bob dylan to win the nobel prize for literature?
clearly not this year, anyway.
i must admit that i came to this story rather late in the day, indeed almost as the winner was due to be announced. it still gave me enough time to consider where the story came from and what a win for the bobster would have meant.
nominated, fairly i agree, he only became a 'front-runner' in the last stages due to increased media interest based on unfounded speculation that he was going to scoop the prize.
this interest became a frenzy which, in short order,
pushed punters into betting shops and we saw the odds against
a dylan win tumble. the faster they fell, the more credible it seemed that he would indeed win.
given, though, that neither i nor (i imagine) you sat on this year's nobel committee, nor did any of those writing the stories or rushing to ladbrokes, the episode was based on nothing more than an unusual form of intellectually-derived hysteria. what fun to observe.
in a list of nominees that included haruki murakami, amos oz, thomas pynchon and ultimate winner tomas transtromer, would it have been right to see robert allen zimmerman's name added to a list that already includes ernest hemingway, george bernard shaw, jean-paul sartre and harold pinter?
in a word - yes.
