Chronicles: Volume One

Bob Dylan

ISBN 10: 0743478649 / ISBN 13: 9780743478649

Published by Simon & Schuster, United States, New York, 2005

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE The celebrated first memoir from arguably the most influential singer-songwriter in the country, Bob Dylan. '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 inChronicles: Volume One,his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylans eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylans 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 books side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota, and points west,Chronicles: Volume Oneis an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times. By turns revealing, poetical, passionate, and witty,Chronicles: Volume Oneis a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylans thoughts and influences. Dylans 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 turnsChronicles: Volume Oneinto a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art. 'Chroniclesstunned everyone . . . [it's] clear, apparently frank, unremittingly serious about his musical influences and exquisitely written. It is, in fact, a masterpiece' Sunday Times 'Entertaining and surprisingly deprecating. The book's structure is elegant . . Chronicles is tautly written, vividly cinematic, and funny . . . a courageous little book' Financial Times 'There is something on every page, in every paragraph, that demands attention . . . In rock and roll terms, this book is like discovering the lost diaries of Shakespeare. It may be the most extraordinarily intimate autobiography by a 20th-century legend' Daily Telegraph. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine. Seller Inventory # GOR001274987

Synopsis:

Page edges tanned. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Review: 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

Bibliographic Details

Title: Chronicles: Volume One
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, United States, New York
Publication Date: 2005
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Good