TWO WRITINGS ABOUT BOB DYLAN

First, I understand that the biography of Dylan signed by HarperCollins in November (to be written by Daniel Mark Epstein) isn't likely to be published until mid-2011.

Second, about Dr. Malcolm Guite.

(He used to go like that:
and now he goes like this:)

And here is a very interesting - and in my opinion extremely good - piece of textual analysis of some of Dylan's Christian and bible-alluding songs, neither by an atheist like me nor by someone of a happy-clappy Born Again Californian persuasion, but by Dr. Guite - a Church of England vicar - the Chaplain of Girton College Cambridge.

He delivered (and very fast, too, I'm told ) a longer and unedited version of this as a talk at the Michaelhouse in Trinity Street Cambridge (UK) on Tuesday night - reportedly to an audience of about three Dylan afficionados and about 50 people of Dr. Guite's own sect.

To declare an interest of no particular significance, I knew Dr. Guite when I spent a term at Girton College (as a Visiting Fellow Commoner) in 2005; we played tennis together. I think we're both better at Dylan Lit Crit than at tennis.