Bob CollinsThere’s nothing we like better than bathing in the reflected glow of additional fame heaped on someone who couldn’t wait to get out of Minnesota. So, when Bob Dylan, who first name is actually not “Minnesota native”, was named the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature today, we instinctively wrapped our arms around “one of us” and — again, let’s face it — claimed the prize as our own.
This, of course, prevented us from having the much more intellectually stimulating conversation: Should Bob Dylan — hell of a songwriter — be getting the Nobel Prize for literature?
Fortunately, not everyone in the world is from Minnesota, so the conversation is taking place on Twitter, where other states’ famous people are debating the question, as monitored by CNBC.
Here:
Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize. Yes. Yes. Yes.
— Jeff Daniels (@Jeff_Daniels) October 13, 2016
I love me some Bob Dylan but I'm kinda bummed about him winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) October 13, 2016
1. All joking aside, Bob Dylan is the rare Nobel Prize winner who everyone can have an opinion about.
— Jacob Brogan (@Jacob_Brogan) October 13, 2016
I'm happy for Bob Dylan. #ButDoesThisMeanICanWinAGrammy?
— Jodi Picoult (@jodipicoult) October 13, 2016
Folks: Songwriting is writing, and Bob Dylan is one of the most influential writers in the last 100 years. It's a defensible Nobel pick.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) October 13, 2016
Woke up to he news that #bobdylan won the @NobelPrize in literature. Few writers have seen their work have a greater influence. Let's party
— David Korins (@DavidKorins) October 13, 2016
From Orpheus to Faiz,song & poetry have been closely linked. Dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition.Great choice. #Nobel
— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) October 13, 2016
Bob Dylan is overrated.
— Matt Saccaro (@MattSaccaro) October 13, 2016
Will Bob Dylan croon the Nobel acceptance speech?
— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) October 13, 2016
I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.
— Irvine Welsh (@IrvineWelsh) October 13, 2016
The Nobel Prize for Literature has always been a joke but awarding it to Bob Dylan might be the biggest disrespect to the literary world
— Zito (@_Zeets) October 13, 2016
I love Bob Dylan winning the Nobel for Lit. Writing is (and always has been) more than novels and books.
— Hrag (@hragv) October 13, 2016
Would really like to see a fever chart of Bob Dylan's @Spotify play count today.
— Kurt Soller (@kurtsoller) October 13, 2016
The backlash for a musician winning the Nobel Prize for Literature would be understandable if Bob Dylan weren't ~the~ musician to deserve it
— ian servantes (@ian_servantes) October 13, 2016
Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for literature is like when Obama won it for peace. It doesn't make sense. Ultimate fangirling by judges
— Christopher Harress (@Charress) October 13, 2016
Say what you will about Bob Dylan, you've got to give it up for the song "Hallelujah!" the perfect song for Shrek. #NobelPrize
— Andrew Rose Gregory (@arosegregory) October 13, 2016
Nothing pleases me more than the Nobel for Lit going to Bob Dylan. Some of the world's greatest songwriters have also been its finest poets.
— Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) October 13, 2016
I applaud the Bob Dylan Nobel pick. Just listen to Desolation Row. But do Don DeLillo & Thomas Pynchon have to go electric to win the Nobel?
— Paul R. La Monica (@LaMonicaBuzz) October 13, 2016
Being a songwriter and a lover of great literature, I think it's fantastic that Bob Dylan just won this year's #nobel prize for literature!
— PEYTON (@Peytonsmusic) October 13, 2016
There’s always the question of who should have won the prize today if not Dylan?
“This Nobel is therefore a sort of lifetime achievement award, which certainly recognizes the great Dylan talent in writing lyrics, but just as certainly must not have pleased the real writers, those who – like Don DeLillo, Philip Roth and Haruki Murakami, all possible winners – know the enormous effort that involves writing a novel,” L’Osservatore Romano, a Vatican newspaper, opines.
And even if you don’t agree with the award, you’ve got to celebrate the fact that in the middle of this cesspool of a political campaign, we’re having a debate about worthy literature.
Related Nobel: Nobel laureate Dario Fo, who mocked politics, religion, dies (AP)
