Book Club: Exodus, by Vivien Goldman

I like reggae. I have a big collection of it in my Itunes library, and I might even be listening to some right now. This affinity means that I'm much more likely to read a book about reggae than I am to read a book about knitting, say, or goldfish.

By one line of thought, a (historical) nonfiction book is good to the extent that the reader is interested in the subject. The author's job is little more than getting out of the way of the story. By this metric, certainly, Vivien Goldman's Exodus: The Making & Meaning of Bob Marley & The Wailers' Album Of Century should be loved by any Bob Marley fan that picks it up. Goldman's time as a sort of beat reporter for the Wailers gives her plenty of inside perspective to share, and her interview subjects seem to trust and respect her. The book focuses on the time around the creation of the Wailers' album Exodus, starting a year or two ahead and winding down with the subsequent promotional tour (although the book does carry on through Marley's death from cancer in 1981).

The problem I have with this book is ultimately, I suspect, not with Vivien Goldman. Again, she's a fine enough writer, and she has plenty of great source material. The problem is that Bob Marley is too iconic a figure to have a decent book written about him. Without arguing the merits of the comparison, I think a biography of Jesus Christ (assuming, you know, that Jesus Christ were a contemporary figure and the lead singer of a internationally acclaimed band or something similar) would run into the same difficulties. People simply have too much invested in Marley, whichever side of the prophet vs. dreadlocked pot-head fence they come down on. Goldman, for what it's worth, is firmly on the prophet side.

It's not just that Goldman doesn't criticize Marley, it's that at times it feels as if she's doing everything short of anointing him with oil. I'm sure it's difficult to be neutral about something one believes strongly in, but I find it frustrating that the most cogent article I've seen on the Rasta faith is on Wikipedia.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Bob Marley, in spite of it's unconscious proselytizing. It's certainly not the most blatant bit of propaganda I've ever read.

(While I was reading Exodus, by the way, I found a ticket for Die Zauberflote - The Magic Flute - an opera I saw at the Met. In 2006. I'm not sure what this means, other that 1. Time flies and 2. I have wide-ranging interests.)