Why Bob Dylan Matters by Richard F. Thomas

Dylan the classicist (i.e. ancient Greece and Rome)

Richard F. Thomas is a professor of classics at Harvard University, “classics” in this context meaning the literature and culture of ancient Greece and Rome (in Thomas’s case, more Rome than Greece, I believe). Thomas is also an avid and diehard fan of Bob Dylan. Thomas’s 2017 book Why Bob Dylan Matters arises from the Venn-diagram intersection where those two circles of interest overlap. Thomas uses his prodigious knowledge of classical texts and Dylan lyrics to point out parallels between the two, asserting that Dylan frequently makes references to the works of Virgil, Ovid, Homer, and other classical writers in his songs.

The bulk of this book discusses intertextuality in Dylan’s work, what laymen might call borrowing, sampling, or stealing from prior works of literature and music. To those of us who aren’t professors of classics or literature, where that’s most apparent is when Dylan recycles snippets of lyrics from traditional folk songs and old blues tunes. Thomas, however, has uncovered and enumerated many instances where Dylan has borrowed from ancient Greek and Roman poetry, in particular the epics The Aeneid and The Odyssey. Thomas asserts that Dylan is somewhat obsessed with Rome: “Clearly Dylan feels a connection to the antiquity of Rome, as he does with no other place.” That seems like a bit of a stretch to me—wishful thinking for a classics professor, perhaps—but there certainly is some merit to Thomas’s point. He states his case well by making many side-by-side lyrical comparisons that are quite interesting interpretations of Dylan’s art.

Thomas focuses primarily on the periods in Dylan’s career that most scholars and commentators emphasize: the ‘60s classics like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Masters of War,” the 1976 album Blood on the Tracks, and Dylan’s renaissance of the late ‘90s and early 2000s from Time Out of Mind to Tempest (the last Dylan album released before this book was published). It is in the latter period in particular that Thomas finds many references to ancient Rome and The Odyssey, so Time Out of Mind, “Love and Theft,” Modern Times, and Tempest are all examined in detail.

One big problem I have with this book is the way it’s packaged—the title and the cover design. There’s nothing to indicate that this book has anything to do with the Greek and Roman classics. Why Bob Dylan Matters is an incredibly generic title for such a specific approach to Dylan’s music. Before buying the book, I browsed through the table of contents and got the idea this was a lit-crit book defending Dylan’s right to win the Nobel prize. Right up front in chapter one, however, Thomas makes it clear that this is a book about Dylan’s relationship to ancient Rome. Shouldn’t the title and/or subtitle make that clear? Why not call the book Dylan and the Classics, or Dylan and Ancient Rome, or Bob Dylan and the Early Roman Kings (to quote a song title)? I get the feeling the publisher William Morrow deliberately tried to hide what this book is about in hopes of misleading more people into buying it. I like what Thomas has to say about Dylan, but not every Dylan fan is going to get into a book about Cicero, Virgil, and Catullus.

Like any book on Dylanology, Why Bob Dylan Matters gets into much parsing of words, hair-splitting of trivial facts, and conjectural mind-reading of the Bard from Hibbing. That can be annoying at times, but if you’re a Dylan fan, that’s also part of the fun. I wasn’t blown away by Thomas’s revelations, but I did learn quite a bit and gained insight into Dylan’s songs and writing process. This book renewed my enthusiasm for music that I already loved. It made me want to go back and listen closely to those albums discussed. If a book of music criticism can manage to do that, then in my opinion it’s accomplished its mission.

All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures by Roger Tory Peterson

A miscellany of magazine columns

Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996) is not only the biggest name in birding but also a notable figure in book history. Others had published bird guides before Peterson, but he more or less created the modern genre of the popular illustrated field guide as we know it today. His Peterson Field Guides have since expanded into a broad range of natural history beyond just birds, and countless other authors, artists, and publishers have built and expanded upon his original template. All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures was published in 2006. From the title, packaging, and table of contents, I had hoped I was getting a Peterson autobiography, or at least a birding memoir along the lines of Kenn Kaufman’s Kingbird Highway or Noah Strycker’s Birding Without Borders. That was not the case, however. “All Things Reconsidered” is the title of a column that Peterson wrote for Bird Watcher’s Digest magazine. This book is a collection of those articles. The 42 selections included here are arranged in chronological order by date of original publication, from 1984 to 1996.

