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While I don't expect a personal memoir to be completely objective, I do think there is a great deal of integrity in the way Dylan reveals some of the driving forces behind his work. He reveals himself as being a great skimmer of all facets of culture, from folk, blues, and pop, in the music department; movies; and more intellectual fields such as poetry, literature and painting. As an artist, he wanted to achieve a powerful, coherent vision of some real element of existence. There is an amazing amount of colorful and interesting detail in his recollections which bespeaks the poet's deep impressions of the appearance of things. The motivation to achieve a pinnacle of success was very strong. Unfortunately, he became a victim of his own success when many, maybe most, of his admirers failed to distinguish the man from his work. Chronicles is fragmented in structure and doesn't have a great literary style, but it is a very interesting look at Bob Dylan from the inside. His approach was much the same with the performers whose acquaintance he was able to gain.
It is worthy of admiration, but not worthy of worship. He took only what interested him and quickly moved on, bearing down on those things which he instinctively recognized as relevant to the development of his music. Dylan and success seem to be analogous to Br'er Rabbit and the tar baby. Folk music provided the original fuel for his creative factory until a more personal vision began to coalesce. First and foremost, he is an artist, not a social reformer. It seems this memoir is, at least partially, an attempt to validate the stance he has taken through the years of disclaiming any responsibility for the meanings his fans read into his lyrics.
He was more interested in constructing an artistically convincing model than in what that model represented to his admirers. According to Dylan, he gathered the raw materials from a myriad of sources, and the black box of his creative mind then supplied him with words to describe an artistic synthesis. Dylan the man comes across to me as being clever as well as intelligent in exploiting this native genius for transforming the everyday stuff of life into art. Once he made contact with it, he found it wasn't easy to free himself from it's demands.
Great book for Bob Dylan fans. Is a little patchy at times and seems to skip a few years here and there. Very interesting, and an insightful view into Dylan's life.
Dylan, who has put his indelible imprint on music, has found another medium on which to work his magic. The linear narrative becomes less so -- it fairly sings with the recognizable inflection, the peculiar yet distinct melodic structure of Dylan's grammar, so that reading turns creative and becomes a way of being Dylan, thinking like Dylan, breathing like Dylan and makes of his Chronicles an auditory experience. There is an inner listening; an unshy,arhythmic beat accompanies what we are reading in the most agreeable way possible. Lauren Lawrence, "Your Dreams" columnist of NY Daily News
everything was absolute with this book.it shipped sooner then i thought it wouldand the actual read was superb
From this book I learned that Bob Dylan is a down-to-earth man who, during his life and career, just wanted to play his music. This book is rich with references and lesson in American history and pop culture and literature. Bob Dylan may not be formally educated, but his depth of knowledge is fascinating. Nothing more, nothing less. I also learned that Spike Lee's father was a professional bass player.
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