Nobel Prizes, Literature, and Rock ‘n Roll

Nobel Prizes, Literature, and Rock ‘n Roll
Daniel Cano


To me, it was a thunderous statement that occurred last year in Stockholm, Sweden when the Swedish Academy bestowed the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature on Bob Dylan, putting the American rocker right up there with names like Mann, Yeats, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Eliot, Camus, Alexandre, Mistral, Lessing, Garcia Marquez, Neruda, Morrison, Cela, Saramargo, and other literary giants.

Since I’ve been a fan of Bob Dylan’s music, especially his lyrics, for five decades, I was happy to hear of the academy’s choice. But as a teacher and writer, the honor the academy bestowed on Dylan left me somewhat perplexed about the state of literature—and reading—today.

Does giving the Nobel Prize to a popular singer-songwriter mean literary critics and educators around the world should consider songwriters in the same category as novelists, playwrights, and poets? Does it signal the classic literary world has opened the canon to what some might call the lowest form of popular culture, rock ‘n roll, or what one of my musician friends calls it, proudly, “Music of the streets”?

Should Chicano/Latino and Latin American literary critics and educators consider the oeuvre of Los Lobos, Los Tigres del Norte, Chalino Sanchez, Lalo Guerrero, Ruben Blades, or an album like “Chavez Ravine”, literature? After all, I’d go as far as to say that popular music influences more people today than books. I’d guess that more Chicanos would recognize the first strains of Lalo Guerrero’s “Pachuco Boogie” than the first words, “I came to Comala,” of Rulfo’s classic “Pedro Paramo.”

The Swedish Academy has always maintained that literature should not be evaluated by its beautiful language or storytelling alone (art for art’s sake) but by its social impact, as well. Hemingway was a stylist, and he received the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the art of writing more than the themes of his stories.

On the other hand, critics blasted John Steinbeck’s writing style throughout his career. Yet, a larger world audience has been influenced by his exploration of American social issues. As a social commentary, “The Grapes of Wrath”, for all its stylistic limitations, will be considered one of the greatest American novel ever written. If you mention the Joad family to Americans, many would immediately recognize the name. Few, I’d guess, could name any of Hemingway’s characters.

Okay, what got me thinking about all of this was a conversation I recently had with a former colleague, a community college professor I will refer to as K. K is a young (late forties), dynamic English teacher who demands that his students make the most of their education. He’s taught for at least 15 years, so he knows the ropes. What he told me recently was, “My students don’t read” or “won’t do their assignments. They come to class unprepared.”

I listen and try to offer whatever advice I can; though I know what he is experiencing since I experienced the same thing my last years in the classroom. I’d say that less than 25% of my students came to class having studied the material.

Because of migration from Latin America to the U.S. in the 1980s, and the high birth rate among some Latino families, I know that many of K.’s students are Latinos from L.A.’s inner city high schools. Some teachers see it as an ethnic problem. Yet, I observed that the problem crosses race and ethnicity. I’ve had students of all ethnicities confess they hadn’t done the reading, didn’t understand the material, or would be late on an assignment.

I also remember a student asking me to define the word “recognize.” I thought: If he didn’t know the word recognize, how many other words did he not know? And we’re asking him, and others, to read college texts.

So, in my mind, I wondered is it me, my teaching, am I a dinosaur? Are students just not connecting with the literature? Or is it the amount of work college demands? I’d guess that the answer lies in all three.

Of course, we as teachers, and writers, want students to engage the text, to dig some meaning and insight out of it. Often, we teachers assign students books that have made a difference in our lives and assume it will do the same in our students’ lives. Then, there are those books we assign because of department policy.

What we do know is that the state of literature today is in bad shape. I am no longer stunned to hear how few of my adult friends and acquaintances read newspapers or magazines, and even fewer read books. It is also scary to hear how many receive their news from only television, their I-phones, or god forbid, Face Book memes.

But then I think, in its earliest times, literature was written for the religious or philosophical communities, as a search for life’s meaning. After Guttenberg invented the printing press, the upper classes read to entertain themselves during their leisure time. Even back then, most tradesmen, craftsmen, artists, farmers, and housewives were illiterate.

I recall hearing how in the 1920s, men often gathered in the plaza or in front of Eusebio’s market to hear the literate one read newspapers and letters to those who could not read. This is to say, reading was a privilege for the chosen few and not the masses, something I think we tend to forget. I’ve also read that during slavery, a literate slave was considered a threat to the system and could be executed.

