| Negatively 4th Street - Book Review | |
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David
HajduAfter forty years, we are still hungry for accounts of the 60s.The idealism, solidarity, and energy of that age seems to have vanished from the world and no one knows exactly where it came from, or where it went. Well, if you're looking for a book to provide some insight into the glory of that age, this is not it. In fact, it's not even a book that will give you much insight into the remarkable creativity of its chief figures - Baez, Dylan and Farina. Instead, it is mostly a collection of personal recollections, anecdotes, gossip and innuendo and very few people escape from it unscathed. After reading this book, you'll think that the 60s must have hired itself a damned good PR firm and a team of lawyers to shore up its reputation.
Hajdu (pronounced hayzh-doo) comes off as snide, implying without coming out and saying so himself, that Baez was a thieving opportunist, Dylan a confused and directionless suburban kid who stole all his ideas from those around him (like Farina) - including the idea to sleep with Joan, that Farina was a volcano of raw ideas (folk-rock, sung poetry) but an intellectual flim flam man of dubious talents who used his relationships with women to further his artistic career, and that the very young and retiring Mimi fell victim to all their ambitions, including her sister's. The whole thing has a kind of claustrophobic, incestuous feeling, halfway between ridicule and disgust - kind of like "Melrose Place." It's bound to pique the public's curiosity in the ongoing "celeb-bration" of Dylan's 60th birthday, but especially unfortunate in the wake of Mimi Baez Farina's death this month.
Hajdu has culled a lot of gossip and disparaging remarks about his four subjects from his interviews without ever actually looking closely at any of the work they produced. Unlike most biographies of major literary figures, this one sheds no light at all on the meaning or evolution of their creative output, offers no insight to connect events with particular works. These connections are supposed to make both the task of writing and the pastime of reading such biographies worthwhile in the first place. Instead, we're left wondering, as Joan apparently did when she first met Dylan, how such beautiful poetry could come out of such little toads. If anything, their incredible output and its effect on a generation is more of a mystery than ever.
Don't get me wrong. I never thought these people were saints, or even necessarily nice. And a lot of the detail, especially the fabric of tightly interwoven destinies that emerges, is fascinating. But in uncovering their blemishes, Hajdu's tone seems smug, like he's discovered that the emperor has no clothes and is putting our noses in it - as if to say 'See, your idealistic 60s were a farce, your so-called artists were fakes - you've been duped.' Well, when it comes to artists, the emperor has never had any clothes. Behind their masks, they are always naked to anyone who cares to look. If these young artists at 20, 21, 22, were sometimes callow, sometimes cruel, rapacious, easily influenced, overwhelmed by events, it should not surprise us or make us balk. Hajdu can't argue with the work itself and its role in shaping a generation - at least he doesn't. Instead, he slinks away, leaving the larger story unexplored. Maybe he felt that simply finding chinks in the armor of these heroes was enough (hey, it was Camelot...), allowing later writers to get to the heart of the exploded myth.
It seems that many of Hajdu's sources spoke openly to him on the strength of his first book, an award winning biography of jazz artist Billy Strayhorn. He's also a personable guy, as anyone who heard him on NPR's "Fresh Air" can tell. So, the overall tone of this book has taken many of them by surprise.
I had the chance to talk at length about the book with Carolyn Hester, who is one of the few characters to preserve her dignity in its pages.
A talk with Carolyn Hester: disappointing focus, doubtful facts: and a key, missing insight
Hugh Blumenfeld, Editor
hugh@balladtree.com
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