2016 Nobel prize in literature goes to..............

[sheeplady]

Human nature I guess, whoever it was awarded to there will always be those who claim it should have gone to someone else.....................just a reminder folks, we are in fact in 2016 & not 1916...

Well, you could argue that some of the greats that have not been awarded the Nobel prize for literature were Dylan's contemporaries.

Take Vitanola's suggestion of John Updike. Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 and finished the Rabbit series in 1990. That makes him very much a contemporary of Dylan, who's career started roughly in 1960. Dylan is younger than Updike, so I'll give him that. He's also still alive, and they don't award Nobel's to dead people (except in special circumstances).

There's a lot of politics that go into Nobel's, and I don't hesitate to believe for one second that controversy doesn't help their organization. There's been some picks over the years which I have highly questioned as the only motives I can plainly see are motivated by stirring up controversy.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

There's a lot of politics that go into Nobel's, and I don't hesitate to believe for one second that controversy doesn't help their organization. There's been some picks over the years which I have highly questioned as the only motives I can plainly see are motivated by stirring up controversy.

I freely admit to having no inside knowledge on how the organization works nor of their mechanism for distributing the prizes but I imagine politics is involved as it is in everything. Not sure how controversy helps them though, they receive a long list of candidates, all no doubt deserving, whittle 'em down to runners up & then choose a winner......where's the controversy ? And just how important is winning a Nobel prize anyway, apart from the peace prize, they are more often than not awarded to people known only to the elitists in the various fields, it is no doubt an honor to win one but it certainly isn't a dishonor not to......do we remember someone for their work or because they won a prize.?

 

[MisterCairo]

This is hilarious:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/comedy/funny...nducted-into-rock-roll-hall-of-fame-1.3803317

I spat up coffee at this part:


Atwood will join contemporaries like the Steve Miller Band, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Green Day (whose Dookie won the 1994 Giller), and is rumoured to be performing one of her rare outtakes live for the first time at the induction ceremony. The choice has been controversial, but supporters believe her time had truly come.

"Remember that a lot of people were outraged when Atwood went electric with her first e-book in 2012, and yet now we can't imagine a world without it," said Bun E. Carlos of fellow inductees Cheap Trick. "But that's what rock and roll does. It shocks and it teaches."

 

[Frunobulax]

This is hilarious:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/comedy/funny...nducted-into-rock-roll-hall-of-fame-1.3803317

I spat up coffee at this part:


Atwood will join contemporaries like the Steve Miller Band, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Green Day (whose Dookie won the 1994 Giller), and is rumoured to be performing one of her rare outtakes live for the first time at the induction ceremony. The choice has been controversial, but supporters believe her time had truly come.

"Remember that a lot of people were outraged when Atwood went electric with her first e-book in 2012, and yet now we can't imagine a world without it," said Bun E. Carlos of fellow inductees Cheap Trick. "But that's what rock and roll does. It shocks and it teaches."

OK, that was funny.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, you could argue that some of the greats that have not been awarded the Nobel prize for literature were Dylan's contemporaries.

Take Vitanola's suggestion of John Updike. Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 and finished the Rabbit series in 1990. That makes him very much a contemporary of Dylan, who's career started roughly in 1960. Dylan is younger than Updike, so I'll give him that. He's also still alive, and they don't award Nobel's to dead people (except in special circumstances).

There's a lot of politics that go into Nobel's, and I don't hesitate to believe for one second that controversy doesn't help their organization. There's been some picks over the years which I have highly questioned as the only motives I can plainly see are motivated by stirring up controversy.

Some works are simply out of sync with their time. Stephen Vincent Benet wrote "John Brown's Body" in 1928, but he was far too outre for the Nobel committee of that era (although not for the Pulitzer committee.) If he had written it in 1968 or 1978, he'd have won hands down. If he'd written it in 1998 or 2008, no.

 

[sheeplady]

I freely admit to having no inside knowledge on how the organization works nor of their mechanism for distributing the prizes but I imagine politics is involved as it is in everything. Not sure how controversy helps them though, they receive a long list of candidates, all no doubt deserving, whittle 'em down to runners up & then choose a winner......where's the controversy ? And just how important is winning a Nobel prize anyway, apart from the peace prize, they are more often than not awarded to people known only to the elitists in the various fields, it is no doubt an honor to win one but it certainly isn't a dishonor not to......do we remember someone for their work or because they won a prize.?

By politics I meant small "politics" rather than official political ones.

I would assume that the people who give out the prizes want some notoriety of the actions of their organization. If they didn't, they wouldn't release this information to the press and do it in secret. But, instead, they do it publically. If the public lost interest in the prizes, how would that impact their organization and the weight of the recognition?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I think that those who work for the Nobel organization don't want their prizes to fade into obscurity. This doesn't have to be for selfish reasons, either. It could be for the good of the awards to continue and carry weight in areas such a world peace... receiving such an award certainly can give a peacemaker a world stage for their message.

 

[BobHufford]

And just how important is winning a Nobel prize anyway, apart from the peace prize, they are more often than not awarded to people known only to the elitists in the various fields, it is no doubt an honor to win one but it certainly isn't a dishonor not to......do we remember someone for their work or because they won a prize.?

The $905,000 part of the award doesn't hurt either.

 

[sheeplady]

I think the Nobel prizes can have a lot to do with how we remember critical discoveries and the scientists who found them.

Who discovered the double helix of DNA?

Chances are you named Watson and Crick, two of the 3 Nobel Prize winners for DNA that year. I think the Noble went a long way in legitimizing the work of Watson and Crick, and led to further ignoring Rosalind Franklin's findings.

 

[Fading Fast]

The $905,000 part of the award doesn't hurt either.

Absolutely agree that for many of the winners, the money is quite helpful. But since Dylan has been on continuous tour since the earth cooled, I have to believe that, for him, the award money is a drop in the bucket.

 

[bsman]

Yet Steinbeck, Updike, Nabokov, Joyce, Proust and Tolstoy were ignored.

Ummm, Steinbeck won the prize in 1962...

 

[vitanola]

Ummm, Steinbeck won the prize in 1962...

Ummm, Steinbeck won the prize in 1962...

Well, Is my face ever RED!

Thanks for correcting me.