Reviews for The Pearl

The average rating for The Pearl based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-03-19 00:00:00 Bruce Utkov If you don't think Dylan is a poetic genius, read this book and see if you don't change your mind. Be warned, this is not a light read, this is an intense literary criticism of his poetry and showcases how Dylan embraces, masters and pushes the limit of American and European literary tradition. If you don't know the works or at least the styles of some of the writers and poets referenced in this book, I think it would be a tough read. However, by extrapolating Dylan's literary inspiration and realizing how he progresses from their foundations just highlights his incredible talent and insight.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-22 00:00:00 Carlo Tamez I appreciated that Ricks doesn't ask the same silly questions that many do when they approach Dylan's songs. Don't ask me who Isis is, or why his Bob-ness would make her wedding date the fifth day of May. I don't give a hoot, and Ricks doesn't seem to either. He sticks to wordplay. (Although I could have used less wordplay at times. He didn't need to spend so much ink punning on lyrics. You are very well read, it's well known.) I liked the way Ricks would bring in Keats or Shakespeare or Beckett to underline how Dylan can capture an idea. Not that he means "Dylan's just as good a poet as Shakespeare!" But it helps to show that Dylan knows his craft and uses some of the same tools that give power to those canonical works. Observant, poetic minds are of course capable of using the same tools and words to describe the same subject without being familiar with one another's work. (Not that Shakespeare could have heard Dylan's songs, granted. Dylan may only have been too busy listening to Hank Williams and Charley Patton. Or not.) Most importantly, the book made me think differently about the songs, and it shows that Dylan is not (or not only) the rambling beatnik he's often made out to be. Thanks to Ricks, I can never again ignore "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." In fact, I'm now ashamed that I ever did. That's way better than being told that Edie Sedgwick might be the target of "Like a Rolling Stone."