Dylan's Visions of Sin

Rating:
Summary: Solid content, but leave the wordplay to the poets, please.
Review: As a die-hard Dylan fan, I tend to try and get my hands on new stuff as soon as it appears. As a lover of English lit. I thought this book would be right up my alley. And it is...sort of. The content is solid, an interesting take, even if I disagree with Prof. Ricks that the concept of sin is the best way to "get hold of the bundle" of Dylan's songs. The book is an intersting read nonetheless, although of course what we have here is Chris Ricks' vision of Dylan's vision of sin, and the seven deadly sin grid we have here, while interesting, reveals little of Dylan's vision of sin. The biggest qualm I have with the book is Ricks' language. As if to prove he knows all the songs, even though many seemingly appropriate ones are omitted, he frequently includes song titles in descriptive sentences about other songs. The language is all too frequently all too clever and obfuscates rather than illuminates the point being made. The book would be much more enjoyable were it written in a more straightforward manner. The good Dr. covers interesting territory with a wealth of background knowledge, especially revealing are the connections to Keats and Melville...yet you can open up to almost any page and cringe at the unnecessarily "clever" passages. Sooo, thanks Christopher Ricks...buuuut...

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating labor of love
Review: Bob Dylan changed music (and the art of songwriting) forever in the 1960s. His continuing popularity is a testament both to the timelessness of his art, as well as to his uncanny ability to remake himself and his music, year after year. Dubbed the "poet laureate of rock-n-roll," Dylan's work has received more serious academic attention than any other folk/folk-rock musician out there, and for very good reason. Now comes Christopher Ricks, a well-known poetry scholar, to compare Dylan to some of the greatest poets ever: Wordsworth, Donne, Tennyson. The result is fascinating. I find it hard to believe that anyone could read this book and walk away from it without a renewed admiration for Bob Dylan and his music.

The book's structure has Ricks analyzing Dylan's songs according to the seven deadly sins, the four virtues and the three graces. This somewhat arbitrary classification feels sometimes strained, as Ricks struggles to pigeon-hole songs into one category or another. But far more fascinating than this academic chore is Ricks' exploration of the deep poetic and Biblical roots of some of Dylan's most popular tunes. With obvious love for his subject (and subject matter), Ricks shows, time and again, how Dylan makes use of the Great Poets in fashioning his unique and often haunted lyrics. Revealed is a musician who is not only a poet in his own right, but a well-read and thoughtful writer, who somehow accomplished the impossible: fashioning intelligent, thought-provoking music for a world obsessed with vapid vocals and meaningless "pop" standards.

Two minor flaws with the book. First: Ricks neglects a number of Bob's best songs--songs with fantastic lyrics and rhyme, songs that would seem to fit into his sin/virtue/grace framework perfectly (i.e., "Visions of Johanna," "Where Are You Tonight?", "Foot of Pride," "Black Diamond Bay," "Jokerman"). Of course, with over 500 songs to choose from, I suppose it's inevitable that some will be neglected. Still...

Second: Ricks is a fan of wordplay. Every page of the book is pregnant with puns, to the point where it becomes annoying. Too often, one is distracted from Dylan's brilliance by Ricks' literary showboating. Clearly a follower of the Vladimir Nabokov School of Alliterative Prose, Ricks struggles mightily for the appearance of cleverness, but his textual twists and turns frequently fall flat.

All in all, however, a wonderful (and serious) analysis of our greatest poet/songwriter, by a well-respected scholar. May Ricks' book be a launching pad for further serious studies of Dylan's work.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating labor of love
Review: Bob Dylan changed music (and the art of songwriting) forever in the 1960s. His continuing popularity is a testament both to the timelessness of his art, as well as to his uncanny ability to remake himself and his music, year after year. Dubbed the "poet laureate of rock-n-roll," Dylan's work has received more serious academic attention than any other folk/folk-rock musician out there, and for very good reason. Now comes Christopher Ricks, a well-known poetry scholar, to compare Dylan to some of the greatest poets ever: Wordsworth, Donne, Tennyson. The result is fascinating. I find it hard to believe that anyone could read this book and walk away from it without a renewed admiration for Bob Dylan and his music.

The book's structure has Ricks analyzing Dylan's songs according to the seven deadly sins, the four virtues and the three graces. This somewhat arbitrary classification feels sometimes strained, as Ricks struggles to pigeon-hole songs into one category or another. But far more fascinating than this academic chore is Ricks' exploration of the deep poetic and Biblical roots of some of Dylan's most popular tunes. With obvious love for his subject (and subject matter), Ricks shows, time and again, how Dylan makes use of the Great Poets in fashioning his unique and often haunted lyrics. Revealed is a musician who is not only a poet in his own right, but a well-read and thoughtful writer, who somehow accomplished the impossible: fashioning intelligent, thought-provoking music for a world obsessed with vapid vocals and meaningless "pop" standards.

Two minor flaws with the book. First: Ricks neglects a number of Bob's best songs--songs with fantastic lyrics and rhyme, songs that would seem to fit into his sin/virtue/grace framework perfectly (i.e., "Visions of Johanna," "Where Are You Tonight?", "Foot of Pride," "Black Diamond Bay," "Jokerman"). Of course, with over 500 songs to choose from, I suppose it's inevitable that some will be neglected. Still...

