The general sentiment among the Yeas is, no accolade is too high for their man; and the Nobel being, literally, the gold standard among prizes, it is surely his [Bob Dylan] due.

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."

Look, dear! How adorable. When pop music tries its very hardest, it can be almost as good as Sven Hassel.

The [Nobel] prize is for literature.[Bob] Dylan is a songwriter. Here is where the argument starts to get interesting, because here is where it is no longer a question of either cultural orthodoxy or personal taste.

Plenty more of the Nays sound perfectly sincere, though. They may genuinely dislike [Bob] Dylan; they may even enjoy or admire him, but just don't think he's all that. Fair enough. The reaction of such folk seems to be chiefly amazement tinged with befuddlement: they've given him what? You're kidding me.

The point is not that [Bob] Dylan doesn't need a Nobel to attest to how good he is (although he doesn't.) It's that pop music, pop music of any kind, doesn't need the Nobel committee to damn it with the faint praise of such an award to its sole chosen representative.

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.