Dylan the American Left, and What We Have Lost

[Erik T. Burns]

plenty of kids these days think of him as a spokesman for iPods, or as a
soundtrack presence, probably many of those millennials weren't even sure
he was alive still. A benefit of the Nobel is a rediscovery, or discovery,
of an artist who many had forgotten or stopped "really" seeing / hearing
&c.

I'm 48, my parents had the Dylan of the 60s (also the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones & lots else), I had the Dylan of the 1980s and 1990s. I saw
him once, at a "Day on the Green" at the Oakland Colosseum (1987, with the
Grateful Dead), and even then (30 years ago!) it was "oldies" and
not-authentic feeling. There would have been no point anymore shouting
"Judas," there was nothing left to betray.

I'm happy for Bob and not at all interested in the faux argument about
whether or not he should have won or if it somehow changes the whole
meaning of the prize. But I did shed a tear for TRP, and DeLillo, who now
have no chance in their lifetimes (and may they live long).

On the other hand, last week one of the NY Times crossword puzzle clues was
"Bengali Nobel prizewinner for literature" and the answer was Tagore.
Rabindranath Tagore, a polymath, writer and musician, won the award in 1913
(the first non-European).

In a 100 years who knows, probably Bob Dylan will be similarly "well
known". (Though he obvs. has a better chance than many on the list of
winners of the last 100 years. Harry Martinson, anyone? Claude Simone?
Eugenio Montale?)

(a-and don't you lot come back at me with all you know about all those
writers; the p-list is hardly representative!)

On Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 12:32 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Millions of people not as old as (most) of us writing and reading this.
> And, as an artist with creative ambiguity and not much of a movement
> follower --or spokesman--as he himself said--
> he rose above most literal political endorsements, so to speak.
>
> And I think Thomas is also right in the media coverage not accenting that
> Dylan, the fountainhead from which
> I see him. But I'm nobody.  I have read a lot of the coverage, my
> weakness, and the leftist sixties roots as the lens I cannot change seeing
> him through (yet) are
> not accented as much as I thought they would be--when his whole life is
> what is written about.
>
> In some sense, maybe, in his self-created individuality as as artist, we
> might call him anarchic? In the way
>  it is often intended in Pynchon's work: against statism and almost all
> forms of "authority" guiding one's life.
> (That God-and being-a little-missionary-about-it phase, not so much)
>
> Having seen him in performance just a few times; having heard some of his
> different performances
> of his own favorite songs, it has just occurred to me, because of the
> Award, to see them as 'readings', as
> when we can have so many of the subtly different (yet ultimately major)
> readings of Shakespeare or Pynchon.
> That fascinates me.
>
> I once tried writing about two performances of the same songs to
> accurately capture their emotional emphases
> and differences with the same words. But I have a tin ear along with other
> weaknesses.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 10:06 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What idiot doesn't know Dylan was a major voice of the Left in the 60's?
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, October 15, 2016, Thomas Eckhardt <
>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Am 15.10.2016 um 20:14 schrieb ish mailian:
>>>
>>> Since the mass media won’t tell you Dylan was in his youth a leftist
>>>> or that some of his greatest work came out of a critique of our
>>>> corporation-dominated, unequal, militaristic and racist society, it is
>>>> important to underline it lest the celebration of his masterpieces
>>>> become merely maudlin (and he would hate that outcome, too).
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes. And this cold war chestnut is becoming more apropos by the minute:
>>>
>>> I've learned to hate the Russians
>>> All through my whole life
>>> If another war comes
>>> It's them we must fight
>>> To hate them and fear them
>>> To run and to hide
>>> And accept it all bravely
>>> With God on my side
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>
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