While not an autobiography, most of the articles reproduced in this grab bag are to some extent autobiographical. The majority do in fact focus on birding adventures, with Peterson describing trips he took to find birds in various locations, from Connecticut to Botswana to Antarctica. These stories reach back as far as the 1920s. Peterson is famous as a painter of birds, but he was also a bird photographer, and many of these articles are as much about photography as about birding. There’s very little in here about art, except for a couple of good entries at the end of the book. In addition to bird finding and bird identification, these articles cover a number of other bird-related topics, including wildlife conservation, ecotourism, extinct species, and birding history. Peterson devotes a couple columns to the life of John James Audubon, and spends several entries eulogizing or paying tribute to his contemporary birding colleagues and friends.

One learns a bit about birds from this book but learns even more about birding tourism—sites to visit, how to get there, what species you’ll find, etc. Because Peterson is the rock star of birding, his ornithological outings are far from typical. Peterson was successful enough in his career to afford a globe-hopping lifestyle. He gets “backstage” access to wildlife refuges and national parks, with permission to venture into areas in which the general public is not allowed. Wherever he goes birding, he is guided by the manager or director of the refuge he’s visiting or the leading ornithologists in the area, who give him the inside tips on where to find the rare, endemic species. Peterson also gets ferried around to remote locations by a host of friends with yachts, planes, safari caravans, and research vessels. The average birder’s experience at these sites is unlikely to resemble Peterson’s, but it is entertaining to live vicariously through his experiences. I really admire that Peterson, having realized at a young age that he loved birds, decided to build a life around them, successfully forged a unique career path, and despite not really being an academic ornithologist, he nonetheless made a lasting impact on ornithology.

All Things Reconsidered is what it is: a collection of short, miscellaneous magazine articles, and that’s what it reads like. Peterson is a good writer who delivers clear prose and keeps things interesting. If you’re a birder, you certainly won’t be bored reading his bird-related memories. On the other hand, this book isn’t really about anything in particular, so you’re not going to learn a whole lot about anything in particular, including Peterson’s life and career. A book called Wild America (1955) would be Peterson’s equivalent to Kaufman’s Kingbird Highway, and I don’t believe he published an autobiography. He did leave us a lot of great books on birds, however, and for that we owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

The Torrent by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Spanish politician drowns in love

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was a prominent figure in Spanish literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and also found some international success through English translation. His novel Entre naranjos (“Between Orange Trees”) was published in 1900. It was translated into English as The Torrent. The Spanish title refers to the orange orchards of Valencia, the province of Spain where Blasco Ibáñez was born and raised and where this novel is set. The English title, The Torrent, is mostly metaphorical, as in a torrent of emotions. A flood does take place over the course of one or two chapters, but it is not the main focus of the novel.

Rafael Brull is the pride of his hometown of Alcira, in Valencia near the East Coast of Spain. He represents his district as a deputy in the Spanish Cortes (parliament) in Madrid. Rafael inherited his political clout from his grandfather and father. Grandpa Don Jaime was a shrewd wheeler-dealer, and papa Don Ramón was a macho gangster, but Rafael is a kinder, gentler sort of politician and somewhat of a pawn in his family’s game. The real political strategist in the family is Rafael’s mother Doña Bernarda, assisted by the family’s “fixer,” Don Andrès, both of whom supervise and guide the dutiful Rafael’s every move. Needless to say, the young deputy would be quite a catch for some lucky young lady of Alcira. Rafael’s mother has arranged a marriage for him with the daughter of the richest man in the region. One day, however, an exotic and beautiful woman arrives in town: Leonora, a world famous opera star who captivates Rafael’s attention. His mother disapproves of the woman, as the townspeople see her as a loose, libertine adventuress. Rafael, head over heels in love, is willing to risk all for Leonora, but despite constantly toying with him, she denies him any reciprocation and insists that they only be friends.

In his early works, at least, Blasco Ibáñez wrote in a naturalist style likely influenced by French writer Émile Zola. Zola is my favorite novelist (I have reviewed his complete works at this blog), and Blasco Ibáñez is the one writer I’ve found who can do naturalism just about as well as Zola, as proven by such excellent novels as The Cabin and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Zola himself didn’t always hit the bullseye with his naturalism but sometimes ventured into more romantic, melodramatic, and less realist works, particularly when love affairs are concerned, as in his novels The Kill and The Sin of Father Mouret. Such is the case here as well with Blasco Ibáñez’s The Torrent. The character of Leonora is a bit over the top. She reads more like someone’s ideal of a femme fatale than a real person. Rafael’s abject enslavement to her may have been more accurate to chivalrous love affairs of 1900, but it’s hard to identify with today.

