Posted on 04/08/2008 8:51:40 AM PDT by Borges
Thanks to Bob Dylan, rock 'n' roll has finally broken through the Pulitzer wall. Dylan, the most acclaimed and influential songwriter of the past half century, who more than anyone brought rock from the streets to the lecture hall, received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday, cited for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
It was the first time Pulitzer judges, who have long favored classical music, and, more recently, jazz, awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive.
"I am in disbelief," Dylan fan and fellow Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz said of Dylan's award.
Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," a tragic but humorous story of desire, politics and violence among Dominicans at home and in the United States, won the fiction prize. Diaz, 39, worked for more than a decade on his first novel — "I spent most of the time on dead-ends and doubts," he told The Associated Press on Monday — and at one point included a section about Dylan.
"Bob Dylan was a problem for me," Diaz, who has also published a story collection, "Drown," said with a laugh. "I had one part that was 40 pages long, the entire chapter was organized around Bob Dylan's lyrics over a two year-period (1967-69). By the end of it, I wanted to throttle my like of Bob Dylan."
The Pulitzer for drama was given to Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County," which, like Diaz's novel, combines comedy and brutality. Letts calls the play "loosely autobiographical," a bruising family battle spanning several generations of unhappiness and unfulfilled dreams.
"It's a play I have been working on in my head and on paper for many years now," said Letts, reached by the AP in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater Company, where "August: Osage County" had its world premiere last summer.
"There were just some details from my grandmother, my grandfather's suicide (for example) that I had played over and over in my head for many, many years. I always thought, `Well, that's the stuff of drama right there.'"
Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Hass, already a National Book Award winner for "Time and Materials," won the poetry Pulitzer, as did Philip Schultz's "Failure."
"This is the book ... I have always wanted to write," Schultz told the AP. "Everyone is expert on one subject and failure seems to be mine. ... I was born into it. My father went bankrupt when I was 18 and he died soon afterward out of (a) terrible sense of shame. And we lost everything, my mother and I."
Other winners Monday: Daniel Walker Howe, for history, for "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848"; Saul Friedlander, general nonfiction, for "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945"; for biography, John Matteson's "Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father."
"I wrote my book in a way that is generally accessible to the curious literate reader," Howe said. "And I think that's very important, and I wish more books were written that way."
"It's a special honor because it ties me even more to the country of which I'm now a citizen," said Friedlander, who became a U.S. citizen seven years ago and won the German Booksellers Association's 2007 Peace Prize for his work on documenting the Holocaust.
"I am surprised, grateful, overjoyed — and a little embarrassed to do this with my first book," said Matteson, a professor of English at John Jay College in New York City who added that his 14-year-old daughter was an inspiration.
"Not only did I understand parenting better after writing the book, but being a parent helped me to write the book."
Dylan's victory doesn't mean that the Pulitzers have forgotten classical composers. The competitive prize for music was given to David Lang's "The Little Match Girl Passion," which opened last fall at Carnegie Hall, where Dylan has also performed.
"Bob Dylan is the most frequently played artist in my household so the idea that I am honored at the same time as Bob Dylan, that is humbling," Lang told the AP.
Long after most of his contemporaries either died, left the business or held on by the ties of nostalgia, Dylan continues to tour almost continuously and release highly regarded CDs, most recently "Modern Times." Fans, critics and academics have obsessed over his lyrics — even digging through his garbage for clues — since the mid-1960s, when such protest anthems as "Blowin' in the Wind" made Dylan a poet and prophet for a rebellious generation.
His songs include countless biblical references and he has claimed Chekhov, Walt Whitman and Jack Kerouac as influences. His memoir, "Chronicles, Volume One," received a National Book Critics Circle nomination in 2005 and is widely acknowledged as the rare celebrity book that can be treated as literature.
According to publisher Simon & Schuster, Dylan is working on a second volume of memoirs. No release date has been set.
This should be an interesting one, as all the AntiDylanistas should come out of the wood work.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Ditto that.
What Dylan said when he accepted the award:
“Bleh bleh bleh blah blah blah. Blah bleh bleh blah! Bleh bleh bleh blah blah blah!”
His son Jakob is both a better musician and far more comprehensible.
*****
That said, this Pulitzer is right up there with the Goracle’s Nobel Prize. Null significance.
The times, they are a changin....
Don’t know if this is in the proper spirit. Seems like Pulitzers go to those who dig out things we didn’t know about things that have large effect. Dylan sings and writes stuff we already know. Very well, but its not investigative journalsim.
Give it a rest.
I hope he doesn’t say, “It ain’t me, babe...”
Cool news:)
Not worship but recognize his titanic influence on American culture.
He’s a hell of a song writer, but a Nobel Peace Prize?
Mr. Zimmerman has done quite well. He has Grammys, Oscars and Golden Globes....more fitting for his profession.
You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You might be a rock ‘n’ roll addict prancing on the stage,
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,
You may be a business man or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk,
You may be the head of some big TV network,
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame,
You may be living in another country under another name
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You may be a construction worker working on a home,
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome,
You might own guns and you might even own tanks,
You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk,
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk,
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread,
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy,
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy,
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray,
You may call me anything but no matter what you say
You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Bob Dylan-Gotta Serve Somebody
Now, who are most people serving?
If Dylan ever learns to sing, there'll be no stopping him...
Is *that* what that song’s lyrics are? I couldn’t tell with Bob’s mumbling.
The FedGov.
OOPS: Peace Prize and Pulitzers......referring to Gore and Dylan
No kidding. His son, at least, can sing AND play. Bob? Not so much...
I don’t think talent is all that rare. There are great musicians all over the place. You just never hear them because the avenue to fame doesn’t necessarily select for those with the most talent. I’m not saying Dylan isn’t talented. He is. I just feel that many with extraordinary talents never get noticed. This is true in all walks of life, including politics (actually, I think most politicians are in the lower rungs of overall talent, but achieve on the basis of their inflated sense of self-importance).
there’s pulitzers for many areas other than journalism
Mission creep
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