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patmole's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
modern_analog's review against another edition
3.0
Bobby D. candidly Chronicles his early years, putting down stream of consciousness observations and recollections to page. He traces his meanderings as a young man, before he was deemed the voice of a generation, when he spent time in the the Midwest, reading Kerouac and listening to Woodie Guthrie records. Music nerds will devour the passages where he details his influences, telling how he dissected songs he loved to figure out what made them tick.
Outgrowing the stagnant scene in the Midwest, he tells how he picked up and moved to New York to play in beat coffeehouses with other now well-known artists, and how he captured the flashes of inspiration and creativity that became some of his most famous songs. In his own words, "Folk music was all I needed to exist."
The narrative then jumps to later in his life, skipping over his most famous days of touring with Columbia records, to a time when he became disenchanted with the expectations of fame, yearning to be a simple family man and live a quiet undisturbed existence. He describes the pressures of recording material when he wasn't feeling particularly inspired and didn't have anything urgent to say.
Overall, if you're a Dylan fan, this autobiography will give you a peek inside his head, but at times his meandering thoughts are just insignificant tangled memories that you get lost in and sometimes he doesn't exactly help you find the way out.
Outgrowing the stagnant scene in the Midwest, he tells how he picked up and moved to New York to play in beat coffeehouses with other now well-known artists, and how he captured the flashes of inspiration and creativity that became some of his most famous songs. In his own words, "Folk music was all I needed to exist."
The narrative then jumps to later in his life, skipping over his most famous days of touring with Columbia records, to a time when he became disenchanted with the expectations of fame, yearning to be a simple family man and live a quiet undisturbed existence. He describes the pressures of recording material when he wasn't feeling particularly inspired and didn't have anything urgent to say.
Overall, if you're a Dylan fan, this autobiography will give you a peek inside his head, but at times his meandering thoughts are just insignificant tangled memories that you get lost in and sometimes he doesn't exactly help you find the way out.
lorrietruck's review against another edition
4.0
What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening - all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.
cdotjdotb's review against another edition
4.0
I liked the stream of consciousness and the un-cohesiveness of this.
nattynatchan's review against another edition
5.0
Dylan is an amazing prose writer, and this autobiography (or more like a series of musings and vignettes) is as poetic as any of his musical works. his portrayal of the suffocating pressure of societal labels is profoundly tender and heartfelt; his claim to be "never any more than what I was - a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze" just hits at something so intimately universal.
his stream-of-consciousness depictions of American landscapes also hit home even though I've never been to any of them. my favourite is of New Orleans:
"The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is.
There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside."
if you love a loose, Kerouacian beat (hehe) in your writing, or Americana written in beautiful prose, then this autobiography is for you :D one of my best reads this year by far!
his stream-of-consciousness depictions of American landscapes also hit home even though I've never been to any of them. my favourite is of New Orleans:
"The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is.
There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside."
if you love a loose, Kerouacian beat (hehe) in your writing, or Americana written in beautiful prose, then this autobiography is for you :D one of my best reads this year by far!
stuporfly's review against another edition
4.0
I bought the fucking thing when it first hit stores, but I've still not gotten round to reading it.
ericfheiman's review against another edition
3.0
Who knew Bob (along with Patti Smith) would be such a good memoirist? That said, the book's jumpy timeline, though very Dylanesque, makes it hard to build up a lot of narrative force. Plus the more contemporary vignettes (i.e. the making of the middling record Oh Mercy and his late 1980s creative block) aren't as arresting as the stories of his early years as a struggling folk singer trying to find a voice. Flaws aside, if you're in any way a Dylan fan, this is a must-read.