There are basically two main plots entwined throughout the book. One is Rafael’s love for Leonora. The other is his political career. This latter aspect of the book is handled well, with pure naturalistic realism. Blasco Ibáñez presents a cynical backroom view of political machinations that points out the problems with party politics, political machines, and nepotistic dynasties. When reading the works of Blasco Ibáñez, I can’t help thinking that he must have influenced the writers who arose during the Latin American literary “boom” of the 1960s and ‘70s. The Torrent’s political narrative calls to mind some of Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa’s political works like The Feast of the Goat, and Rafael’s father Don Ramón shares some character traits with Mexican author Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo. That’s just me drawing parallels, however, not actual evidence of direct influence.

The Torrent is not Blasco Ibáñez’s best work, but it is still clearly the work of an expert practitioner in the art form of the novel. Having read three of his books so far, I have only dipped my toe into the depths of his body of literature, but I am looking forward to diving deeper into that pool and discovering more long-lost treasures.  

Dr. Adriaan by Louis Couperus

Full house in Holland

Dr. Adriaan, published in 1903, is the fourth and final novel in the Books of the Small Souls series by Dutch author Louis Couperus, having been preceded by 1) Small Souls, 2) The Later Life, and 3) The Twilight of the Souls. This fourth installment takes place ten years after The Twilight of the Souls. Adriaan (Addie) van der Welcke, now 26, has realized his dream of becoming a physician. He is a general practitioner, which at the time included the treatment of various nervous disorders which are now under the domain of psychiatrists. In such cases, Addie has become known for his adept use of hypnotism as a treatment technique. He now has a wife, Mathilde, and two toddler children.

Addie and his family reside with his parents, Baron Henri van der Welcke and Constance (née van Lowe), who have inherited the Van der Welcke estate in Driebergen, a country town outside of the Hague. In the previous novel, Constance’s brother Gerrit van Lowe died, leaving behind a wife and nine children. Addie, who has always been mature beyond his years, has assumed the guardianship of this family, even though he is only six years older than the eldest of Gerrit’s children. They all live in the Driebergen mansion, as do elderly Mama van Lowe and a few cousins with various ailments whom Addie is treating for free. At one point in the book, I counted 19 residents in the Driebergen house, not counting servants, plus a few other relatives living nearby who show up for dinner almost every night. Addie’s wife Mathilde does not fit in with the Van Lowe family and resents the fact that she has to share her husband with his numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. This causes problems in their marriage. Addie is happy living in Driebergen, generously offering his medical skills to the country poor, but Mathilde would prefer they move back to the Hague, where Addie can become a fashionable big-city doctor and grow a prosperous practice serving the urban wealthy.

The closest literary analogy I can make to Couperus’s Small Souls series is the Jalna novels by Canadian author Mazo de la Roche. Both feature a large family of distinct personalities whose lives revolve almost entirely around each other and their family dinners at Grandma’s house. The Jalna novels are a little prone to soap-opera melodrama, however, while the Small Souls books read more like real life. Dr. Adriaan doesn’t have many of the momentous or scandalous events one can frequently count on in family sagas: love affairs, deaths, crimes, divorces, etc. Instead, these small souls tend to live small quiet lives like most of us do. Couples question their relationships. Siblings quarrel. Young people try to find their direction in life. Aging people come to terms with old regrets and resign themselves to contentment. Some deal with pesky, non-fatal illnesses, both physical and mental. If this were the first novel in the series, such prosaic happenings might be too boring to be justified. Couperus, however, has developed these characters over the course of four volumes, so that the reader has come to know them, identify with them, feel for them, and become invested in their lives and struggles. Anyone who’s read the first three Small Souls novels will be thoroughly engaged from the first page of Dr. Adriaan.

Although Couperus could have kept this series going for at least another novel or two, he does conclude Dr. Adriaan with a touch of finality, and he never returned to the Van Lowe family. A naturalist in a similar mode as Emile Zola or Theodore Dreiser, Couperus enjoyed some popularity in English translation in the early 20th century, but I think it’s fair to say he has since largely been forgotten by American readers. That’s a shame, because he really is a very talented and accomplished novelist who deserves worldwide recognition, as evidenced by his compelling Books of the Small Souls.

Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler

Stayin’ alive in World War II Europe

English spy novelist Eric Ambler is one of the most respected authors in the history of the genre. His novel Journey into Fear was published in 1940. The story takes place at that present time, when World War II is underway in Europe. An Englishman named Graham works as an engineer for a British arms manufacturer and travels frequently for business. He has recently completed some work in Turkey and is scheduled to depart for England the following day. On his last night in Istanbul, Graham spends the evening in a nightclub with Kopeikin, a Turkish coworker. There he strikes up a friendship with an attractive dancer and also notices a suspicious man who seems to be watching him all evening. At the end of the night, when Graham returns to his hotel room, he is startled at finding someone in his room, hidden in the dark. The mysterious stranger fires three shots at Graham, one of which grazes his hand. The would-be killer then flees out the window into the darkness.

