Dalrymple notes that the nasal whine of Bob Dylan, the popular singer, is
the sound of spoilt middle-class-adolescent self-pity.
His supposed poetry is
not merely bad, but authentically awful.
The lines he excretes are
sub–Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Enduring some of Bob Dylan’s atrocious doggerel, Dalrymple is reminded of what Dr Johnson said when asked whether he thought that many men could have written the poems of Ossian. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘many men, many women, and many children.‘
Perhaps next year, says Dalrymple,
the Nobel prize in literature could be awarded to Hallmark Cards.
