No cliche is left unturned in Bob Dylan: Jewish Roots, American Soil, a workmanlike and rather pointless retelling of Robert Zimmerman’s journey from Hibbing, Minnesota to global superstardom in the mid-1960s. Author and Jewish cultural historian Harry Freedman attempts to reframe this extremely well-worn tale through the prism of Dylan’s Jewishness, and the important role it played in his life and work.
An interesting angle in theory, but as Freedman concedes practically from page one, it doesn’t bear much scrutiny. So why write a book about it?
Bob Dylan isn’t ashamed of his Jewish identity, it just isn’t something he’s ever really thought about. It neither interests nor defines him. That may or may not be true. I’m none the wiser after reading the book, but it’s effectively what Freedman tells us whenever he remembers to return to his ostensible theme. What we end up with is a passable piece of sociopolitical postwar history.
Freedman is quite good on contextualising detail, peppered with some cursory hand-me-down analysis of Dylan’s work.
Freedman’s prose is often clunky, repetitious and rife with vague supposition. He dutifully hits every familiar narrative beat: voice of a generation, going electric, Newport ‘65, “Judas!” etc, while adding no fresh insight.
For Dylan completists, this is just another book to add to the pile. For anyone who’s recently discovered him via James Mangold’s film A Complete Unknown – and that would appear to be the target audience – it will at least fill in some gaps. But other, better Dylan books are available.
