Bob Dylan, Chronicles, vol. one. Yay!

I was getting a new tire at, cough, cough, WalMart after work this evening and picked up a birthday bag for my sis' gift. The bag's are across the aisle from the books which I ALWAYS have to peruse. This LITERALLY jumped off the shelf and into my hands. List price $24 - WalMart price $15.84. Of course it's got the crappy trade book edges, but hey, I've been wanting to read this especially since reading the article in Newsweek last week.

I'll post more after I begin reading. Hoo, hoo!

Cher

I picked this up this morning, and I'm very excited about it! I've been waiting for it for a long time. I actually had pre-ordered it at Amazon back in the summer of 2002 when it was first announced, but the publication kept getting pushed back. I've been reading pre-release excerpts, and they've been great. A voice in the vein of his World Gone Wrong liner notes and Drawn Blank intro, but certainly more linear. (This is a Dylan moniker I'm sporting; just brought it with me from another board).

Sounds like I am going to have to get this.

Me too!

I the first twenty pages or so in Wal-mart yesterday and it was very entertaining. Can't wait to pick it up (maybe this weekend.)

-abigbobfan.

I love Newsweek! I totally want to read Chronicles after reading that article. Dylan never seemed caught up in that whole "celebrity" thang. Love it.

I'm really excited...my birthday package from my parents arrived (via Amazon) yesterday (hey, better late than never!) and one of their gifts was Chronicle!! I started it last night and predict that I will tear through it... Yes, it's Bob all right--the very same that we know and love. It's proving me right in what I assumed was going on behind all the hell he'd give journalists...which really isn't all that hard to figure out (you *must* see Don't Look Back ).

I'm interested to see how it jibes with David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina (the virtual interviews with Thomas Pynchon--who has stayed in touch with Mimi Farina--were particularly illuminating). I'm sure what he doesn't say will be just as interesting as what he does.

I'm 2/3 through and *love* it. I love how he charts his internal history more than his external...esp. the development of his thoughts on different writers and musicians...and the sense of songs and ideas. It's the unnameable that he's so good at tracing.

I also love how he identifies himself with great writers/philosophers. Not because he thinks he's so great, but because he sees these figures as flesh and blood *people* with their own particular struggles. His rambly way of talking about them humanizes them in a way that makes the reader realize that, Hey--maybe we're more similar than I thought (e.g., his ideas about Balzac, p. 46). (THIS is what English teachers need to be doing!) And his conversations with Archibald MacLeish...!

And his emphasis on music as a form of revolution...how art alters perceptions and informs existence...how it shines a light into the depths of our own souls and gives us what we need to move forward...

God, I love him.

[End of shameless gushing]

I meant to post in this thread again after I finished, but I was afraid I might just gush for a few pages, too.

One thing I would like to mention is that his great sense of humor really comes through. Certainly, the more you know about Dylan, the more you will be amused by some of his lines and anecdotes, but there's just a great sense of humor running through the whole thing.

Also, when considering what he doesn't talk about, remember that there are supposed to be subsequent volumes which will jump around in time as much as this one does.

I enjoyed this one so much I'll probably read it again soon (with several books in between for good measure). Glad to see it still up there on the nonfiction charts!

I have always loved Greil Marcus. This makes me love him even more:


~ Rockers Start Writing, Writers Rock

'ol bobby dylan. gotta love him. love him to little bits and pieces

I know, I know... you just wanna cuddle him, right? or was that KT....

hah.. that was KT.. i know it's hard not to mix us up, i forgive you..

hahaha, he's so vulnerable. you just want to cuddle him. and not just because he's vunlerable.
haha, love KT
and bobby <3

I secrety wish I was KT.

I secretly with I had music. There aren't words to explain just what the hell you're all talking about.