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.
I have much admiration for Dylan’s work. I don’t know if it merits a Pulitzer, but I’m glad it was him and not Bono!
His music was frequently used for protests, but Dylan himself didn’t usually get involved in that sort of thing.
Hey-at least it wasn’t Dan Rather or Amanpour!
Dylan may be a great songwriter, but his voice reminds me of fingernails on a chalkboard.
lol
His son Jakob is both a better musician and far more comprehensible.
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And in 20 years he may be as good a songwriter as dad is, and has been for getting on to 50 years. And I say that as a pretty big fan of the Wallflowers.
Dylan’s mark is not his musicianship. The Band, and his other bands, have supplied the requisite level of musicianship to complement his writing.
Neither Bob nor Jakob are gonna win anyone’s “Hottest Guitar Player” poll. Both seem to recognize that the music is the vehicle for the words.
No titanic influence on the culture of THIS American. I found his "music" abrasive at best and not really reflective of what most Americans believe.
Darling of the American Left ala Woody Guthrie. He promoted class warfare.
The only song he wrote that I liked was "Like a Rolling Stone", which was done much better by the Young Rascals.
Good. He deserves the prize. He is a genius and a national treasure.
If Dylan ever learns to sing, there’ll be no stopping him...
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Don’t need to worry about that. Since everyone and their grandmas cover Dylan songs (imitation as the most sincere form of flattery), we have them to listen to for their lovely vocalizations.
I prefer the real thing - going to his concerts and buying his records.
Who said there are only two categories?
But, you will see those to whom I am referring. Those who have no strong feelings on Dylan one way or the other, usually do not post.
Then others, like you, will read into the comments that which was not there.
Bob Dylan BUMP!
The Pulitzer people may be morons, but at least they got something right.
I would rather it have been Sting. More intelligible, more *intelligent* lyrics, far more versatile at writing, etc., etc.
This year Dylan, next year Becker & Fagen...
I lost any semblance of respect for the Pulitzer when they gave an award to Molly Ivins.
One should not speak ill of the dead, so I will leave it at that.
Where would bve without the original thinkers who keep telling us the ignorant their deep thought that “Dylan can’t sing”. Could Louis Armstrong? Can Tom Waits? Who can sing? Pavarotti?
Unfortunately, you can’t play any of those Prizes on your record player, not even on an 8-track, and you can’t read them. Which makes them all meaningless, me thinks, just like the Halls of Fame.
They were actually right twice in one day: First, a Pulitzer for the cartoonist Michael Ramirez, and now one for Bob Dylan. I’m stunned!
For good reasons too. Dylan, IMHO, is actually far more conservative then his personna seems to project or as he is portayed or though of by those who worship the all mighty 'ANTI War' peacnik Bob.
I'm kidding! I'm kidding!
“Becker & Fagen...”
Now you’re talking!
Dylan did get caught up with the protest scene for a while, but came to his senses soon enough. Oh, the reactionaries were pissed when they heard these lyrics:
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ‘neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
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