Dylan's Visions of Sin

Ricks's writing on Dylan is the best there is -- Alex Ross * * New Yorker * *
The rewards are just as one would expect: a bracing attention to artfulness, a wonderful sensitivity to nuance, and a particularly brilliant sympathy with the purpose and effect of Dylan's rhymes -- Andrew Motion * * Guardian * *
Everything Ricks has to say about Dylan is original. He is a critic who seems to be talking to you from within the work. He can turn the smallest niche in a poem into a vast cathedral of resonance and implication. -- Bryan Appleyard * * Sunday Times * *
A great case has been made by a great critic (Christopher Ricks) that a great lyricist - Bob Dylan - is, in fact, a poet * * New York Review of Books * *
Bob Dylan is fast becoming rock's equivalent of James Joyce -- Sean O'Hagan * * Observer * *
Compelling, convincing and challenging work of literary scholarship. -- Alan Taylor * * Sunday Herald * *
Structured around the concepts of sin, virtue and grace, Ricks's close reading and imaginative cross-referencing will indeed uncover meanings in Dylan's songs that would never have occured to you. -- Anthony Quinn * * Daily Telegraph * *
Zips along with irrepressible good humour. . . Ricks's work has the lustre of a lifetime of engagement with greatness. -- Peter Aspden * * Financial Times * *
Fascinating, there are wonderfully penetrating and illuminating moments to be found. I was never less than stimulated and frequently stirred. -- John Preston * * Sunday Telegraph * *
Ricks is an exemplar of the diminishingly seen art of "close reading", and explicator of Milton, Keats, Tennyson and Eliot. . . Such clockwork analysis never seems to drain Dylan's work of its vitality, but rather to renew a listener's amazement. . . In doing so he's found the songs all the more extraordinary, not wanting in any measure. . . Ricks's book leads you back to Dylan's music, no small virtue. -- Jonathan Lethem * * New York Times Book Review * *
A serious-minded and forensic examination of Dylan's use of language, image and onomatopoeia. -- Peter Murphy * * Hot Press * *