Day, Aidan (Dylan, Bob)

Jokerman: Reading the Lyrics of Bob Dylan

Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1988. First UK Edition. Hardcover. “Of all our contemporary songwriters, Bob Dylan is the most startling, prolific and controversial. In this book, Aidan Day explores his lyrics and their themes in a way that does justice to their complexity and subtlety — and makes intelligible much that seems obscure and difficult. These lyrics represent a continuation of the experimental poetic practices of modernism. For Dylan, identity is multiform and bizarre, resisting attempts to resolve the disjunction between conscious and unconscious dimensions of mind or to distinguish absolutely between light and dark forces in the personality. Through close readings of the lyrics from the whole of Dylan’s career, this book offers unprecedented insights into the force and meaning of the works” (from Front Cover flap). In seven fully fleshed-out chapters, the late Aidan Day (1952-2018) — noted editor of “Tennyson: the Manuscripts at the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin” (a mouthful, We know) — here surveys the lyrics of Bob Dylan (b. 1941), perhaps America’s greatest songwriter. Taking the various “eras” of Dylan as epochs unto themselves, Day provides scholastic re-valuations of such classics as “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Visions of Johanna,” and many, many more. While much has been said and written about Dylan over the course of his long life-&-career, what Day has to offer is a sleeper classic among Dylanologists. [ISBN: 0-631-15873-1]. Hardcover in unclipped dust-jacket: First UK Edition, though not explicated as such on copyright page. Book in very fine condition with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners, inc. one tiny bump-indentation at/near top right-hand corner of front cover, likely as issued. Dust-jacket in strong fine condition with minute-to-minor shelf-wear, bumping, & slight creasing-crinkling to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; scattered, light age-toning & rubbing to interior & exterior of same; lone instance of more enunciated browning/spotting to topmost fine-edge of front cover at center-middle, else pristine. Very Fine / Fine. [Item #5576]

Price: $30.00