by Wouter van Oorschot
Translated by Brent Annable
Who this book is (not) for – part 2
(continuation of part 1: Dylan & Us: Beyond America. 1. Who the book is not for – part 1)
My thesis is also based on the fact that it is easier to get to the bottom of Dylan’s work by declaring all references to the people, history and culture of the United States of America to be temporarily irrelevant. The question, ‘What is Dylan all about?’ is approached here by meditating on the global significance of his work, rather than its exclusive meaning to US Americans. In other words: Dylan & Us: Beyond America. But to demonstrate that I am not insufferably dogmatic, I will prove this self-imposed rule by means of three exceptions, to be noted where they occur.
Temporarily declaring Americana irrelevant in this context is no triviality, as it immediately discounts over half of Dylan’s body of work, including a large number of the pivotal poems for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize (as well as some less-prominent works, of course). To some US-Americans (I believe I have made my point now, so wherever ‘Americans’ appears from here on, you know to whom I am referring) this may seem like an unconscionable act, crude and disrespectful.
There is a justification, however: firstly, it is a simple fact that the world does not revolve around the United States; and secondly, it is only those artists who have managed to liberate themselves from their countries of origin who are acknowledged worldwide as being among the true greats, whose work is more likely to be appreciated after their deaths rather than sink away into oblivion. This is why Chekhov (1860-1904) was and continues to be read and re-read.
Whether Dylan’s work will survive him, which parts will do so and for how long, is yet to be seen; but in his case, too, the core and principal import are not to be found in utterances regarding his country of origin. This does not mean, of course, that the Americana in question is of lesser import to those tens of millions living in countries and cultures contrasting starkly with the United States, than to Americans themselves. However, Americana does lay a shroud over the global significance of Dylan’s art, which we must therefore extricate from the United States if we are to reveal its essence. Those who do not balk at this prospect are undoubtedly of a sympathetic nature.
The rest of the world should not rejoice too soon, however, as Dylan’s own expertise and interest in non-American peoples and cultures – to the extent that they are evident in his work – is also irrelevant to this book. But because the ‘non-Americana’ in his work does not in any way obscure the worldwide significance thereof, it is permitted to remain.
And so we must cast our net less widely, and officially make do with 266 America-free texts from a total of 394. These can be found in the fourth, extended ‘Nobel Prize’ edition of Lyrics 1961–2012 which – as the title indicates – includes texts written up until the year 2012, and was published in 2016 by Simon & Schuster.
But before leaving the subject of this edition, it must absolutely be noted in passing that its incompleteness and poor-quality text presentation make it a disgrace to this otherwise venerable publishing house – a criticism that could also be levelled, incidentally, at the previous three editions from 1973, 1985 and 2001, which only adds to the scandalous nature of the oversight. Any edition of collected works implies a presentable text layout, and accountability as to which texts, or parts thereof, have been omitted and why. None of this is provided in any of the four editions: it is a dog’s breakfast, an insult to the buyer, and out of necessity I will present several glaring examples in this book.
The situation is further compounded by the fact that, according to the underappreciated website of English Dylan researcher Tony Attwood, Untold Dylan, the oeuvre consists of at least 550 or so completed poems and lyrics, and over a hundred additional texts that, while incomplete, nonetheless contain pertinent material. We do not need the entire body of work for our purposes, however: around 25 Americana-free lyrics provide all that we need to expose the core of Dylan’s writing in detail.
The third, relatively small group of writers are the pedants: the Dylanologists of the world. A Dylanologist is a true expert, not uncommonly highly educated but often an autodidact, who has developed into an expositor and interpreter of ‘The Word of Our Bob’. These individuals have a greater knowledge of how Dylan’s work came to be – and more importantly, what it means – than Dylan himself, who more than once has demonstrated having forgotten all about ‘the early years’, and seems rather uninterested in any case.
The Dylanologist makes use of every scrap of paper that Dylan has ever left lying about and that has been eagerly collected by others. I cast aspersions here neither at the Dylanologists nor the collectors of these snippets, but rather at those who publicly distribute them. They ought to have had the decency to return them to Dylan instead, enabling him to exercise his right of ownership, which includes the option to keep what one considers to be unpolished work to oneself.
Instead, these thieves made – and make – off with their ill-gotten gains, defending themselves with pious faces and lofty arguments. We must not take this circumstance lightly. Dylan has been ‘dispossessed’ of a great deal of such material, including hundreds of audio recordings of full or partial songs that he never wished to release. He ultimately saw no other option than to release everything regardless, under the collective title of the Bootleg Series, as a means of claiming and protecting his copyright after the fact. And rightly so. In late 2023, the series already totalled seventeen volumes and hundreds of CDs, and had only been catalogued up to 1994.
As mentioned previously: aside from the distributors themselves, I blame nobody now that the fragments have already been released. But this is akin to the rationale that we no longer need concern ourselves with the accuracy of the Warren report on the assassination of American President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, since Kennedy is already dead now anyway (for those wondering why I chose this specific analogy: your patience will be rewarded). Furthermore, I would be lying if I claimed to have discounted the Bootleg Series as a matter of principle. The fact that these works have now been officially released applies to me too, after all, so if I find material among them that I believe is worth discussing, it appears here because it is now permissible to do so. In my defence, I can also say that I never purchased the illegal bootlegs in question.
You may well ask: ‘You didn’t write the book for all those evangelists, patriots and pedants, why should you even give two hoots about them?’ While it is true that people seldom read books that were not intended for them – even before they are spoken ill of – matters are different where Bob Dylan is concerned. One can write about him for the interested layperson, as I have done here, but my book will undoubtedly also be read by experts, who are not necessarily my intended audience. And they will eviscerate me for the most minuscule error (which they will undoubtedly discover), or else because they understand Dylan better than I do.
Exactly what purpose that would serve is a mystery since my book conceals nothing even remotely scandalous. Perhaps for fear of having overlooked a new insight in the work of the man who, much to their frustration, they themselves do not always fully understand? This is indeed a very challenging category of reader to account for. And nobody enjoys having their errors pointed out to them, not even by experts. But if they do not tear me to pieces, my prediction is that they will come to the happy conclusion that they have not missed anything, and declare my narrative and analysis irrelevant to their own research, first and foremost because my understanding of his work is tainted by my personal background and history.
They can do as they please. I will simply reveal some facts about myself along the way that have helped shape my appreciation of Dylan’s work, so that you can decide for yourselves just how ‘tainted’ my understanding of it is. For let’s be honest: one does not need these know-it-alls either to appreciate my account, or to understand or appreciate Dylan’s work. So hence with the Greil Marcuses and Clinton Heylins of this world, the supreme Dylanologists and their epigones, whose ‘omniscience’ regarding Dylan and their endless exegeses of his work serve only to stifle and dishearten our understanding of it. To quote our subject himself from his famous song, ‘Times, they are a-changin’’: ‘The line it is drawn.’ We are simply doing so here, by mutual agreement.
(end of chapter 1)
continued: Dylan & Us: Beyond America: 2. Anything but idolatry – part 1
Wouter’s book is only available in Dutch for now:
Dylan en wij zonder Amerika, Wouter van Oorschot | 9789044655179 | Boeken | bol
Previously, we published:
What you really don’t want: reconsidering “It ain’t me babe” and All I really want to do: What you really want.
Dylan & Us: Beyond America. Amuse bouche – Untold Dylan (bob-dylan.org.uk)
Dylan & Us: Beyond America. Hors d’oeuvre – Untold Dylan (bob-dylan.org.uk)
We will publish more chapters from it in English on Untold Dylan in the coming weeks