The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature was, bizarrely, awarded to Bob Dylan, and Dylan couldn't be bothered to show up for the official ceremony and only picked up the medal -- furtively -- two months ago, when he was passing through Stockholm anyway.
Nevertheless, while he had the official stamp of approval -- he was their Nobel laureate, regardless of how boorish his behavior -- to get the cash (a decent SEK 8,000,000 for the 2016 prize) he had to present, in one form or another, a 'Nobel Lecture', with a deadline of six months after the official ceremony to get that in -- by 10 June.
Just under the wire, Dylan came through, sending in not the apparently hoped-for video, but at least an audio recording -- yes, he literally mailed it in, rather than showing up in person: you can read it
here, or listen to it, for example,
here.
And, hey, it's an actual lecture -- not just some rambling -- and though he doesn't sing, there's a musical accompaniment of some sort (I have no idea what that's about ...).
At her official blog, the Swedish Academician-in-charge, Sara Danius
hopes: "the Dylan adventure is coming to a close" -- but I'm afraid this embarrassment (and its many humiliating chapters) will take generations to get over.
Still, one has to admire her being able to write with a ... straight face (oh, I assume some pens and papers and laptops got crushed in the process ...):
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Bob Dylan and his staff, especially Jeff Rosen, for having cooperated so beautifully.
If this has been beautiful cooperation ... boy, do I have a bridge to sell the Swedish Academy .....
Playing them until the very end, Dylan not only kept them waiting, he held onto the copyright for the Nobel lecture:
The Nobel Foundation has not obtained the right to assign any usage right to the Nobel Lecture to any third party, and any such rights may thus not be granted.
This is unheard of and, quite honestly, outrageous:
all Nobel lectures have
always been copyright © The Nobel Foundation, but apparently in their desperation to get some words from Dylan they didn't even get that.
This will probably go less-noticed, but is yet more proof that the awarding of the prize to this guy was a disastrous misstep.
(Regarding the copyright issue, I do imagine there are some very irate Nobel laureates lodging complaints with the Foundation at this very moment, wondering why the guy with the guitar gets this special, kid-glove treatment -- without even having to show up in that silly white-tie outfit for the king.)
