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Outstanding
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Booklist Gordon Flagg
Marcus' vast understanding of American culture and intimate knowledge of Dylan's career make this an eye-opening read. [15 Mar 2005, p.1255]
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
When he grapples with Highway 61 Revisited, the album that featured "Like a Rolling Stone," things grind to a numbing halt. On the history and reverberations of the music, however, Marcus is near the top of the game. [1 Mar 2005, p.277]
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Favorable
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Library Journal Henry L. Carrigan Jr.
Engaging cultural history. [1 Apr 2005, p.96]
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
Marcus displays a comprehensive knowledge of American popular and political history. [21 Feb 2005, p.169]
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Favorable
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New York Observer Charles Taylor
An adventure is only really thrilling if it involves a hint of threat. Mr. Marcus makes the reader understand "Like a Rolling Stone" as a conscious-and exhilarating-act of cruelty, a song that makes the listener pay simply for being present to hear it. [25 Apr 2005, p.20]
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Favorable
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PopMatters Justin Cober-Lake
Like a Rolling Stone is not great cultural analysis or musical study, but it's a work that's both insightful and fantastic.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle David Kipen
Plaintive, at times reheated, but ultimately bracing.
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Favorable
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The Nation David Yaffe
Magisterial, hypnotic and unfinished, the song is worth every bit of lavish attention that Marcus gives it, with a passion as eloquent as it is infectious.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Chrissie Dickinson
Marcus's wide-ranging meditations are often bracing, but the ride takes some effort. His critical prose occasionally veers into heady, sometimes esoteric territory.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Griffin Ondaatje
Marcus is creative and informed in his use of musical history, and that's important, since Dylan's work (especially his text) is being swarmed today by academic writers. [9 Apr 2005]
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Favorable
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The Spectator Hugh Massingberd
Dylan’s own inarticulacy... makes a refreshing change from the author’s unstoppable flow of finely wrought verbiage. Yet there is no question that Marcus is a brilliant and perceptive writer.
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Favorable
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The Independent Charles Shaar Murray
A livelier and more provocative book than you have any right to expect from a 60-year-old man writing about a 40-year-old record.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Alan Light
Too many tropes in Marcus's cultural criticism are starting to feel overfamiliar, and too much of his own Dylanology is starting to fold in on itself.
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Mixed
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The Independent Nick Coleman
A dense, busy, electrified book which radiates ideas much as Dylan's scalp used to radiate hair.
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Mixed
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Christian Science Monitor John Kehe
If any pop song deserves thorough examination, it's this one. But even Dylan's epic feels somewhat overanalyzed, pumped up, and padded out here - perhaps better suited to a 20-page New Yorker story than a 225-page book.
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Mixed
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Los Angeles Times J. Hoberman
There is nothing that is not shamelessly hyper-dramatized.... But what keeps Marcus' project afloat is his capacity for close listening and ability to characterize what he hears. [10 Apr 2005, p.R6]
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Unfavorable
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Daily Telegraph John Preston
But whereas in the past Marcus has shown a penetrating and disciplined touch, here his analysis comes couched in prose so windy that it could inflate several weather balloons.
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Unfavorable
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Daily Telegraph Dominic Sandbrook
Marcus is keener on vague allusions, tendentious metaphors and arcane observations than he is on rigorous historical or musical analysis.
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Unfavorable
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The Guardian Mike Marqusee
The book is structure-less; there's no guiding argument. The prose is laboured, irritatingly sententious, sometimes senseless.
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