pure boomer bait.

Sometimes I think of musicians only by their lyrics and the music is only in the background. Dylan wrote some fine lyrics in his time. I can see why they would want to reward him for that.

I figured it for a calculated insult of Leonard Cohen. But if it wings Roth too, more the better.

"He is a wonderful sampler. A very original sampler."

Is that not an oxymoron?

So simplistic. Pick a better quote, man. Many of his lyrics resonate without the music and beautifully express poetic technique and nuance. Plus, he also wrote books, one of which was standard literary poetry.

Dylan totally deserves this award. If Shakespeare is considered Literature, Dylan should be too.

He should have been awarded the Prize years ago, just for plugging in his electric guitar.

Agree, Dylan was far too relevant to be considered a real poet.

Oh, Rich, this post is just so YOU.

Would have been relevant to say all this before they awarded this prize instead of after the fact. Now it's just so much reaction. You probably didn't know Dylan was a top contender because you don't actually care that much about the Nobel Prize?

The Nobel committee is in the habit of putting off prizes they intend to give to one person while they award another. The problem here is that Dylan is only 75 and Roth is 83. If he dies he can't win posthumously. So they should have honored Roth while they still can. He might not be around next year.

Most people couldn't cite more than one or two Roth titles, let alone quote anything of significance from them; whereas I would venture just about anyone can at least dredge up a snippet of a Dylan song from memory. Not that quotability should be the final determiner in these things of course, but as much as I admire Roth as a writer it simply indicates that Dylan's cultural impact is by far the greater of the two, and this seems to be at least part of the criteria the Nobel committee considered in making their decision.

If humanity survives past our current madness, Dylan's work will be discussed for years to come.
Dylan is a poet. If poets are illegible for the prize, then he deserves it.

As much as you might wish it weren't so, Rich, poetry in the traditional sense began to wane as a cultural force around the same time that people began to take the lyrics to popular songs seriously. There was a time when unrhymed poetry was unheard of. There was a time when what James Joyce wrote was decried as not being literature at all. Times and the borders of art forms change all the times. Let's be Big Tent people, people!

Aiden @3: I figured it for a calculated insult of Leonard Cohen. But if it wings Roth too, more the better.

I think the choice of Bob Dylan over Leonard Cohen and Philip Roth is just further evidence of the Nobel Committee's well-known anti-Semitism. Not to mention its anti-Americanism.

If I were Ta-Nehisi Coates, though, I would be outraged that the committee chose an irrelevant, old rock musician over a hip-hop artist. (BTW, I'm just channeling my inner Ta-Nehisi Coates when I write that. Maybe if I went to his blog today, I would see that this was indeed his reaction. It's just so hard to satirize the news anymore these days.)

@15 I was just making a smart-ass comment.

I guess is you asked me for an actual opinion, I'd say I'd just as soon see these prizes go to people who need the money.

Correction to my comment @15. The snubbing of Leonard Cohen is, of course, evidence of the Nobel Committee's anti-Canadian bias.

Aiden @16, your original smart-ass comment was taken as such.

Also, if you go through the entire letter from the committee awarding the prize to Dylan, you'll see that they give a little shout-out to Cohen toward the end, but they just couldn't give it to him for fear of inspiring yet one more cover version of "Hallelujah."

BTW, if you really want to see the committee twist the knife in Philip Roth's back, just wait until next year when the award the prize to Larry David.

Anti-semitism? WTF?

@15:

You DO know that Dylan (nee: Robert Zimmerman) IS Jewish, yes?

COMTE @20, thank you so much for the valuable information. Here I thought that, by following "just further evidence of the Nobel Committee's well-known anti-Semitism" with "Not to mention its anti-Americanism," I would be making myself clear, but no, I did not realize that Bob Dylan was either Jewish or American. Who knew?! Nor did I recall that Leonard Cohen is Canadian.

COMTE, you must admit, though, if they pass up Philip Roth for next year's literature prize in favor of Larry David, that will be a sure sign of anti-Semitism.

holy moly @cressona why you be commentin' (an'specially in a negative manner) if ya don't even know yer shit?? We're talkin' jew here not trump.

Oh please. Lyrics ain't literature my ass. If you want to argue that this poet or that writer is more important, then fine. But to argue that it isn't literature is bullshit. Hell, I'm no great Dylan fan, so allow me to throw out a bit of lyricism from someone I enjoy a lot more:

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth

I look all white, but my dad was black

Substitute you for my mum, at least I'll get my washing done

Each one of those lines is brilliant. There are writers out there that would kill for one of those lines, but they were written by a songwriter, and are all part of the same fucking song. If you read that, or a typical Dylan song out loud as a poem, and no one had heard it before, they would go ape shit. You would bring down the house and folks would be calling you the next great English speaking poet. But instead the author added some nice guitar riffs, got a fantastic singer to belt out the lyrics, set it all down with the greatest white rhythm section the world has ever known, and created a fucking jam. But it is still great literature (wrapped around a great tune).

why the Nobel Prize is a joke. Obama won the Peace Prize, and this nation has been at war his entire tenure. This is a feel good prize for the pompous. Congrats Bob.

can you name one other writer who has contributed more commonly-used idioms to the language than Dylan? name him or her. Oh, right, that Shakespeare guy, forgot him.

hey conservative asshole writer who hasn't done his homework, jack keroac often read with instruments and drums behind him! was he not a poet? you also clearly aren't familiar with dylan's work or process (which for the most part, involveds sitting down at a typewriter and writing lyrics first, then music is secondary). look up "if you see her say hello", "never say goodbye", "forever young", "every grain of sand"...

So critics would have us believe that song writing and poetry writing are two completely different processes? The ancient Greeks, Hindus and other members of our earliest known civilizations would probably disagree. Lyric poetry was accompanied by the lyre, elegies were accompanied by the flute and the epic poems were sung by warriors before going to battle. They were literally "fight songs". Later the great epics were sung by the chorus on the Greek stage. The term sonnet means a little song. The perceived separation of poetry and music is an unfortunate and very recent development in our overall cultural history. Bob Dylan's words speak not only to and for a generation but for all generations. Not bound solely to ink and paper, the words fly magically upon the air reaching all who will listen. Congratulations to you, Bob Dylan! You deserve the honor and recognition that this prize signifies.