1.
There was a time, not long ago, when I remember these institutions to be profoundly conservative and not fall prey to the easy charms of the modern day ephemera and trends. Those days are gone.
Bob Dylan, no doubt a great singer, is awarded the most prestigious(*) literary prize, when Philip Roth, Haruki Murakami, or Don DeLillo (who all don't write lyrics, but produce literature) are apparently less deserving. Not to mention the now deceased names like George Orwell, James Joyce, Virginia Wolf or Jorge Luis Borges who inexplicably never won it.
And then there's the question: If Bob Dylan can be nominated to a Nobel Prize in Literature, what to make of the body of work of Leonard Cohen which spans music, prose and poetry in literary form?
2.
There was a time, not long ago, when I remember words had meanings and meanings were meaningful. People would not fall prey to the easy charms of modern day relativism and dilution of meaning. Those days are gone.
We learned that literature apparently also means song lyrics and musical expression in the context of a literary prize. And the world died a bit more today. No room for a Nobel Music award, apparently. It is just easier to reformulate the language.
One of these days we are going to wake up to a Hillary Nobel Prize for Literature when her deleted emails are found, or a Trump winning the prestigious Nobel Prize for Chemistry on account of the sh.. that comes of his mouth.
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(*) Not for long. In all honesty more and more people look down at the institution already. And they are obviously doing a fine job at increasing those numbers.