Book Review: The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll
Does Rock and Roll have anything to teach us? Is it only Rock and Roll like the Rolling Stones once sang or is it something more meaningful? Mark Edmundson has written a thoughtful memoir that explores his discovery of the world from his teenage years to his adulthood, centrally locating rock music as a catalyst for his enlightenment.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My favorite books fall into the category of 'Novels of Ideas' and books that, generally and inadvertently, explain the world. Fictitious or non, the books - and films for that matter - that absorb me are like conversations with someone interesting. I could care less about plots and characters and development. Sprinkle a few good ideas into the larger form of memoir or novel or movie and I am happy.
The first book that made me realize this was Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Having had the privilege of taking a course with Eco in college - a course on semiotics that flew way over my cuckoos' nest - I was excited to learn that Eco had written a work of fiction. Reading his non-fiction book on semiotics and taking his course were interesting and engaging experiences, but I yearned for a deeper understanding. Eco's lectures were charismatic but challenging - he pronounced his sentences with a charming accent and handled his cigarettes as emphatic tools, but his essays on semiotics raised more questions in me than they answered. I guess I got the essence of the subject and enjoyed Eco's multi-lingual lectures, aided as they were by his beautiful female grad student teaching assistant. Come si dice 'smoke?' Anyone?
But more than learning about semiotics from his course, I learned about the power of an individual to transport an audience - or an individual - on the wings of ideas. Try to follow along with Eco and see where he takes you. In Eco's tobacco stained hands semiotics touched on many aspects of life and culture and helped to explain the world, to explain communication, how and why things mean what they mean. Very enlightening. Would his novel help to understand the world as well?
The Name of the Rose is a novel of ideas posing as a murder mystery. And one of the best. Similarly, Edmundson's The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll is a philosophical essay posing as a memoir. Like Eco, Edmundson has the requisite intellectual credentials - he is a distinguished professor of literary and cultural criticism at the University of Virginia. But getting to that point was a long, strange trip. Before he landed in the academy his working life included stints as concert security guy, club bouncer and New York City cabbie. After reading his book it is clear that Edmundson learned as much about life from roadies as from anyone or anything else. His insights about the world and the role that rock music plays in it forms the heart of the matter. For me, that was the reason to read it; how he got from point to point almost doesn't matter.
In The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll Edmundson does a great job of explaining the power of the music that inspired him without ruining it in the process. And since his favorite bands are favorites of mine as well, his message is very clear to me. On the Rolling Stones, he writes that, "They were crude, hard-driving, hungry, untaught and proud to be." On the Animals, Edmundson writes that he "loved their simple, bluesy rhythms - the faith they had in the basic forms of their music." To Edmundson, these rockers and others all said the same thing to him, 'Wake-up!"
Part of how rock serves to wake us up is, according to Edmundson, due to the fact that the "form overwhelms the content. The backbeat, the flaming guitar licks, the playfully ominous organ do to the nervous system something like what steroids do to muscles. But, rock's effect is instantaneous. It hits home right away. It...gives you more life."
Edmundson's gift is his ability to weave insights like this into a larger personal narrative of self-discovery and personal growth. In the process he name-checks Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, Schopenauer - 'Lord of Pessimists' - Emerson, - even Robert Altman. Some of these stories may even inspire the reader to revisit texts and craft a personal approach to education on an everyday basis.
While parts of the book drag - I could have done without his trip out to Colorado - Edmundson for the most part keeps up his end of the conversation and in the end delivers a compelling message of freedom. One story stands out for me about trying to bring an obscure rock band to his school to perform a live concert for his students. Although the show was a sloppy disaster, the students didn't care. Instead, the unprepared band represented freedom for them. "The kids," Edmundson notes, "wanted the endless dream of a world that was creative and amazing and alive: they wanted it to go on and on....They wanted what they recognized as a wild and true life."
Edmundson provides a little bit of wild and true to his students ---- and to his readers, too.
Thanks,Paul, this post is inspiring, and it found me at just the right moment. And not only because I just finished a book...
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Dear Oonagh,
I'm so glad you enjoyed the post and that it came at an opportune time as well. let me know if you do read any of the books mentioned and what you thought of them.
paul
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