As he nears his 80th birthday, we revisit Dylan’s surreal ‘meeting’ with the late great novelist Clive Sinclair to reflect on his 2016 Nobel win

God knows why, but Bob Dylan has agreed to speak to me on the subject of the Nobel Prize. Call it an exclusive. We arrange to meet in Clissold Park, where I often walk with my dog, Lobos. Among the park’s many attractions are two goats; one named Bob, the other Dylan. It is they who have been authorised to act as mouthpiece for their namesake. Of course there will be problems of comprehension. As Wittgenstein wisely noted: “If a lion could speak, we would not understand him.” The same is true for goats, I suppose. Even so there is still no reason to assume that the surrogoats (sic) will be more incomprehensible than the other Dylan’s early sleeve notes.

*Bob (left) and Dylan (right), sadly passed in 2018 © Hackney Council*

When I show up the capricious duo are playing the pipes of Pan, and look about as pagan as you can get. “Tell me,” I say, “you know the Testaments, both Old and New, so did it ever occur to you, as you sang to the afflicted Woody Guthrie in his hospital bed, that you were in effect reprising David’s efforts to soothe King Saul’s troubled soul?” I quote from 1 Samuel 16:23: “And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took/ an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed and was well, and the/ evil spirit departed from him.” Since I am not butted out of the enclosure I venture to continue: “Can you imagine what David might have sung?” Okay the goats aren’t the Everly Brothers, but I swear I hear the closing verse of 'When the Ship Comes In': “Then they’ll raise their hands/ Sayin’ we’ll meet all your demands/ But we’ll shout from the bow your days are numbered/ And like Pharaoh’s tribe/ They’ll be drowned in the tide/ And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered.” Good God, I think, I’m on to something here.

Looking straight at the goats I boldly remind them of something one Dylan or another said many years ago: “If I had a choice, I would rather have lived at the time of King David, when he was the High King of Israel. I’d love to have been riding with him when he was a hunted outlaw.” The goats nod their heads, as if confirming the accuracy of my reference. It is time for the clincher: “I have often thought that you named your memoirs after the book of the Bible in which the history of King David, first revealed in the Book of Samuel, is reiterated: viz, Chronicles. Am I right?” The goats – Bob and Dylan – look at me, as if to say: “We’ve got devilish eyes, and horns to match. Approach us at your peril.” I read it as a sign that I am on the right track.

I take the plunge: “Why did you take so long to respond to the award of the Nobel Prize? Was it because, being King David the Second, you felt unmoved by the offer of a bauble from the King of Sweden? Or was it because you are, as the author of an article in the New York Times would have us believe, an old-school existentialist? The writer maintained that your silence was a ‘wonderful demonstration of what real artistic and philosophical freedom’ looks like. I guess he must have felt a little sheepish – forgive the expression – a couple of days later when you informed the Nobel committee that you had been rendered ‘speechless’ by the honour.”

The retort is instantaneous: both Bob and Dylan fart. I recognise the allusion immediately: “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind/ The answer is blowin’ in the wind.” The goats fart again, more loudly. Clearly it isn’t just the questions they object to, it’s the questioner: “Idiot wind, every time you move your mouth.” I try to pluck up the courage to ask Bob or Dylan whether they are embarrassed at receiving the prize ahead of, say, Philip Roth, but I already know the response I’d get: “People see me all the time and they just can’t remember how to act… / Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at.”

I’ll have to decide for myself. I remind myself of Dylan’s dream of riding with King David, “when he was a hunted outlaw”. This is the Bible reimagined as an American epic, a duality he personified in Outlaw Blues: “Well, I might look like Robert Ford/ But I feel just like a Jesse James.” This may be nothing more than pilpul, but Robert was Dylan’s original name, and Jesse was, of course, the father of David. My translation reads thus: “I may look like a little Jew, but in reality I’m King of the Wild Frontier.” Dylan never got to be an outlaw but he did at least get to ride with Billy the Kid in Sam Peckinpah’s Western (for which he wrote the score).

Like his royal predecessor, his lyrics all have addressees; sometimes the Masters of War, sometimes the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, and sometimes the Master of the Universe himself. They are curses, they are prayers; they are mating calls, they are laments; and taken together they form a latter-day Book of Psalms. I say as much to the goats, but by now it is clear that they’ve had enough of me. They yawn, turn their backs, lower themselves knees-first like Muslims at prayer, and recite in unison: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want./ He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”

By Clive Sinclair

Illustration by Thomas Fournier

Bob Dylan turns 80 on Monday 24 May. This article was first published in the January 2017 issue of Jewish Renaissance.