Lathe of Asbury Park

Mike bought the Springsteen memoir for me (thanks!!) and I am a hundred pages into it, and I have to say that one of my main illusions about the man has been shoved aside for good. See, I always had it in my mind that this guy was at least 40% literary, that words came early in the process and that they were a central part of the origin story for Bruce. Turns out that the guitar meant 100% to him, that he wasn't even the singer (I knew that) and that he didn’t really yearn to be (I didn't think that one through until now). Moreover, the bands up and down the shore were just about all instrumental bands when he as coming up and it doesn’t seem to have occurred to a young him that words in a song could have a primary place in the kind of music he loved.So different from the generations that followed. Thank you, Bob Dylan!!

I am hoping the focus of the book changes, that his attention to literary detail becomes a bigger part of the story. Bruce is an interesting guitarist, but I would not say that he is in any way some kind of guitar genius. Songwriting, yes. Lyricist, absolutely. Guitarist? He has his moments, but there is also a lot of incoherent soloing in his live repertoire. So that's the surprising thing about the book so far. But I'd have to say that it is extremely well-written. Very funny in places! Reminds me of the Sinatra biography that the King of Rock recommended a few years back. What was the title of that book, Rock? The thing that struck me about that Sinatra book was how closely identified every kid in his Hoboken neighborhood was with their ethnic identity. The first thing you needed to know about a stranger in Sinatra's neighborhood was ethnicity: Italian? Jewish? Irish? Something else? That got you slotted into your world and your niche in it. 

I still do remember growing up, though, and those vestiges remained. I know (or think I do) the ethnic background of everyone on the yak. Why should that be? Kind of like gender these days for Millennials and Generation Z, the old categories have become so fluid as to have almost vanished. I ask my students sometimes—almost always when they have an obvious Italian or Irish name—if their family arrived here recently and if they have family in zee olt country. Many of them seem shocked to be asked and have no good answer. It is almost as if who we are begins these days with our births. For Springsteen (and for us too), I think, who we are started generations before we happened to be born. Here is how he describes meeting one of the many, many girlfriends who populate this memoir: “She was Italian, funny, a beatific tomboy, with just the hint of a lazy eye, and wore a pair of glasses that made me think of the wonders of the library.” That's a funny line! It's also instructive that the first adjective is so totally locked down on ethnicity. It seems inescapable for a kid of Springsteen's age who is trying to make sense of his world.

This idea obviously intersects with the King's posting of two weeks ago. Springsteen grew up in a world where your ethnicity and heritage determined a great deal about how you might live your life. For kids today, I think, that's much less true. We are curing our society of its terrifying ills by, what, erasing important information from our libraries? I used to be a white male of Irish and Italian (like Bruce!) heritage. I really don’t know what I'd be if I were born these days. I think the old categories are fading. How do we define ourselves? Is it what we do? What we believe? Political party? Socioeconomic status? And what will we all be fifty years hence?   

Not sure where this idea is taking me. I guess I need to keep reading to see how Bruce searches for an finds his community. Once he moves to Rumson in 1983--the home of the preppy rah-rahs with whom he had clashed over the years--how will he define himself? This question continues to have real relevance to me, a person who abandoned home for the Midwest and who still has not found his feet under him. 

Anyone else want to read this book along with me and Mike?