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jazzy_daveNathan Wiseman-Trowse "Nick Drake: Dreaming England" (Reaktion Books)
For those who like to 'delve long and deep,' this well-referenced and researched book on Nick Drake might just fit the bill. Wiseman-Trowe has written more akin to treatise however than a biography and as such, this is not light reading, and at 224 of close-set type, not a quick one either.
There are insights, often hard-won, and these I found intriguing and stimulating at times. However, as with many attempts to make much of little, and I refer to the dearth of actual facts we have about Nick Drake, the strengths of many of the discussions rely on a premise of '...if this, then...'. As a consequence, the well constructed logical argument that follows is speculative at best, and sails close to fanciful at times.
Occam's razor should have been more diligently applied to this book, and its text and arguments pared down to a pithier, more robust and ruthless discussion. It then could have provided a genuinely superior extrapolation of Nick Drake's music into the broader context in which it was written i.e. 'middle-England'. As it stands this still remains a worthwhile contribution to the Nick Drake mythology, albeit much of it on some pretty shaky ground.
For those who like to 'delve long and deep,' this well-referenced and researched book on Nick Drake might just fit the bill. Wiseman-Trowe has written more akin to treatise however than a biography and as such, this is not light reading, and at 224 of close-set type, not a quick one either.
There are insights, often hard-won, and these I found intriguing and stimulating at times. However, as with many attempts to make much of little, and I refer to the dearth of actual facts we have about Nick Drake, the strengths of many of the discussions rely on a premise of '...if this, then...'. As a consequence, the well constructed logical argument that follows is speculative at best, and sails close to fanciful at times.
Occam's razor should have been more diligently applied to this book, and its text and arguments pared down to a pithier, more robust and ruthless discussion. It then could have provided a genuinely superior extrapolation of Nick Drake's music into the broader context in which it was written i.e. 'middle-England'. As it stands this still remains a worthwhile contribution to the Nick Drake mythology, albeit much of it on some pretty shaky ground.
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