For Dylan Fans only?
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Like many people I am aware of (and appreciate some of) Dylans music, but wouldn't consider myself a fan. So when I was given this as a present I was interested to read it to see if I could learn a bit more about the man and his music and perhaps become more of a fan.
I was dissapointed. What you get is anecdotes from different periods in his life (more early than late). On the whole I didn't find them particularly interesting. Despite the claim on the jacket that the book is 'an intimate potrait' Dylan gives little away.
His righting style is sub-chandler, but somewhat rambling. Fairly easy to read but not particularly engaging. The is also a bit too much blowing his own trumpet in the early sections, he descibes seeing Mae West's ex-boyfriend at a party and mentions "Mae West would later record a song of mine" as if that has any importance.
The best section is probably the one on the recording of 'Oh Mercy', where he desribes he dissolusionment with his own music, rediscovering his muse and the difficult recording process.
I'm sure if I knew much more about Dylan I'd have got more out of this book. The jacket lists the many notables who chose it as their 'book of the year', they are I think all of the generation who grew up with Dylan and sawe him as a spokesman, however much he didn't want to be. I'm 10 years younger than them, for me this wasn't even book of the month. If you are not devoted to Dylan approach with caution.
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Only one person could have written this book
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A scintillating, rambling trawl through various (apparently) unconnected episodes in Bob's wonderful life. Full of vigour, wry humour, delightful little sketches of luminaries from the 60s music scene, many passages of unparalleled prose, and the occasional dodgy cliche or metaphor of course (wouldn't be Dylan without them).
Two things really stood out for me:
(1) The incredibly atmospheric evocation of what it was like to be in your early 20s and starting out on the music scene in early 60s New York. Hopes, dreams, and vaunting ambition; chance meetings and helpful alliances; a semi-conscious sense of vulnerability; it's all in there, and you feel it with him.
(2) The description of the painful production process (working with producer Daniel Lanois) for "Oh Mercy", the wonderful album that started his later-life renaissance after the nadir of the early 80s. He actually has at least one paragraph - often more - for each song on the album, describing exactly how it came into being. This stuff is like gold dust if you're a fan.
It's not in chronological order and it's certainly not your average autobiography, but only one person could have written this book, even if it wasn't about his own life!
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Can't wait for Volumes 2 and 3
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Dylan has written a great book - a surprise and a delight. Insightful, entertaining, wistful, and charming. A treat!
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Selected scenes from a life, not an autobiography (yet)
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My copy of the paperback comes loaded with a long listing of all who chose this as their Book of the Year on release - while understanding their joy at Bob opening up on his life in Volume 1, unless followed by further volumes, Chronicles is in danger of leaving many wanting. This is because the book in structure while using an interesting forward and backward time structure centered around the creation of Dylan's songwriting style, with the exception of one chapter actually gives very little away.
The book starts with Dylan just signed to CBS and laying down some of the myths that clouded his early biography details. After 20 pages it reverses back to arriving in New York and covers at length how he moved around sharing people's rooms and taking in all the influences available (everything seems to get name checked in the process) with the central theme of how he took time to develop his approach to songwriting.
Skip forward (briefly) to the recording of "New Morning" and a parallel project with poet Archibald MacLeish who wanted some songs for a play he had written (which is clear will abort from the way Dylan writes about it) but then to the longer key counterpoint chapter to his earlier arrival in New York. This is how in the mid-1980s, after feeling a need for change post the dire prior recordings of the 1980s, he recorded "Oh Mercy" with Daniel Lanois producing in New Orleans. The coverage of how Dylan dealt after an accident that hurt his arm and just before setting off on touring, shows a clear case of knowing he was on an artistic slide. The time taken to get to acceptable compromises to finalise the recording after taking a long bike ride to settle his muse are easily the best part of the book. They also dispel the often quoted myths that Dylan writes his songs in one go and also records very quickly. His skill seems to be he writes a lot quickly when motivated and then scales these verses down in the studio. As the detailing of the recordings shows they were painstakingly rehearsed and developed, with Lanois being an ideal counterpoint in this.
A final closing chapter of back to the early 1960s with a mix of his trip to get to NY via a long stop over in Minneapolis and how in New York he started using records and singers heard (notably Guthrie, Dave van Ronk (the critical influence of his first LP) and Joan Baez) to start creating his own songwriting style driven especially after hearing Robert Johnston's recordings.
What is clear is that if Dylan wants to, the continuation of the Chronicles filling in the gaps (especially the 1960s and early 1970s) will be needed to make this a true autobiography rather than a few chosen scenes from his life to date.
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Strange Fruit
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An autobiography like no other, The legendary word-smith from the north country proves within these pages that he can engage the reader as cleverly as he draws in the listener. The writing is superb....warm, witty and moulded in an almost naive style which draws comparisons with Richard Brautigan; the cultish author of 'Trout Fishing in America' and other American classics who cultivated and perfected this literary style.
Dylan displays his legendary waspish humour and proves that fools are not suffered gladly....Arrogant yes, but his barbs aimed at hangers-on, fellow musos,journalists and political activists are well aimed and usually deserved.
He displays a curiously old fashioned love of tradition and family values despite his obvious misgivings about the political excesses generated by the US status Quo of the time. A contradictory doffing his cap to the American constitution and his support for individual liberty and freedom but tempered by the depressing contempory attacks on these ideals by the immoral 'masters of war'.
Without a chronological structure,the book by-passes seminal events such as the Blonde on Blonde era recordings, the late 60's near fatal motorcycle accident, the Band era, the concert for Bangla Desh and the late 70's Blood on the Tracks comeback, and shoots across the decades like a shooting star. Bringing into focus instead, mundane matters which nevertheless show the isolated genius as someone real and humane with the same cares, hopes and aspirations as we mere mortals.
At the end of the day 'Chronicles' proves that Dylan is one of the few musical figures who can actually write and write well at that.
It's only flaw is in its strange structure which leaves gaping time gaps which must have been filled with so much of value and interest.
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