Sarah Lyall on Dyland, the Nobel and phone calls in NYT:

'Over the years, some literature prize winners seem to have delighted in making things difficult for the academy by, for instance, reacting to news of their win with less-than-complete enthusiasm. “Oh, Christ,” Doris Lessing said in 2007, when, as she exited a taxi in front of her house in London, a waiting reporter informed her that she was the newest laureate. She added, grumbling, that she’d been hearing rumors about it for 30 years.

In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre turned the award down. As for V. S. Naipaul, when the academy telephoned him at home to let him know that he’d won the 2001 prize, he refused to come to the phone.

“There was a bit of playacting,” Mr. Wastberg said in an interview. “His wife said that Sir Vidia is working intensely and may not be disturbed. But when we said, ‘It’s from the Swedish Academy,’ one heard that someone was breathing heavily just near the phone.”

Mr. Wastberg said that Mr. Dylan’s failure to answer the academy’s calls for such a long time had been baffling and unprecedented, especially when he appeared to be hiding in plain sight.'

Read the article here.

Don't breathe heavily when you are near the phone, especially not when the Swedish academy is calling you.

And if you want to hide do it in plain sight.