Give next year's Nobel Literature prize to Slartabartfast for his post.
 
And, a harmonica.

slartabartfast
Well, his work certainly impressed a lot of people in my generation. But I disagree about how long his work will last. Most likely he will be forgotten like ee cumings as a minor poet who hit it big with something quirky. Of course as far as influence on the general public and income from his poetry, he will dwarf amateurs like Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and George Gordon Byron. I think most of us could name several songwriters who have written better poetry. This may be the literature equivalent of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, in recognizing a popular figure of limited accomplishment in the field in hopes that it may make the field, if not the prize, somehow relevant. Still Mr. Zimmerman may have a legacy as the inventor of the folk-rap genre. 
 
 
 

 
Elvis will win for physics next year when his quantum soul is bottled and sold , finally. That or some jack..will win for economics after doing a study about it.

Keith Richards will win in the field of medicine for proving that the body can remain animated years after it has died. 

craigb
Keith Richards will win in the field of medicine for proving that the body can remain animated years after it has died. 

Better yet, and although he has passed on ... in the VH1 series behind the music or something like it, some 25 years ago, they did that one on David Bowie and he has a great quote in there ... what was the reason for his longevity and ability to do so much work? ... and his answer ... "A GOOD doctor!"
 
So Keith probably has the best ones around ... which doesn't say much for a few other folks?

Hi,
 
Weird to see some of the negative comments on Bob Dylan.
 
As a writer, he never gave up and always continued to create more and more poems, that were presented as songs. We, as a country, do not appreciate a lot of literature, beyond the pulp fiction stuff and heroes stuff that you are fed by the film community, which breaks apart the literary value of a lot of things, while also creating havoc with our ability to read something and appreciate it for what it is.
 
If you publish all of his songs, he probably has more material than half the poets that we know in history ... and while it might not have the fancy rhymes ... well, those went out the window some 100 years ago, anyway ... so it's a bit weird to see his work not appreciated.
 
The same thing would go for others, like Peter Hammill that has an incredible library of words in song, and others like Roy Harper ... but since we are into pop music, and not the work itself, the likelihood of anyone noticing that ... is gone ... totally gone.
 
Bob is not my "favorite" by any stretch of the imagination, but the amount of work, and the continuity of his own honesty with his own work, is not any different than any major writer in any literary field ... of which the material for songs is now also being appreciated, and I want to say ... IT'S ABOUT TIME!
 
I'm really tired of "my generation" being thought of as bums and not capable of creating very good artistic work ... our generation that covers the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's specially, will probably be remembered as one of the most important creative movements in artistic history for the 20th century.
 
We just have to stop thinking it's all just pop musiK! (Heck, even some of Mozart, was considered that for a long time, until it was changed and censored from its bar originals!)

Moshkito
Hi,
 
Weird to see some of the negative comments on Bob Dylan.
 

I suspect part of it might be that it's hard to evaluate someone as famous as Bob Dylan. Everyone who has heard a subset of his songs on the radio thinks they "know" his work. And in his case, his work varies from stream of consciousness wordplay to carefully constructed reflection to straightforward stories to deep and mysterious to "what the?".

drewfx1

Moshkito
Hi,
 
Weird to see some of the negative comments on Bob Dylan.
 

I suspect part of it might be that it's hard to evaluate someone as famous as Bob Dylan. Everyone who has heard a subset of his songs on the radio thinks they "know" his work. And in his case, his work varies from stream of consciousness wordplay to carefully constructed reflection to straightforward stories to deep and mysterious to "what the?".

Oh my ... so Steinbeck and Hemingway not withstanding ... 
 
To me, and perhaps because I was born in a house with 40K books of literature, I have an appreciation for the "words", a lot more than many folks. To me, and you have to think about this a bit, there were/are MANY MANY MANY rock/folk/country/rap (you name it!) music writers that were far better than many of those folks listed in that library ... and my love for the artistic/musical work will always be there, even when I'm gone, and no one cares anymore and the dust in the universe just continues to move.
 
And this is exactly what happened, for example, when I gave my dad Tomita's "Snowflakes are Dancing" ... and he thought it was "cute", which was his way of saying it was not serious music. And a month later he finally admitted, after listening to some Stockhausen and Davies, that maybe there was something to Tomita, and he came back and apologized ... in my book, many of us are just looking at pop music, not within a larger context ... and in that larger context, love it or hate it, Bob belongs. As do many others!
 
Now we will see a song with some cynicism about that ... can't call it blonde on blonde anymore. Poem on poem? Words on words?

Hmm... I don't recall hearing either Steinbeck or Hemingway play guitar or harmonica.  They probably weren't talented enough. 

Moshkito
To me, and perhaps because I was born in a house with 40K books of literature, 

REALLY!!!???!!!!
 
We never knew that about you.

I heard they (Nobel Committee/Academy) are having difficulty finding Bob to give him his prize.
 
Stephen Colbert suggested they look at his tour schedule and meetup at one of his shows.