 "Bob Dylan speaks, at last, on his Nobel")
We finally have an answer. Bob Dylan will, indeed, accept his Nobel Prize in Literature — probably.
In his first comments on the award, made in an interview with The Telegraph, the British newspaper, Dylan was asked whether he would attend the Nobel ceremony in Sweden in December. His response was characteristically mysterious.
“Absolutely,” Dylan said. “If it’s at all possible.”
(And why couldn’t they reach him? “Well, I’m right here,” Dylan said, “playfully,” and without further explanation.)
In the interview, his first in almost two years, Dylan is described as being surprised but pleased by the honour. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. His reaction upon being told that he had won: “Amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?”
In typical fashion, he also resisted giving much endorsement to interpretations of his work — even those by the Swedish Academy, which, in announcing Dylan’s prize on October 13, likened his songs to the poems of Homer and Sappho.
“I suppose so, in some way,” Dylan said of that comparison. Some of his songs, including “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Hurricane” and “some others,” he said, “definitely are Homeric in value.”
But: “I’ll let other people decide what they are,” he said. “The academics, they ought to know. I’m not really qualified. I don’t have any opinion.”
The interview, conducted by Edna Gundersen, a veteran entertainment journalist, also quotes Dylan musing on some of his nonmusical interests. He has been painting since the 1960s, and his iron sculptures include an archway for a new resort casino in Maryland.
“I’d like to drive a racecar on the Indianapolis track,” Dylan said. “I’d like to kick a field goal in an NFL football game. I’d like to be able to hit a hundred-mile-an-hour baseball.”
He added: “Everything worth doing takes time. You have to write a hundred bad songs before you write one good one. And you have to sacrifice a lot of things that you might not be prepared for. Like it or not, you are in this alone and have to follow your own star.”
His new art show, “The Beaten Path,” will open November 5 at the Halcyon Gallery in London. The Nobel ceremony is on December 10 in Stockholm.
©2016 The New York Times News Service
In his first comments on the award, made in an interview with The Telegraph, the British newspaper, Dylan was asked whether he would attend the Nobel ceremony in Sweden in December. His response was characteristically mysterious.
“Absolutely,” Dylan said. “If it’s at all possible.”
More From This Section
His comments in the interview — ostensibly to promote a new exhibition of his visual art in London — came after two weeks of public silence by Dylan about the Nobel, during which time members of the 18-person Swedish Academy became increasingly agitated. First they noted, with some puzzlement, that they had not spoken to Dylan personally. Then another member called his non-response “impolite and arrogant.”
(And why couldn’t they reach him? “Well, I’m right here,” Dylan said, “playfully,” and without further explanation.)
In the interview, his first in almost two years, Dylan is described as being surprised but pleased by the honour. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. His reaction upon being told that he had won: “Amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?”
In typical fashion, he also resisted giving much endorsement to interpretations of his work — even those by the Swedish Academy, which, in announcing Dylan’s prize on October 13, likened his songs to the poems of Homer and Sappho.
“I suppose so, in some way,” Dylan said of that comparison. Some of his songs, including “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Hurricane” and “some others,” he said, “definitely are Homeric in value.”
But: “I’ll let other people decide what they are,” he said. “The academics, they ought to know. I’m not really qualified. I don’t have any opinion.”
The interview, conducted by Edna Gundersen, a veteran entertainment journalist, also quotes Dylan musing on some of his nonmusical interests. He has been painting since the 1960s, and his iron sculptures include an archway for a new resort casino in Maryland.
“I’d like to drive a racecar on the Indianapolis track,” Dylan said. “I’d like to kick a field goal in an NFL football game. I’d like to be able to hit a hundred-mile-an-hour baseball.”
He added: “Everything worth doing takes time. You have to write a hundred bad songs before you write one good one. And you have to sacrifice a lot of things that you might not be prepared for. Like it or not, you are in this alone and have to follow your own star.”
His new art show, “The Beaten Path,” will open November 5 at the Halcyon Gallery in London. The Nobel ceremony is on December 10 in Stockholm.
©2016 The New York Times News Service