Funny thing about Bob Dylan, the newest Nobel laureate in literature: He's been a master of self-invention for more than 50 years, creating personae, wearing them like masks, and then discarding them as soon as they grew too familiar.

More of the symbols are stock (does [Bob] Dylan really have hogs lying out in the mud somewhere? I doubt it), but that's the point.

All relaxation does is allow the truth to be felt. The mind is cleared, like a dirty window wiped clean, and the magnitude of what we might ordinarily take for granted inspires tears.

The most recent incarnation of [Bob] Dylan has been the traveling journeyman/ charlatan who sings roots music, snarls dark lyrics that make "All Along the Watchtower" sound like a Disney tune, hosts an old-school radio show, and turns up in some unusual places, like ads for Chrysler and Victoria's Secret.

Probably the high-watermark of [Bob] Dylan's career came after he plugged in his guitar ("Judas!" one fan shouted during a concert) and exploded American poetry, combining Beat aesthetics, psychedelic imagery, collage techniques.

[Bob] Dylan thus deserves the Nobel Prize, not just for "new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," as the Nobel committee aptly described his work, but also for embodying the contradictions within it.

In late [Bob] Dylan, music is the key to immortality, even though the summer days are long gone.