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DYLAN CHRONICLES VOL 01
DYLAN BOB · 2005 · 304 pages
"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 [Publisher description].
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Greil Marcus
“Dylan has had a career of extraordinary richness and variety. Yet here he is writing a memoir that completely ignores everything which made him a world figure. It ignores all of his most famous songs, it ignores all the periods in which he was a great star. It’s all about times when he was trying to learn, when he was confused and lost but absolutely alive with the thrill of discovering new ideas, new singers, new information. It’s a marvellous, eyes-wide-open partial-autobiography. It’s also wonderfully written; the words are alive on the page. It clearly wasn’t co-written or talked into a tape recorder. It’s a great piece of writing.”↗
John Cusack
“When Bob Dylan’s memoir came out, I had a feeling similar to the one I had with Mockingbird, because I knew if I wasn’t careful, I’d read the whole thing at once. So I was like a drug addict—I would put it away, ration my supply, read ten or 15 pages, and then just stop. Here’s this guy who’s taking you through a history of pop culture and rock ‘n’ roll, giving you little glimpses into what it felt like to be looking from the inside out. As an extended piece of poetry, it’s wonderful. The book is an anti-narrative autobiography. It’s like one of his songs: a stream-of-consciousness bit of grace. The images and the memories seem to wash over you. Dylan said he was okay with being an icon but when people tried to turn him into a messiah, that was no good—I thought that was pretty great. He describes his creative process, what he was trying to do, and the things that moved him. I don’t have his genius, but I share the same impulses to search for things.”↗
Nile Rodgers
“I worked with Dylan on the film Feeling Minnesota and thought I had a good sense of who he is. This book revealed many things I didn’t know. Dylan was one of the main spokesmen for the 60s counterculture. He confesses he was reluctantly drafted into this position. His greatest motivation was simply to be a musician/songwriter and earn a living doing so. The Americana he wrote about so passionately were mainly events that had happened long ago – but he wrote about them as if they were ‘current events.’ This is a fascinating look into a fascinating musical mind.”↗
