“Ruth Padel's brilliant, wide-ranging I’m A Man makes the connections between rock and myth absolutely plain” -
Ian Sansone, London Review of Books
"She has earned a place on the high table of rock criticism alongside the likes of Greil Marcus. Eureka." Daily Telegraph
I'm a Man: Sex, Gods and
Rock 'n' Roll
Faber & Faber 2000, £12.99
Buy
'I'm A Man' online from Amazon.co.uk
DESCRIPTION
In this bok, Ruth Padel argues that the maleness of rock and roll has its roots in Greek heroic myth. She opens with
the statue of Eros in London's Piccadilly Circus and ends
with the myths of Eros and Psyche, along with Narcissus, Echo, Orpheus and Eurydice. In between, she investigates the
complex love affair of white America with blackness and the
blues, Greek imagery of inner darkness, the Fifties'
creation of teenage culture, the impact
of Dionysus on the Sixties, different attitudes to
violence and to nature in America and the UK, and the effect
of all this on the misogyny and the development of rock.
In Ian Rankin's A Question
of Blood, it provides the clue to the
murderer.
From REVIEWS
"A personalized, vivid critique,
written with mule-kick style and researched with obvious
passion, of the history and meaning of popular music and
the darker psychological suburbs of rock 'n' roll. The
book spins round an intellectual axis; chapters on "cock
in rock" are amusing; passages on the science and poetry
of the bizarre rock rituals we all take for granted are
original and beautifully expressed."
- Barbara Ellen, The
Observer
"Like Greil Marcus's Mystery
Train, Padel's dissection of rock is an account of
paradise lost. Her impassioned intelligence is admirable.
She believes that "pop song is sung myth"; her mythological
readings are startling and often revelatory." - Peter
Conrad, TLS
"Bizarre as it sounds, Padel
brings a poet's insight and the training of a classicist
to a book which examines why rock 'n' roll and aggressive
sexuality may be interdependent, and how this can be explained,
in part, by ancient cultures. You think "Hang on Ruth,
don't be daft", but you only have to conjure the Dionysian
hysteria of girls at rock concerts to take her point. With
imaginative ease, Padel leaps the deep ditches it pleases
some people to dig between strands of our culture. Her
analysis is never strident; she confronts the sex and violence
in rock, more interested in how and why than denunciation.
She describes how white music exploited black, scattering
insights all the way like a rock diva blowing kisses at
the crowd. On my shelf of rock criticism there are no books
by women. Witty and intelligent, I'm A Man now takes
its place beside Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Tom Wolfe
and the rest - but it sends you back to CDs and the bookshelf
with an excitement they cannot match." - Bel Mooney, The
Times
"A fascinating and provocative thesis: rock culture, whose discourse is normally controlled
by insiders, viewed from the outside by someone fully capable
of seeing the wood without getting too hung up on the trees.
Padel uses classical mythology as the key to open the Pandora's
boxes that contain rock's dirty secrets of race, class,
nationhood and gender. Rock is a series of borrowed identities:
Odysseus stands revealed as the prototype of the travellin'
man with ramblin' on his mind, the archetypal rocker is
unmasked as a plugged-in Prometheus, 'Huck Finn with Jim
inside', the white thief of black fire."
- Charles Shaar
Murrray, The Independent
"Rare indeed is the book which
retells the story of Aphrodite's birth in the foam around
Heaven's castrated penis and interviews the editor of Mojo.
One of the nice things is how Padel passes from Bob Dylan
to Ronan Keating of Boyzone without a crunch of gears.
The effect for rock is rather ennobling. You might have
thought Mick Jagger was just a big wet narcissist. It turns
out he's a big wet narcissist with ancient roots. His narcissism
really goes back."
- Giles Smith, Evening Standard
"From Orpheus with his lyre
to Liam Gallagher and his leer in 358 pages flat. Impressive?
You betcha. Padel's enthralling argument leaves you in
no doubt that the ancient Greeks and modern rock stars
did indeed emerge from the same primordial psycho-cultural
swamp. Her thesis is devilishly simple. "Rock music began
as phallus worship, is one of the most male arts of all
time, and its stars embody the cultural values of Greek
gods and heroes." Jimmy Page, come on down - you've been
sussed, and by a chick at that. It would be a mistake to
interpret this as gender politics. Clearing up the role
of women early on, Padel frees herself for her real quarry,
the male rock star. If it all sounds a bit ever-so-clever,
joining up the dots between Greek myth and rock music,
there's much more to it than that. Whether quoting the Iliad or
Nick Hornby, Theseus or Springsteen, Padel has done both
Greek myth and rock music a great service. You might think
you don't want to know how rock music "deals in Greek mythical
ideals of relationship and quest, triumph, danger, and
impersonation, but after a few chapters you'll be sold." -
Brian Boyd, The Irish Times
" Padel is dazzling on
the misogyny at the heart of Sixties hippiedom and the
difference between primitivism and racism. She has earned
a place on the high table of rock criticism alongside the
likes of Greil Marcus. Eureka." - Caspar Llewellyn Smith, Daily
Telegraph |
