2016 Nobel Prize in Literature
           Long Vo-Phuoc
 
The above was awarded last night to one Bob Dylan. For those who read poetry, plays or fiction with a little more than passing interest the first thought might naturally be, what has the world come to?
 
One woman writer quips, well I’m going to win a Grammy next. And what’s wrong with that? How about an Oscar for the original song, never mind that she hasn't composed a single note of music? Her lines are melodic enough, verse or prose, and that would be the end of the discussion.
 
Frivolity aside I can think of only one scenario as to how those Swedish Academy gals/guys came to that result. It all boils down to this guy, let’s call him Member A (to protect his privacy and to avoid tricky law suits in Sweden – remember the insistence of its comic litigation against Julian Assange?).
 
Anyway this was what I believe had happened:
 
Member A was well over 60, perhaps between 65 to 70. He’s always been a sentimental chap. In those years when young he read extensively about the war in Viet Nam, an other people's war that the US unjustly, without provocation, went to with its immense fire power. In his now older golden age, Member A was sentimental still, an enlightened baby boomer in every which way. He spotted a nice trim little beard, quite white. Energetic, thoughtful and learned, he had a secret agenda to bring to his fellow academy gals and guys tonight.
 
He cleared his throat and said, listen up mateys (obviously he used the charming equivalent expression in Swedish), I know we got to make a decision tonight but first can I make a left-field suggestion. He looked round to see if anyone showed a slightest disagreement to such a reasonable opening manoeuvre.
 
No one did anything of the sort, so he carried on. Look here, I know we are stickers with our tradition and always start with Swedish beers. But really, I’m up to here (he raised hand to his eyes) with our beers this year, the barley didn’t ripen properly, the weather so cold that the poor workers didn’t keep a good eye on the taste-ometer; whatever, I’m sick of our beers. Can I suggest a choice Belgian one that I have a case here. We can then follow with a Dutch case, a top-notch one. The other day I met a chap from the other side of the world, he reckoned a drop called 3 Ravens Dark Smoke something from his Melbourne place was a fine one. It does look like fish sauce in the Vietnamese restaurant that I frequent, but it’s a real tasty smokey beast. So I suggest we’ll be on to that case too, any objection?
 
Objection? You have got to be kidding. His fellow “Academers’” eyes all lit up, brighter than a thousand suns. This is a dream come true for progressive thinkers from the fair Sweden of yore.
 
So they Skål (that is, prost, in the old teutonic tongue). And they Skål. And they Skål. But one noted that Member A Skål quite moderately. He did have an agenda to push, if you recall.
 
One hour as such passed, and they finally finished the fish sauce-looking amber from the down down South. Fortunately the cases were of a six-bottle variety, not twelve, so they still conversed quite intelligibly, just. Being the delightful people that they were, they naturally chatted about the finer things of life, avant-garde things, disruptive things (though not in the big buck-driven sense of tech-speak, if you don’t mind).
 
Member A then moved on to his next weapon, a real sophisticated one. He said, my gals and guys, for the main course of this liquid meeting, I’ll do away with the tiresome bottles they call grand crus  from Bordeaux (here his mates raised their eyebrows – there was a topological limit to their enlightenment). I say, Member A continued, tonight we care not one hoot about those tepid dish-washing liquids that they call fine wines in this continent. If you like that dark something we just swallowed then here I have these two magnums of red from the same country, they call it Bin 707 or whatever. Ridiculous name, but it’s 25 years old, a great vintage, and, I guarantee you, you never buy pricey nonsense from la belle France ever again.
 
And he triumphantly poured from his enormous decanters for his fellow learned chappies. And they prost, and they toasted, and they cheered, and they continued their merry-go-round.
 
When the second double decanter became half-empty (pardon, half-full), when his mates’ voice started slurring, when their brain became delightfully addled, he cleverly moved on to the kill, to his secret goal.
 
He told them, with misty eyes, that he was still enamoured with the old 1960s anti-war melodies that were so noble. He first mentioned the Creedence ones with their carrying-ons about rain, bad-moon rising, this and that unfortunate chap. Then another bunch of guys who played guitar and sang The House That Deservedly Belongs To The Sun. Then another (even though, it must be said, he wasn’t perfect. He omitted a chap who wrote quite nice sad songs about war in Viet Nam, a chap who lived right in the middle of it, a chap whose name was Trịnh. But let’s not hold this against Member A, and move on).
 
At any rate, he said to his now bleary-eyed mates, nothing is comparable to this Bobby chappie. Dylan that is. No no (he hurriedly explained to one nice-looking academer gal who’d turned 60 recently), no no that’s the surname Thomas guy, but true, our old mates never gave him the big prize. This Bobby guy, he’s a wonderful poet, but he only put his poetry in songs.
 
Yeah? His mates enquired ever so gently.
 
Yeah mates, he said. This Bobby is so lovely, and I say we should get on with life and be more of being pop culturists (I like these new words, he slurred intimately to the group). Just like we just preferred jet-named wine here over LaToury and LaFittey (whatever, he said), we should get on with the New Age (he stressed), be cool, way cooler than the fake cool in the movie-land, and give this Bobby this year’s award.
 
They raised their big Riedel glasses and said, Skål.
 
The lovely woman Academer, conscientious as always in doing her job, said, well, Bobby is still probably poor, so the money would be good for him, I presume? (She is really lovely this lady Academer. Speaking of pop music, she thought to herself, was it that long ago that I had a close friend who happened to like the on-stage style of a songstress named Suzi Quatro? Heavens, we were so much in love with one another, she sighed, again to herself).
 
Sure sure, Member A assured her, bringing her back to the present, even though I don’t really know. Bobby is a Yankee in the entertainment industry, and we are Swedishy in high-brow lit, so I have no clue on that. But art has no boundary, for poorer or richer.
 
Skål, they all said.
 
 
And that’s how it happened.
 
 
What can I say, after all that?
 
Or perhaps I would say this. That Bobby might as well receive the accolade and the prize (USD 1.2 mil, no less), loaded though he is. That Booby should now tour the world for a year without charging money, without making baby-boomers in deep reminiscence pay the earth for tickets to hear songs that are performed with well below the energy level that Bobby had 50 years ago. And that Bobby should visit Trịnh Công Sơn’s tomb, Viet Nam, say hello to a fellow anti-war song composer who was every bit as poetic as Bobby all those years ago – even more so, in all literary honesty.
 
Below are photos, all from GoogleImages, of the young Dylan, the young Trịnh, and the young Alice Munro who won the Lit Nobel three years ago.
 
Long Vo-Phuoc, Spring 2016, 15 Oct
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