One for the practicing Dylanologist—general readers should approach with caution.
A noted historian tries to shed light on the less-traveled byways in Bob Dylan’s epic journey.
As he explains in his introduction, Wilentz (History/Princeton Univ.; The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008, 2008, etc.) is “historian-in-residence” for Dylan’s website. Here he attempts to situate the musician in a multitude of American musical, cultural and literary contexts. The author begins with a strained and unconvincing stab at tying Dylan to composer Aaron Copland—a better case might have been made for Marc Blitzstein, who is mentioned cursorily—but the second chapter, about the impact of the Beats (specifically, Allen Ginsberg), is more successful. Wilentz then plots a chronological course through several highlights and lowlights of his subject’s career; several chapters expand on previously published essays. The author is at his best when examining such unquestioned diadems as Blonde On Blonde (1966) and the tardily released 1983 song “Blind Willie McTell,” both of which benefit from Wilentz’s access to original session tapes. He is less successful when addressing live performances, including a 1964 solo show at Philharmonic Hall in New York and a 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour stop in New Haven, both of which were attended by the author. Sometimes Wilentz’s arguments become attenuated to near-pointlessness. His numbing readings of the misbegotten films Renaldo and Clara (1978) and Masked and Anonymous (2003) and his labored explication of the roots of Dylan’s recording of “Lone Pilgrim” are especially taxing. The book gains heat with a rousing defense of Dylan’s multitudinous borrowings in his latter-day work, called outright plagiarism by some (including, most recently, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell). Wilentz ends with an apology for the wacky 2009 seasonal album, Christmas in the Heart, though it makes the record no less mystifying. The author is capable of sometimes striking and unexpected insights linking Dylan to American precursors ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Bing Crosby, but his frequently misguided ideas and oft-leaden style weigh down the proceedings.
One for the practicing Dylanologist—general readers should approach with caution.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-52988-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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