Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Chronicles, Volume 1
Book Review: Bob Dylan, eh...
Summary: 3 Stars
I thought that this book was ok, since I don't like to read. I love music (metal) but wanted to get to know who Bob Dylan is. This book told me the main details of Bob's career. I recommened this to people who love to read. For others, they might find this boring.Book Review: Bobs Diary - Volume 1
Summary: 3 Stars
yes..its bob. or bobby as his friends call him.
its his unmistakeable voice....bringing it all back home.
but chronicles vol 1 doesn't have the ring of blood and sweat that i had hoped for. perhaps the vol 2 will.
vol 1 comes off more or less as a very well edited diary.
bobs daily diary about his life in his world.
i dont think bob put much effort into this endevor himself... more like he had the 'director's final cut'.
that said: bob is a great journalist and all those millions of pages of daily reflections have finally been put into a highly readable and very enjoyable script.
he certainly has had a life worth chronicling
Book Review: Bound for Glory
Summary: 5 Stars
Dylan's offbeat chronicle of his rise, fall, and rise as, well, Bob Dylan, is a grand, absorbing read. Dylan's not big on literary pyrotechnics, but he has a special diction that's entirely his own: solid, well-worn, almost courtly words like "grandeur," "fire," "glory" and "honor" rub up against stock phrases and bumper-sticker clichés in a rhythmic, addictive prose that delivers poetry without pretension and leaves the author strangely removed from the "I" he describes. His account of recording "O Mercy" has to be one of the most searing descriptions of the creative process I've ever read, while his picture of the Greenwich Village folk scene, with its quirky hierarchies and surprising generosities, goes by easy enough on the surface but delivers a first-class impression of a vanished place and time.
For a life of such celebrity, it's welcome to see the obscure and offbeat command most of his narrative attention, from never-to-be-heard-from-again folk troubadours to Louisiana swamp shop owners. Dylan's famously evasive, but this book feels like an honest effort to account for himself in his own terms, to "get real" in a way those folk records felt real to a young man from Hibbing in the `60s, and still do. Can't wait for the next installment.
Book Review: Burdened by greatness
Summary: 4 Stars
Just suppose you had written the greatest, emblematic songs of your generation in your 20s and your "fans" continued to expect the impossible; that you write more brilliant songs. You just might get resentful about the public's expectations. And that's the feeling one gets in this enigmatic autobiography. In these wandering and meandering sketches, you feel a yearning for privacy, a yearning to be accepted for what you are now - a good, earnest songwriter - rather than what you used to be.
Songwriting is a very tricky business and just why Dylan's inspiration burned brighter than anyone else in the 1960s is just as mysterious as why it hasn't burned as bright since. It's very rare for any songwriter to have more than a 2 or 3 year period when every word and every note seems to glimmer. For Dylan, it lasted a good half-dozen years. Six years of brilliant, unbelievably good songs that still sound vibrant today. He was a pathbreaker. Every serious songwriter today owes him a ton of debt.
Dylan writes very well. He carefully avoids his personal life in this book and for those who want juicy details and dirt, you'll have to look elsewhere. The strength of this book is his descriptions of making music in the studio, both in the making of the albums New Morning and Oh Mercy. You get the sense of his ambition and his passion for making music that will have a decent-sized audience.
Most importantly, you get the sense that Dylan understands that what he was in his youth and what he is today as a songwriter are dramatically different. There's a sense of maturity in this writing that's heart warming. It's a long way from the obnoxious, bratty and brilliant Dylan showcased in the movie Don't Look Back to the Dylan in this book. His candle may not burn as bright, but he seems at peace with who he is as an artist and what he once was. The public's expectations may be ridiculous, but his own expectations of himself aren't.
Book Review: But wait... There's more!
Summary: 5 Stars
All of the other reviews have summed this book up fairly well, but for me, Dylan's attention to pointing out the intricacies of the music that inspired his life was fascinating. This book is part biography and part music encyclopedia, and reads with a Kerouac rolling beat. I highly recommend seeking out the music he recognizes (if you weren't already familiar with it.) From Woody Guthrie to N.W.A., Dylan's analysis of many diverse compositions is a priceless insight of his genius.