Chronicles, Volume 1

Author - Bob Dylan ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Simon & Schuster was reviewed on 30-Jul-2008.

Search ISBN:0743228154 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Chronicles, Volume 1 Reference Book. Classifications : General Composers & Musicians Arts & Literature Biographies & Memoirs Subjects Books Rock Composers & Musicians Arts & Literature Biographies & Memoirs Subjects Books Entertainers Arts & Literature Bi . Click the following link to view the cover of Chronicles, Volume 1.

Related topics: General. Arts & Literature. Subjects. Books. Rock. Arts & Literature. Subjects. Books. Entertainers. Arts & Literature.

1) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. This is a very enjoyable and most importantly, readable book. Who would have thought Dylan could write so well, be such a good story teller in straight forward language? After spending years listening to his lyrics I have to admit that I was surprised by how well this is written. Surely songwriting and penning an autobiography are very different arts, but Dylan does it. Apparently sans the ghost writer.

This book is full of the early years in NY, sleeping in other peoples places, working his way into the in-crowd, meeting his hero, Woody Guthrie. Be sure to pick up this gem as well! Bound for Glory (Penguin Modern Classics) Great stuff. He does get a little off-track with the making of a particular LP, "Oh Mercy" but works his way back round to the before time.

Was he really asked to join Peter, Paul and Mary?
We got a look at girlfriend Suzy that appeared on an album cover, very interesting.
And between the lines you can sense the pressure of being the spokesman for a generation.
¤

2) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. If you´re not very familiar with Bob Dylan and want to learn more about the man this is really not the book for you. I suggest you read Clinton Heylin´s tome, "Behind The Shades, Take 2" which compiles just about every known fact about Dylan from the people who have known him - an excellent book in every way. Chronicles is a different animal. I think you are more likely to appreciate it if you are a fan of Dylan´s work. I´m in the process of going through it for the second time and have realized that I am enjoying it more after I have cast aside all notions of what I want the book to be. WHAT THIS BOOK IS NOT: 1. It´s not a tell all biography. You won´t find out much information that´s not out there already. There are no intimate revelations of Bob´s love affairs or anything sensational. 2. It doesn´t cover Bob´s whole career, just 3 brief periods. 3. It´s not necessarily all true. Dylan often paints himself in the best light, as a normal guy. I have my doubts. 40 years of unabated idolatry will screw anyone up to some extent. You´ll read about the pressure he´s under, but don´t expect specific revelations about a dysfunctional Dylan. WHAT THE BOOK IS: A fascinating discourse on specific times in Bob´s life. I don´t know why it was such a surprise to me but Bob is a great writer. Whatever percentage is BS I don´t care; I enjoy it anyway. He has an amazing attention to detail and I was able to lose myself in descriptions of places and situations. Plus he does reveal his thoughts on songwriting and many things. When I stopped hoping for him to discuss something specific I was able to sit back and enjoy whatever he gave me. Again I shouldn´t be surprised; it´s always been that way with his music also. I hope he does continue this series and give us another book or two, whatever he chooses to write about. I will surely go along for the ride.¤

3) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. Bob Dylan takes his prodigious talents for language and turns out one of the most remarkably honest rambles of raggle-taggle prose since Jack Kerouac. From the first few pages, describing an ambitious but reserved young man whose future role had not yet been defined, I was willing led down memory alley. The artistic subworlds of New York, with its hanger-onners and would-bes. invoke countless anecdotes about the creative lives of others. Remarkably sketched, and poignantly personal, I never felt the usual strain that often comes with more self-important memoirs. Dylan´s voice remains remarkably rough and earnest, glissing between gorgeous metaphors and cowboy expletives . . . but always uniquely his own. His own assessment of his artistry, usually inferred than described in achingly obvious detail, lure the reader into a smoky area in between the lines. Simply one of the best autobiographies I´ve ever read . . . by no means intended only Dylan mavens, this work will readily appeal to anyone who knows that the music industry involves a lot more than what ´American Idol´ has led us to believe. Here´s a real damn American Idol, from what I think at least. This book packed more punches than five years worth of New Yorker short stories.¤

4) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. Skipping all over the place, definitely not a chronological account of Dylan´s rise, but more of a stream of consciousness series of the highlights, lowlights, or significant moments in the life of a true artist. Chronicles volume 1 is accessible and an interesting read to anyone who loves to read, the flow of words very easy. They just pull you along. I for one wasn´t sure how good a writer Dylan is, but he´s pretty good. I recommend this book to all Dylan fans, and anyone who likes to read a good autobiography.¤

5) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. Count me as one of the skeptics who felt positive that they wouldn´t like this memoir. And, please, now feel free to point out how snotty and wrong I was for feeling like that.