Second: Ricks is a fan of wordplay. Every page of the book is pregnant with puns, to the point where it becomes annoying. Too often, one is distracted from Dylan's brilliance by Ricks' literary showboating. Clearly a follower of the Vladimir Nabokov School of Alliterative Prose, Ricks struggles mightily for the appearance of cleverness, but his textual twists and turns frequently fall flat.

All in all, however, a wonderful (and serious) analysis of our greatest poet/songwriter, by a well-respected scholar. May Ricks' book be a launching pad for further serious studies of Dylan's work.

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative and Imaginary
Review: Christopher Ricks is very well known for taking Dylan seriously as a poet and this is the long awaited product of many years of reflection. The basic idea of dealing with Dylan's corpus in terms of sins, virtues and graces is imaginative and promises a well structured and coherent work. Ricks' approach is clever and almost obsessive in searching for hidden meanings. It is the sort of obsession that Dylan himself finds futile and at which he frequently gets angry in interviews. There is great emphasis upon word-play and word association, and a great deal of reference to what a particular line in a song reminds the writer of in a poet like Shelley or Wordsworth. His approach, while very like that of Gray's, is much more sophisticated, but nevertheless slightly irritating at times because it says more about the cleverness of the author than it does about the subject of the book. The interpretations are idiosyncratic and largely imaginery, but nevertheless executed with grace and charm. I found Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll very clear in its criticism of this type of approach, which I think the author of it calls the concordance approach to literary criticism. Boucher explains why you just don't ask of some songs what they mean, such as Losing my Religion by REM or Whiter Shade of Pale by Procul Harem, you just 'delight' in the images. Nevertheless Ricks' book is a must for Dylan fans and well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: good reading, puns and all
Review: Christopher Ricks' enthusiam for Dylan and the English language mirrors Dylan's enthusiasm for his music. Other reviewers have complained about Ricks' punny style getting in the way of the reading. All it showed me was that he was having a good time writing about his subject. Reading the book brought me back to the Dylan songbook and I found myself wishing that Ricks had covered this song or that song along with the many ones he did analyze. If you don't know or don't care about a particular song, or find yourself getting bogged down, you can always skip the discussion of that one and start again somewhere else in the book. I found myself not agreeing with every one of his interpretations, but what the heck, isn't that what the interpretation of complex work is all about? I liked the book and am more likely to pick up a copy of "Chronicles", because of it.

Rating:
Summary: BUT WHERE'S THE MUSIC?
Review: Ricks' tome is like the curate's egg: good in parts.

At times it is superb - as in the discussion of The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. At others it is remarkably blind to the real tone of the songs - for example, in its abject failure to see that Most of the Time is a classic portrayal of 'I get along without you very well' attempts at self-delusion.

Much too often the author is self-indulgent; and his obsession with [often self-focussed] punning is almost too irritating for words. For all Ricks' close-reading skills and his awesome knowledge of literature, the book frequently fails to convince in its connections. Where two writers both resort to common-usage terms or forms of words it surely need not mean the latter user is necessarily quoting, referring or alluding to the former. Ricks does not seem to acknowledge that ideas and phrases pass down through many hands. Latter-day useage is just as likely to reflect the 55th user as the original [if original use can ever be determined]. Ricks over-eggs the pudding. As Dylan correctly said of Greil Marcus, he 'over-intellectualises'.

Above all, Rick's study is diminished by its clear lack of musical context. This is a shortcoming made all the more significant by the subject's immense skills in interpretation and phrasing in performance. Primarily, it is this absence of the music that makes the book a disappointment.

If comparisons must be made, Ricks' effort does not match up to the work of Michael Gray or Paul Williams, both of whom consistently demonstrate a precise understanding of what Dylan's art form actually is: the writing and PERFORMING of wonderful songs.

Phil Teece
WANNIASSA
Australia

Rating:
Summary: Take what you have gathered from coincidence ...
Review: You'll be a little jealous, of course, wishing you had the literary storehouse of information and insight that Christopher Ricks has at his disposal from which to gather literary parallels, borrowings, and coincidences. I have never been more impressed by ANY book of criticism written about a modern writer or musician. To be honest, I have not yet finished "Dylan's Visions of Sin," but I couldn't wait to comment here after reading the detailed comparison of "Not Dark Yet" and Ode to a Nightingale (yes, KEATS' Ode to a Nightingale) on pages 359-374. Sound ridiculous? It won't after you've spent the first 350 pages getting to this tour de force reading of a deceptively simple song from Time Out of Mind. But not only is the close reading of these lyrics/poems (the distinction won't matter after awhile in the author's pleasant company) impressive, but this is also a very funny and very warm book. There's nothing cold or academic about it. And there's no psychobiography, or any biography at all. This is Bob Dylan stripped to his most essential gift, his words. It's an absolute joy to read and I recommend it unreservedly, even to those of you (or especially to those of you) who may have been put off by the singer's voice, or his associations with Christianity, Victoria's Secret, and the Traveling Wilburys. I'm finding myself pulling out all my old LPs, even the scratchy bootlegs in their plain white sleeves, and listening to them with brand new ears.