When Bob Dylan Wins a Nobel Prize
By Claire Rudy Foster
This week, the Nobel committee awarded the prize for literature to Bob Dylan, and a part of my heart died. The morning of the announcement, I walked to work in the rain with my hands in my pockets. What the fuck. I looked at the people around me, wishing I could ask them how they were taking the news. Disappointment exploded inside me like dynamite, or dropped eggs.
Why is this such a big deal?
Dylan’s receipt of the Nobel is an embarrassment. Is this the best we can do? Of all the writers in this country, all the idealists and firebrands, is Bob Dylan the best representative of what America has to offer? Thanks to his ex girlfriend Joan Baez, Dylan took the stage in the 1960s; his evocative lyrics gave a voice to the folk movement, though he himself was strongly apolitical. “I’m not part of no movement,” he said in a 1964 interview.
The songs that made him rich, famous, and the voice of the disenchanted Boomer generation were written in a 20-month sprint over 50 years ago.
What has Dylan done lately?
Further, why reward yet another aging, wealthy white guy for something he did in his early 20s? Does Dylan even want a Nobel? Let’s consider some of his contemporaries: white, commercially successful American writers over 60. I’m thinking of Ursula LeGuin and Joyce Carol Oates, who are both equally deserving and have contributed more over their decades-long careers than Dylan did in less than two. Because the Nobel’s list of nominees is sealed, we won’t know if these two exemplary writers were even considered for the prize for 50 years -- long after they are both dead.
In my gut, I am angriest about this award because the committee has chosen a winner who is so universally likeable. In my opinion, real artists -- the iconoclasts, the rebels -- challenge the reader. They can be appreciated but they are not necessarily appealing or accessible. A look back at previous winners, such as Doris Lessing, Jose Saramago, and Toni Morrison, shows writers who are compelling because they are not easy to read. The Nobel Prize in Literature is to recognize "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.” It is not supposed to be a popularity contest, and this year feels like a nod to the Great White Past instead of a serious consideration of forward-looking, meaningful work by writers, poets, and yes, songwriters, who have shown sustained dedication to society’s “ideal direction.”
On a personal level, this tells me that as a woman, my writing -- any woman’s writing -- will never be as valuable as something a man did fifty years ago, when he was fresh out of college. It tells me that being likable holds more weight than tackling life’s daily problems in my writing. I’ll point out that last year’s winner, Svetlana Alexievich, was chosen for "her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time." Her accounts of wartime refugees’ voices not only dignified creative nonfiction, but also introduced new perspectives to literature. She told the truth, daring her reader to look away. It was not likeable. It was damn good.
Dylan’s selection affirms, for me, every rejection letter I’ve gotten that tells me that my characters are too difficult, or that my stories are too challenging, too bleak. “I just didn’t relate,” is a common refrain. Why do I have to be likeable? I wonder. Jonathan Franzen isn’t likeable. Neither is Lionel Shriver -- or, for that matter, Elfriede Jelinek, the Austrian writer who won the Nobel in 1983. What happens when we stop recognizing and rewarding writing that isn’t the equivalent of an easy-listening album?
When I write, and when I read, I’m looking for the thing that pricks me -- the image, line of dialog, or plot point that provokes me and catches me by surprise. I’m trying to tell the difficult stories, the ones that stick with my reader for days afterward. I want to create characters that haunt you and show you the deep water in yourself, the caves where eyeless fish swim. I respect the writers who do the difficult work of crafting stories that surprise, jar, and deeply inspire us -- the ones that speak outside the mainstream, instead of giving voice to it.
Today may be a win for Bob Dylan, but it’s a loss for the rest of us.
Claire Rudy Foster's critically recognized short fiction appears in various respected journals, including McSweeney's, Vestal Review, and SmokeLong Quarterly. She has been honored by several small presses, including a nomination for the Pushcart Prize. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing. She is afraid of sharks, zombies, and other imaginary monsters. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Photo credit: Martin Beek via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
