Bob Dylan in 1962, performing in London.Brian Shuel / Redferns
The only living culture of these last 70 years is popular culture, the only one that does not need anything more than its mere existence to reach its fullness and its audience. Other cultures need institutions, they need help on the road. Elvis Presley didn't need anyone. William Faulkner was given readership by the Nobel Prize in Literature that he did not have. All the arts that come from what was called and still is called "high culture" require public recognition to achieve their social passport. This is the case of literature, whose prestige ends up in the hands of the awards and not the public. As if literature needed to pass a university exam or public examinations and the free exercise of it was not enough. That has always caught my attention, because it is deeply sad. That is why I view popular culture with great envy.
Bob Dylan did not go to collect the Nobel Prize, nor did the Prince of Asturias.
Dylan was and is universal, planetary, a triumph of life that needed nothing or anyone
Bob Dylan did not go to collect the Nobel Prize, nor did the Prince of Asturias.
Dylan was and is universal, planetary, a triumph of life that needed nothing and no one.
Very difficult to understand this for a writer, who needs media assistance to sell his fish.
Prizes in the field of literature are essential from this point of view, as they help to give visibility to writers, and make known valuable literary works that serve the common good.
Sometimes it bothers us that a writer we admire fiercely receives a major award and becomes popular.
I have seen that frequently in Spain.
I have also seen people who are enraged because they believe that such a writer does not deserve such an award.
In all this I see the neglect of the main task of literature: to convince the reader.
It is of little use to reward a work if later the reader does not reward it in his heart.
I have to confess that seeing those cases of institutional insistence on crowning a literary work that is later discreetly rejected by readers enlightens my soul, because I trust readers, whose criteria are the same as those imposed by the passage of time.
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Geniuses
Bob Dylan turns 80 facing the world
The prizes are prone to ironic error. Jaime Gil de Biedma, the most beloved Spanish poet of the second half of the 20th century, went to his grave empty-handed, without any recognition. But a good part of those who insistently awarded instead of the author of
The people of the verb
do not read them even in their town is still being read. I believe in readers because before I believe in literature.
Yes, prizes are necessary, and in Spain there are many. Institutional awards are the most debatable, since they depend a lot on the political convenience and morals of each era, because that morality is what dictates the civil exemplary of literature. In any case, the awards make the writers happy. It is a very severe trade to write books. The writers are not Elvis Presley. And to cheer up a writer, to say “go on, we appreciate you, you are not alone in that hard work of carving words”, it almost seems like humanitarian work, worthy of applause.