The eloquence in Bob Dylan's silence about that Nobel prize

IN the summer of 1964, Bob Dylan released his fourth album, "Another Side of Bob Dylan", which includes the track "It Ain't Me, Babe". "Go 'way from my window/Leave at your own chosen speed", it begins. "I'm not the one you want, babe/I'm not the one you need". That fall, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre played a variation on the same tune in a public statement explaining why, despite having been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, he would decline it.

"The writer," he insisted, must "refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honourable circumstances". Dylan was talking to an imaginary lover, Sartre to an actual Swedish Academy, but the message was similar: If you love me for what I am, don't make me be what I am not.

We don't know whether Dylan was paying attention to l'affaire Sartre that fall 52 years ago. But now that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, he seems to be following in Sartre's footsteps. Indeed, Dylan has done the philosopher one better: Instead of declining the prize, he has simply declined to acknowledge its existence. He hasn't issued a statement or even returned the Swedish Academy's phone calls.