Colonel Haki, the head of the Turkish secret police, shows up to investigate. (Haki also appeared in Ambler’s previous novel, A Coffin for Dimitrios.) Haki informs Graham that he is a target for assassination by German spies. Because of his occupation, Graham holds vital information in his head pertaining to the improvement of Turkey’s naval defenses. Killing Graham would delay those improvements for several weeks, allowing enough time for the Nazis launch an invasion of Turkey. It is imperative that Graham return safely to London, not only to save his own life but also to protect Turkey and prevent a Nazi victory over the Allies. Haki and Kopeikin change Graham’s travel plans and sneak him onto a small ship leaving Turkey for Genoa, Italy. There are about a dozen passengers on the boat, all of whom the reader becomes well-acquainted with. Although no one was supposed to know that Graham was traveling on this particular ship, he soon finds that the secret has apparently gotten out, and he is in danger of being murdered by one of his fellow passengers.

Ambler writes very realistic spy thrillers, without any pulp-fiction heroics. What makes this story compelling is that Graham acts in a realistic way to the threats he faces, and nothing happens that’s beyond the realm of reason. Nowadays, nearly every spy thriller involves potential world domination or nuclear armageddon, and every crime film is about a serial killer or a mass murder. When this novel was written, however, around the time Alfred Hitchcock made Foreign Correspondent, the killing of one person was still considered shocking and terrifying. When reading Journey into Fear, the reader lives vicariously through Graham, imagining what you would do if your own life were similarly placed in jeopardy. Graham is by no means an action hero, but he has enough courage to keep his wits about him and employ his brains for self-preservation.

Though this intimacy of scale is refreshing, for those of us raised on those James Bondish armageddon spy thrillers, it can also feel slow-paced and at times less than thrilling. Journey into Fear was adapted into a 1943 film, and the story is just right for a movie of roughly an hour and a half in length. When you spend a few days reading the book, however, it feels less than satisfying when the 270-page read is wrapped up with a climactic scene that lasts about all of two pages. That adds up to a lot of conversations with Graham’s fellow passengers that one has to sit through just for a small payoff of exciting action. Nevertheless, Ambler’s realistic style makes his espionage thrillers worthwhile. Because the reader can identify with Graham, and the perils he faces are credible, his fear and anxiety are palpably felt.

Understanding History and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell

Three unrelated articles from the 1940s

British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell won the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature, back when philosophers used to be considered for that award. Understanding History and Other Essays was originally published in 1957 by the Philosophical Library, whose books have been recently rereleased as ebooks by Open Road Media. This volume consists of three of Russell’s previously published essays: “How to Read and Understand History” (1943), “The Value of Free Thought” (1944), and “Mentalism vs. Materialism” (1945). I believe the first two essays were originally published as Little Blue Books by the Haldeman-Julius publishing company. “Mentalism vs. Materialism” is from The Rationalist Annual of 1945. Although the history essay is the title selection, I was attracted more by the subject matter of the latter two essays.

The essay “How to Read and Understand History” is nothing special, probably because Russell is not a historian. He starts by stating that a study of history is useless to most people’s daily lives, and the only reason to read history is if you simply enjoy doing so. He briefly discusses the works of some notable historians, such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, and a few modern scholars. Russell criticizes philosophers like Hegel and Marx who attempt to come up with a unified theory of history, characterizing them as “mythologizers,” and offers some thoughts on how he thinks history should be written and taught.

In “The Value of Free Thought,” Russell begins by defining what exactly is “free thought.” The term is not synonymous with atheism or agnosticism, as some might think, but rather with scepticism. A freethinker can believe whatever he chooses to believe, but to be a freethinker, that choice must be based on evidence and rational inquiry. The antithesis of free thought, as Russell asserts, would be William James’s argument: Why not believe in religion when believing is more convenient, comfortable, and who’s to say you’re wrong? Russell goes on to critique religion because of its denial of rational inquiry. Like many atheist writers (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens), Russell sometimes lapses into smugness. I agree with the message, but not always the tone. Also, if you’re already a free thinker, then this primer on free thought tells you much of what you already know. Overall, however, “The Value of Free Thought” is a good concise manifesto of sorts for the modern freethinker.

