The [Nobel] award [of Bob Dylan] is no affront to literature; it is an insult to pop music. It is a condescending ruffle of pop's hair while handing it a lollipop. An act of beaming condescension whose transparent message is: "This one guy, and just this one guy, he's so good, he transcends his trivial idiom and elevates himself into our significant one."

Lyrics should not need to stand on their own; many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.

First of all, there are those who simply don't care for [Bob] Dylan, or at least, don't think he's that great. Some of the former sound very much as if they are afflicted with the kind of contrarianism inevitably bred by cultural orthodoxy - Dylan is overwhelmingly rated a giant and a marvel, the acclamation of whom they feel to be de rigueur; and rather than judge for themselves, they embrace the opposite view.

There's no reason - not yet, anyway - to believe [Bob] Dylan himself endorses such an attitude; or that he would think of himself as a more profound and worthy recipient than, for instance, any of the brilliant Motown or girl-group lyricists who are more likely to be awarded a Nobel prize for chemistry than for literature. Whether there is more truth and humanity in his best lyrics than in Abba's, or less, is unquantifiable, and it would be meretricious to attempt such a calculation in contesting an argument he has been dragged into.

Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate. A new fact so shocking that even the year's most notable deaths have not outdone it for the volume (in both senses) of instant reaction; so divisive, it makes Brexit, the Labour leadership and the US Presidential election seem lesser ruptures.

The same is true of ranking him thus against any work of literature. [Bob Dylan] has been made, through no fault of his own, the object of odious tokenism.

[Bob] Dylan may, for whatever reasons of his own, do nothing of the sort with the Nobel committee. Up there on Parnassus, that is his unquestionable prerogative. But here on my anthill, it's mine to say: oh, do piss off, you ineffable snobs.