Today, this privilege is open to everyone, and most Americans beyond the age of seven can read. Yet, realistically, how many working-class people, who toil eight-to-twelve hours every day, come home and face the myriad of life’s problems, sit down to read a novel during the little “leisure time” remaining in their day? I mean, how many even consider the concept of “leisure” time?
And today, with the Internet and cable television, twenty four-hour news and sports stations…reading for pleasure? Forget about it. Pretty much, the phrase “leisure time” has been stripped from our vocabulary.

Teachers of literature and composition love reading. Of course, unlike everybody else, teachers are paid to read and study, which gives them an advantage, and the time. Consequently, it is a thrill for teachers to help students navigate the “murky waters” writers often create in their work, hoping that when the waters clear, the writer’s words will inspire, enlighten, and entertain.

It is difficult for teachers, writers, and avid readers to understand how a person who can read chooses not to. How does a literate person ignore the experience of a lifetime: reading the words passed down to us by great minds?

Unfortunately, like their parents and society, in general, most students don’t read. So, it is no wonder they can’t handle the literature college teachers assign.

Joseph Conrad’s short novel, “Heart of Darkness” is one of the most assigned books in introductory college reading and writing courses. Of his book, Conrad told a reviewer upon publication, “This book has too much meat for the average reader.”
If a literate adult reader in the 1800s-1900s had a difficult time reading Conrad, what chance does an inner city high school kid have to even make it through the first few pages of this masterpiece? I’ve read it numerous times, and each time, I had to work harder than the last, but the payoff was always enormous. It was the same with Juan Rulfo’s gem, “Pedro Paramo”, which I believe is as relevant about Mexico today as when it was written. (Chapo Guzman is another fallen Pedro Paramo.)

The question is this. Do we continue foisting literature that is meant for a literate adult with plenty of time on his/her hands on 21st century technology-driven eighteen and nineteen-year-olds? Or is it time to transform education and, as the Swedish Academy did, expand the meaning of literature?

Is Tupac’s ode to his mother, “Hey, Mama,” any less profound than Dylan Thomas’ ode to his father, “Do not go gentle into that goodnight”? Should we empower today’s students by letting them read and, yes, watch, “Zoot Suit” along with “The Tempest”?
Maybe educators should begin to listen to students and learn from where it is they encounter deeper thinking. Have our students found their own Socrates, Popol Vuh, and Sor Juana Inez de La Cruz in the nooks and crannies of their rooms at home or on the long playlists in their I-phones?

Is there some magic in a long text exchange between two students confronting an overbearing problem? Have they experienced an epiphany in a precarious situation they overcame and have yet to share it with anyone?

In 1970, just as I began college, I recall finding nuggets of gold while searching the stacks of college and small independent bookstores. Omar Salinas’ “Crazy Gypsy” leaped at me from the rack. I had no idea who he was but just the printing of his name filled me with pride. The concrete reality of the poem “Aztec Angel” struck a chord that still resonates today.

Then there was Marcus Duran’s short story “Retrato de un Bato Loco” a tale as jolting to the me as to the main character, a story where a narrator describes the last moments of an addict’s life, the point of the needle freeing him of all his earthly problems as his world slips away, and his mother screams. The story opened my eyes to the tragedy I’d heard about my own wayward relatives and friends.

One day years ago, a barely literate relative surprised me when he handed me a small paperback, and he said, “Hey, cousin, my partner wrote a book. You might like it.” To this day, I still carry that book with me. “Life Within the Heart Imprisoned: the collected poems of Luis Talamantes.” Louie, a Westside neighborhood kid, some years older than I, got into trouble and ended up as one of the San Quintin Six, a companion of George Jackson, killed by guards during a so-called prison break.

The power when I first read the Preface, dedicated to Luis by New Mexico activist Antonio Cordova, hit me like a train. “Talamantez! Talamantez!/ Are you there?/ Yes, you dirty bastards, I’m still here!/And the cold fading footsteps echo through the hollow shell/ A cold and empty cell.”

For a moment, I disappeared into that cell. As the poem unfolded, I could feel terror inside those prison walls. Then came the footnote: “Written by Antonio Cordova prior to his death in 1972 by state police ambush.” What was I to make of that?

Now that the Swedish Academy has expanded its view of literature, perhaps teachers and professors will explore other literary worlds, whether the lyrics of popular songs, tweets, texts, or the words of other artists around the world, they can encourage students to read by offering them more choices, more voices, more sounds, and more insights.

Sadly, as I think about the possibilities, I also think how the Tucson Unified School District banned books by Chicano and Chicana writers, books that might have helped students understand that education and reading isn’t only for others but for the students themselves.