The World of Bob Dylan
Edited by Sean Latham
(Cambridge University Press, £19.99)

THIS collection of essays supposedly draws on as yet unseen material from the new Bob Dylan archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, yet it’s hard to find much reference to documents from that voluminous collection.  

Aside from the odd mention of scribbled notes and jottings, most of the authors use other sources to build their arguments and we’re certainly not offered any startling insights based on new information that’s been found in the archive.  

Maybe we’ll have to wait until it has been fully opened and all the material has been combed through properly. But the suspicion must be that it’s unlikely to throw up anything that is not already known, or at least has not been speculated about.

So much has already been written about Dylan that it’s difficult to imagine what else can come to the surface.

Written mostly by academics, the book’s 27 chapters have an impressive scope, examining Dylan’s relationships with folk, rock, Americana, roots music and the Great American Songbook, while also exploring  his interconnections with the civil rights movement, Judaism, Christianity and the counterculture.  

Overall, the package is presented in accessible language and, thankfully, without too much academic jargon. But mostly it’s rather dry, with too many contributions meandering into vague byways after setting off on what initially appear to be interesting avenues.  

Most disappointingly, few come to firm conclusions about anything — perhaps because pinning down Dylan is like nailing jelly to a wall.

Over the years, he’s constructed such an enigmatic shell around himself that even access to copious documentation in a huge archive is unlikely to crack that outer carapace.

Perhaps the most telling comment in all of the essays comes from folk music writer Kim Ruehl, who notes that “as with everything that Dylan has ever done, other people came to take it far more seriously than he did.”

While informative and enjoyable enough, this book is just another example of that phenomenon. It adds to the endless fund of words that is “Dylan studies” without really taking us any further.