Bob Dylan Book:

Editorial Review:
Of all contemporary song-writers, Bob Dylan is one of the most startling, prolific and controversial. In this book Aidan Day explores his lyrics and their themes in a way that attempt to do justice to their complexity and subtlety making intelligible much that seems obscure and difficult. He sheds light on the manner in which many of Dylan's lyrics treat fundamental questions concerning the nature of human identity. These lyrics represent a continuation of the experimental poetic practices of modernism. At the heart of Dylan's work are the discrepancies between the conscious, socialized self, born of language, and those potencies of personality that lie outside rational formulation. For Dylan, identity is multiform and bizarre, resisting attempts to resolve the disjunction between conscious and unconscious dimensions of mind or to distinquish absolutely between light and dark forces in the personality. Through close readings of lyrics from the whole of Dylan's career to date, this book offers unprecedented insights into the force and meaning of the works. A full appendix outlines the course of Dylan's career and lists his officially released recordings.