2016: Bob Dylan: "Chronicles I", "Man Gave Names to All the Animals"

Well I was never a Bob Dylan fan. So rather than trying to read through his lyrics and report, "These don't make much sense to me, said the joker to the thief", it seemed sensible to take him at his most literary. Hence two books: his first, but only, volume of memoir, and a children's book he evidently had some degree of responsibility for.

Or at least I listened to the audiobook of Chronicles I. Which is abridged(!) and read by Sean Penn, if these things are handicaps, or matter.

Ho-kay, Dylan describes himself, surprisingly, unsurprisingly, as a legitimate youthful human, growing up curious and excited about a certain line of art (folk music and stories). But then to his apparent surprise he's suddenly overcresting his own sources of inspiration as somebody else’s idea of the Voice of a Generation or the Soul of Revolution or something. It does seem like a weird arc to find one's self living through.

Interestingly - I am a snob, mind - when Bob speaks of something in passing that I prejudicially think may be out of his intellectual range (because I am a snob and a dick), I find that what he has to say hits about right. I mean, he may discuss... Dostoyevsky in a way that is succinct and overweeningly folksy. But when I put his words up against my scorn-meter, I have to concede his take as accurate and apt.

So I admit it. He seems like a very intelligent and self-aware man. One who does deliberately put on weird masks sometimes.

Speaking of which, as far as that strange relationship with his fame goes. He talks about doing, "...unexpected things like pouring a bottle of whiskey on my head and walking into a department store and acting pie-eyed, knowing that everyone would be talking amongst themselves when I left. I was hoping that the news would spread. What mattered to me most was getting breathing room for my family. The whole spectral world could go to hell."

So that is interesting. Some of his wobbly persona, the saying-shit-that-makes-no-sense, at least comes from a concerted effort to fuck with people, rather than from being fundamentally out of touch. I feel I can respect that. I feel (however) like I don't understand how it would win privacy for his family.

This is an introspective career memoir... him relating what he remembers feeling about his work, what he was thinking about creatively at the time. There is weirdly little detail about the mechanics of the business, or the technical side of making music. Even family is mentioned only as a passing contradistinction from his core mental career of creativity. I mean sure, he does say, “I was thinking about my family at the time, not taken in by this other stuff.” So he claims family was a priority, and I'm not saying it wasn't, but it sure isn't in the book. I mean he mentions getting married and having three kids, but we never hear so much as their names.

Following my theme (seemed amusing to me, at least) of encountering Dylan without listening to his music, I tried three of the movies about him.

• Rolling Thunder Revue
• Masked & Anonymous
• I’m Not There

The first one is by Scorsese. There is something I wanted to say about it, and damnit, I forget what. Must I rewatch the thing? The second, Larry Charles was involved, and what I wanted to do was simply share this link. I can't remember if I got all the way through the third movie. (I have a minor crush on Cate Blanchett and don't want to see her pretend to be Bob Dylan. Is that churlish? It's churlish. Well I did watch her do it.)

Wait, I forgot to discuss the kids' book. It's just the lyrics to one of his songs, with pictures.

(12/10/2020)