“Mentalism vs. Materialism” is exactly what it sounds, contrasting dualism (matter and mind or spirit) with monism (just matter). Russell, as one might expect, is on the side of the materialists, or “physicalists,” the label he prefers. He starts with an explanation of physics that is forgivably outdated and unforgivably confusing. Once he gets into the epistemology of consciousness, however, his argument is well-stated. This essay is very brief, only about half the length of either of the other two selections.

I bought this ebook as a Kindle Daily Deal. Whenever possible, I look over the table of contents before I purchase an ebook. In this case, the table of contents makes it look like there are 18 essays in this ebook. In fact, however, there are only three, the longest of which is maybe a 45-minute read. The remaining 15 lines of the table of contents are just subheads within the last essay. Open Road could have done a better job formatting that. Had I paid more than a couple bucks for this ebook, I would have been a little disgruntled by the discrepancy between what I thought I was buying and what I actually got. Given that these writings are not in the public domain, a few bucks for a few essays is reasonable. These are not earth-shatteringly revolutionary essays, but those sympathetic to Russell’s atheist, materialist, and skeptical views will appreciate his eloquent and intelligently reasoned discourses.

Essays in this collection

How to Read and Understand History

The Value of Free Thought

Mentalism vs. Materialism

Beasts, Men, and Gods by Ferdynand Ossendowski

War memoir and Mongolian travelogue

Ferdynand Ossendowski (1876–1945) was a Polish scientist, explorer, and political activist who led a complicated and adventurous life. He was born in what is now Latvia. Sometime around his teen years, he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, with his father. He taught science courses at a university in Tomsk and traveled to many different parts of Asia. Around 1905, he was sentenced to death for organizing communist activities in opposition to the tsar, but his sentence was commuted, and after some years of hard labor, he was released. Much like the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror that followed, the Russian Revolutions of 1917 were followed by a period of political extremism, persecution, and executions. This led to the Russian Civil War, in which Ossendowski fought on the side of the Whites (conservative nationalists) against the Reds (Bolsheviks, Communists, Soviets). In 1920, Ossendowski was living in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. This is where his memoir Beasts, Men, and Gods begins. The Bolsheviks consider him a counterrevolutionary and set out to capture and likely execute him. Ossendowski gets wind of their coming, however, and escapes. He decides to flee Russia through Mongolia, hoping to eventually reach a port city where he can emigrate to a safe place in Western Europe.

The danger doesn’t end, however, when Ossendowski crosses into Mongolia. Whites and Reds are active on that side of the border as well, where the Mongolians are also fighting for their independence from Chinese occupation. Ossendowski joins up with a band of Whites consisting of other “foreigners” (Ossendowski identifies as a Pole) who, while still hoping to make their exit from the region, engage in military battles against the Reds and Chinese. The landscape is littered with corpses, and torture and atrocities are ubiquitous. In an environment of rampant paranoia where spies are found everywhere, Ossendowski is equally in danger of being killed by White officers who suspect him of leaning towards the Reds.

Beasts, Men, and Gods was published in 1922. While Ossendowski’s life was certainly exciting, the way he tells his story here does not make for easy reading. This account reads as if it were written for an Eastern European audience who would have been intimately familiar with the events of the Russian Civil War. To those not in the know, the text often reads like a confusing barrage of unfamiliar proper nouns: geographical place names, various Red and White factions, government agencies and military units, the names of Russian generals, and various Chinese and Mongolian ethnic groups. At times it’s difficult to keep straight which groups are fighting for which side. In order to fully appreciate this book, I think I would first have to read a comprehensive overview of the Russian Civil War and another volume on the history of Mongolia.

While the war narrative is difficult to get through, the book is more successful as a study of Mongolian culture. While in Mongolia, Ossendowski spent much time in Buddhist monasteries. He met the Living Buddha, the highest Buddhist personage in Mongolia, distinct from the Dalai Lama in Tibet. The most vividly drawn character in the book is the White general Baron Ungern von Sternberg (1886–1921), a German aristocrat who has “gone native” and embraced the Buddhist religion. Ossendowski himself does not profess to having adopted Buddhism, but he relates Buddhist teachings and history with respect and an attention to detail. Fortune telling was a common practice in Mongolia, and Ossendowski writes about prophecies as if they were real and accurate. After the travel narrative ends, another eight chapters are solely devoted to the religion, myths, and legends of Mongolian Buddhism. As Beasts, Men, and Gods progresses, and becomes less about Russia and more about Mongolia, I found it more interesting and accessible. I felt lost for much of the first half of Ossendowski’s memoir, but I came to like it more towards the end.