To say Bob Dylan has written something great is not an unusual thing to do in most situations, but to say he wrote a great book, about himself no less, does seem surprising. It is surprising because of both the candidness Dylan shows in this book and the right level of self-examination that doesn´t cross the line into plain ol´ weirdness or didactic ramblings. What comes through is that Robert Zimmerman seems to know exactly who Bob Dylan is, and he appears to have a more measured respect for the complications of his inseparable doppelganger than any of his cultish fanbase could ever hope to have.

There are two other things that really delighted me about this book. The first is how Dylan is a very accomplished writer...not just of lyrics, but of prose. From reading his vivid descriptions of something as simple as the snow falling, I realize that in another time, had his life pointed him in another direction, this guy would have been a top-notch novelist, right up there with the best. The other thing that I loved, and perhaps the thing I would most expect from him, is the non-linear approach he took to telling his story. Chapters jump around in time, and large portions, decades even, are left out of the story. With a lesser writer this would have been a real distracting way to go about business, but in Dylan´s capable hands it becomes stylistic, mirroring the way the mind works, in which connections aren´t always made from one moment to the next, but, rather, from one moment in time to another moment years earlier...or later.

Even if you are, like me, not a major Dylan fan, I still suspect you would be hard pressed not to admire the writing here, or the manner in which the story is told like scattered scenes from a disorganized scrapbook that suddenly come to life so as to show the fleeting facets of one unknowable person. Very recommended.¤

6) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. "I´d come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else."

So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan´s eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan´s New York is a magical city of possibilities -- smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book´s side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.

By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan´s thoughts and influences. Dylan´s voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.¤

7) Hardcover Book Chronicles, Volume 1 by Simon & Schuster. One would not anticipate a conventional memoir from Bob Dylan--indeed, one would not have foreseen an autobiography at all from the pen of the notoriously private legend. What Chronicles: Volume 1 delivers is an odd but ultimately illuminating memoir that is as impulsive, eccentric, and inspired as Dylan´s greatest music.

Eschewing chronology and skipping over most of the "highlights" that his many biographers have assigned him, Dylan drifts and rambles through his tale, amplifying a series of major and minor epiphanies. If you´re interested in a behind-the-scenes look at his encounters with the Beatles, look elsewhere. Dylan describes the sensation of hearing the group´s "Do You Want to Know a Secret" on the radio, but devotes far more ink to a Louisiana shopkeeper named Sun Pie, who tells him, "I think all the good in the world might already been done" and sells him a World´s Greatest Grandpa bumper sticker. Dylan certainly sticks to his own agenda--a newspaper article about journeymen heavyweights Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis and soul singer Joe Tex´s appearance on The Tonight Show inspire heartfelt musings, and yet the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy prompts nary a word from the era´s greatest protest singer.

For all the small revelations (it turns out he´s been a big fan of Barry Goldwater, Mickey Rourke, and Ice-T), there are eye-opening disclosures, including his confession that a large portion of his recorded output was designed to alienate his audience and free him from the burden of being a "the voice of a generation."

Off the beaten path as it is, Chronicles is nevertheless an astonishing achievement. As revelatory in its own way as Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited, it provides ephemeral insights into the mind one of the most significant artistic voices of the 20th century while creating a completely new set of mysteries. --Steven Stolder¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 27-Aug-2008, 07432281549780743228152, 540-780-4KB-HIB-TMB-2YB-8

Chronicles, Volume 1, Book, Image © Simon & Schuster

Search: Simon & Schuster, Book Posters, Book Art