the eternal contender for the Nobel Prize, is a reformer of the Arabic poetic language, but we know this solely because people who know Arabic and Arabic poetry told us about it. And Ngugi wa Thiong'o, just a wonderful writer, a kind of African Marquez, a magical realist, telling about his native Kenya that is both funny and scary, so much so that your heart begins to ache in your chest, a man who introduces the stories of his Kikuyu people into world circulation. And there is Bob Dylan, on whose poems several generations have grown up. Who to choose, and most importantly, by what criterion?
The answer is simple - the award rewards the region, genre, method. She puts a stamp on it: “good”, “first grade”, “don’t pass by”. And millions of writers from the same region, genre and method understand that their work is not hopeless. It is not Mo Yan who receives, but Chinese literature. Not Alice Munro, but the genre of the story. Not Svetlana Alexievich, but polyphony. And so on. This year it was not Bob Dylan who won, it was the tradition of song poetry, specifically American, and more broadly, the world in general, that won. And that's great. Literature does not stand still, does not close itself within itself, does not become aristocratic, but, on the contrary, expands. Strengthened by relatively young genres. And who is the oldest, wisest, most beautiful in song poetry, who is the most skillful and honored? Of course Dylan.
Song poetry has gained recognition and can now take its place on Parnassus next to other muses. Not on a side chair, but in her place with a microphone, a sign and a minibar, because she now has a diploma from Swedish academics.