Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Chronicles: Volume One
Book Review: An Inside Look
Summary: 5 Stars
Bob Dylan has written a masterpiece. I was hooked in the first few paragraphs where Dylan was describing the cold New York City winter weather. His writing style reminds me so much of Hemingway. The format of the book is excellent...you are transported to different times of Dylan's life...mostly in chronological order.
The writing style: It seems as if Dylan could write about a stick of gum and I would be glued to his words. The imagery he uses is fantastic:
"The bells were silent now and the snow swirled off the rooftops. A blizzard was kidnapping the city, life spinning around on a drab canvas. Icy and cold."
The content: Throughout much of the book Dylan talks about his main influences. He writes about seemingly minor characters that actually have a lot to do with his success. He writes about the completion of several albums...you actually get a great inside look into the making of his 'Oh Mercy' album. There are many stories that will keep you reading on.
The whole book is great. I just can't wait for Volume II!
5/5
Book Review: Are we bening fooled again?
Summary: 2 Stars
Imagine you are giving Bob Dylan a ride to the airport, a 2 hour journey. You are both tired, but he feels like talking. Snippets of memory and occassional confessions, sometimes saying things you don't really mean, but out they come, sometimes allowing you to get to other things you do mean. Long pauses, then more stories.
There is no writing here, and certainly no editing. This was done into a tape recorder and transcribed intact, and all of the grammatical mistakes and sentence fragments and malapropisms are kept, perhaps because the editor didn't know if this was "the poet Bob Dylan" talking, or just a [pun intended] ramblin' man.
The opening sentences of each section start with sophmoric and trite imagery, like a bad detective novel: "The mists of the morning came out quietly..." "Rain glistened on the street..."
The bulk of the book is about his desire to escape fame and the self-absorbed counter-culture agin hippies who wanted him to be their leader. He manufactured identities to throw them off. Is this more of the same? Are we to believe that Bobby Vee was his soul-brother? That "like a knife through cheese" is one of the lyrics he is most proud of?
I found myself engaged but annoyed with the book-on-tape version with Sean Penn's tobacco-ravaged voice doing the narration. NIce reading But disappointed, and just a little suspecting that Mr. Dylan is still lying and thinking us a mass of boobs, and calling it artistic license.
Book Review: Astounding!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read lots of autobiographies but this one is the best I've ever read. Dylan gives us snapshots of his life as opposed to doing the usual, "Well my grandparents were immigrants from..." and then going on from there. He's at his best when he tells of the artists he admires and gives us a great picture of New York City, specifically the Village in the early '60s. Then later on he goes into depth about the time he spent in New Orleans in the late '80s writing and recording one of his most underrated works "Oh Mercy." I'd recommend this book to anyone, whether you are a Dylan fan or not.Book Review: Awful
Summary: 1 Stars
I enjoy the music of Bob Dylan, but could not stand this book. I have not finished the first 100 pages and it is highly unlikely that I will be able to do any more reading. So far it seems nothing more then a list of people he knows/or knew and how great he is compared to them. The way he presents himself on paper, he sounds like an awful person whose ego is way to big. I never intend on buying anything of his again. If you want to read a good book, get Woody Guthrie's Bound For Glory. This book is a waste of money.Book Review: Basically a bogus look backward
Summary: 1 Stars
Around every 20 pages, there's a phrase that's faintly reminiscent of the early years, the intellect that penned "it's allright, ma" etc. But so much of what he claims happened is just not reality. For instance, if you went by his words, from the late 60s onward he'd take off years at a time to play with his kids on the living room floor, go camping, rafting, etc a big stay at home family man, presumably married to the same woman, etc.
That's all false; so how much else is false? Basically, he's lived in a cocoon for 4 decades surrounded by yes people, and it's had the result you'd predict. It's actually more a work of fiction, or one of those invented autobiographies of a historical figure by a current author where everyone knows it's bogus.