Dylan silence arrogant: Nobel member

STOCKHOLM — A prominent member of the academy which awards the Nobel Literature Prize on Friday slammed this year’s laureate Bob Dylan as arrogant, citing his total silence since the award was announced last week.

The US singer-songwriter has not responded to repeated phone calls from the Swedish Academy, nor reacted in any way in public to the news.

“It’s impolite and arrogant,” said the academy member, Swedish writer Per Wastberg, in comments aired on SVT public television.

On the evening of October 13, the day the literature prize winner was announced, Dylan played a concert in Las Vegas during which he just sang his songs and made no comment at all to his fans. He ended the concert with a version of the Frank Sinatra hit Why Try To

Change Me Now?, taken to be a nod towards his longstanding aversion to the media.

Every December 10, Nobel prize winners are invited to Stockholm to receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf and give a speech during a banquet.

The Swedish Academy still does not know if Dylan plans to come.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Wastberg.

Not many people are known to refuse an honour as prestigious as the Nobel Prize. Not so Bob Dylan — the American singersongwriter — who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power”. While commentators around the world wrote longish pieces hailing or panning the decision of the Nobel Prize committee, the singer said nary a word. In effect he refused to acknowledge the announcement. Repeated phone calls from the Swedish Academy have gone unanswered. During his performance the very next day in the US city of Coachella, Dylan again failed to mention the prize, although another band member on the stage congratulated him for the win. As newspapers filled reams on the cultural import of Dylan and his poetry in view of the honour, the artist remained incommunicado.

This prompted a prominent member of the Nobel Academy to note that Dylan is both impolite and arrogant. To make things worse, the singer got the words “winner of the Nobel Prize in literature” (which appeared on his website briefly) removed. Those simple words were the sole public acknowledgment that Dylan officially gave since the award was announced in Stockholm last week. While it is still unclear about what exactly is going on in his mind, Dylan’s refusal to even recognise the Nobel Prize may be in keeping with his refusal to be categorised. Much like the French existentialist and philosopher Juan Paul Sartre, who famously refused the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, saying a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution, Dylan may throw a curve at the most prestigious award on the planet. As someone who has rejected being typecast all his artistic life, this is not completely unsurprising. The answer to the question of Dylan finally accepting the award, as the cliché goes, is blowin’ in the wind.